In my mid-thirties, I became a preacher. Might as well come right out with it, admit I’m a preacher the way a neighbor at the block party might mention they have COVID. Seems only fair to give you a chance to get some distance, because who knows? Maybe I’ve got a word for you .

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Bad news first: I do kind of have a word for you. Not about God, though, and not about doctrine or scripture. My good news—my gospel, if you will—is about how the view from the pulpit helped me as a writer of fiction. And I don’t think a writer needs to be a preacher, or even have any attachment to organized religion, to benefit from what preaching taught me.

It was in the context of my ongoing failure as a fiction writer that I wound up in the pulpit. Sometimes when people put the word “failure” and “writer” in the same sentence, they’re on their way to suggesting that the real failure lies with the literary gatekeepers who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, appreciate the writer’s genius.…