Shimmer of Something

Brian Doyle (1957-2017) was the longtime editor of the University of Portland's award-winning Portland Magazine. His essays appeared in Harper’s,The Atlantic Monthly, U.S. Catholic, First Things, Christian Century, America, and The American Scholar. He was the author of two Liturgical Press books, A Shimmer of Something: Lean Stories of Spiritual Substance and The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be: Prose Prayers and Cheerful Chants against the Dark as well as a contributor to Give Us This Day.

"Here we have essays that have passed through a shrinking machine, stories thick as bread, poems clean as mirrors; here we have Holy Mother facing off against All Saints; here kestrels and shrews and a hawk giving a ground squirrel a make-over; here we have diapers and dictators; here a missive from Lazarus; here elegies and jeremiads; here St. Francis meets Mel Brooks; here we have the Dalai Lama playing Name that Tune; here a concatenation of questions about the soul; here we have what I would do if I were pope; here free throws as worship, holding hands as prayer; here we have Brother Brian Doyling up the world for us yet again, awe and aha, as no one else can."            Lance Larsen, poet laureate of Utah