Karen Swallow Prior
@karenswallowprior.bsky.social
Reader, writer, dog lover, Ph.D. Most recent book: You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful. Find me on Substack at The Priory.
“The New Dark Ages, which I hope will be widely read, is a brief, brisk, and persuasive book about the damage our screen life is doing to our social and political life.” www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2026/09/1019...
The Bookshelf: A Post-Literate Age?
The New Dark Ages, which I hope will be widely read, is a brief, brisk, and persuasive book about the damage our screen life is doing to our social and political life. He puts the matter starkly in hi...
thepublicdiscourse.com
I guess I would have to conclude that all kinds of stories affect us and influence us because they are all part of what fills our individual and collective imaginations. karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
Samuel Johnson’s Rambler No. 4: On Fiction
And the reading schedule for Frances Burney’s Evelina
karenswallowprior.substack.com
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book. @sarahstankorb.bsky.social is doing such important journalistic work, work the church needs whether it likes it or not. Thank you, Sarah.
“I was once told by a great master, that no man ever excelled in painting, who was eminently curious about pencils and colours.” — Samuel Johnson, on idleness karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
Samuel Johnson’s Idler 31: On Idleness
My podcast with the Denver Institute for Faith and Work and a BOOK GIVEAWAY!
karenswallowprior.substack.com
As of today, I have drafted 5 out of 15 chapters of my new book! The working title is My Year of War and Peace. Ten chapters and much revision to go. But this step is worth celebrating!!! 🎉 🎉🎉
Many writers and thinkers must be loved apart from their lives because their lives, in one respect or another, were so lacking in virtue or goodness. Not Samuel Johnson. karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
Samuel Johnson: A Great Thinker and a Great Man
And Stone-Kicker
karenswallowprior.substack.com
Here is the story of the library I built with links to a virtual tour! Welcome to The Priory! open.substack.com/pub/millersb...
My Books Needed a House of Their Own
Come Inside My Backyard Library—and the Process of Building It
open.substack.com
Paxton Praised Paul Pressler, Then Kept Taking His Campaign Cash Despite Child Abuse Allegations meidasnews.com/news/paxton-...
Paxton Kept Close to Alleged Child Abuser Long After the Allegations Surfaced, Taking Money From Him
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has spent more than a decade cultivating a political alliance with Paul Pressler, the once-revered Southern Baptist power
meidasnews.com
A great man, sure, but spoiled early for me. "Sausage? SAUSAGE!"
Karen Swallow Prior@karenswallowprior.bsky.social · 3w agoI am so honored to have Henry Oliver as a guest writer today at The Priory. Read more about his work and his beautiful thoughts on Samuel Johnson here: karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
Says Henry Oliver, "I am unashamed to call him a great man, to say that he is my hero." As they say here on social media: endorsed.
Karen Swallow Prior@karenswallowprior.bsky.social · 3w agoI am so honored to have Henry Oliver as a guest writer today at The Priory. Read more about his work and his beautiful thoughts on Samuel Johnson here: karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
I am so honored to have Henry Oliver as a guest writer today at The Priory. Read more about his work and his beautiful thoughts on Samuel Johnson here: karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
Samuel Johnson: “A Writer for Us All”
A guest post by Henry Oliver
karenswallowprior.substack.com
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” — Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Join our series on Dr. Johnson over at The Priory! Free to receive and free to read: karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
SAMUEL JOHNSON’S DAUGHTERS OF EARTH
A guest post by Elizabeth Kaye Cook
karenswallowprior.substack.com
Just saw this Amazon review of The Evangelical Imagination. Such words mean a lot. If you love a book, leave a review.
“But they don’t feel complicit because their experience on the edges is mostly lovely and beautiful…And the movement doesn’t work without the masses.” — @kkdumez.bsky.social helping make sense of things. baptistnews.com/article/what...
What’s so upsetting to evangelicals about Kristin Du Mez?
Unfortunately, not everyone in evangelicalism receives Du Mez’s scholarship with such openness, says Rick Pidcock.
baptistnews.com
Celebrating Leo Tolstoy's birthday with one of my favourite sentences he put to paper: And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent. #WarAndPeace #Tolstoy
Karen Swallow Prior@karenswallowprior.bsky.social · last mo.Happy 198th birthday, Leo Tolstoy! I’m celebrating your birthday by writing about this scene in War and Peace for my new book!!! 🥳
Happy 198th birthday, Leo Tolstoy! I’m celebrating your birthday by writing about this scene in War and Peace for my new book!!! 🥳
Today at The Priory we begin a short series on Samuel Johnson with a guest post by one of my former students, one of the most delightful writers I know: karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/samuel-joh...
SAMUEL JOHNSON’S DAUGHTERS OF EARTH
A guest post by Elizabeth Kaye Cook
karenswallowprior.substack.com
Great talk by George Saunders today at Washington and Lee University!
Wendell Berry’s radical lesson for Christians: Live what you believe religionnews.com/2026/09/03/w... @karenswallowprior.bsky.social
Wendell Berry’s radical lesson for Christians: Live what you believe
(RNS) — The farmer-poet's life was a model for all Christians.
religionnews.com
There was so much to say about Wendell Berry—and so much others have said well. Still, I wanted to make my offering: religionnews.com/2026/09/03/w...
Wendell Berry’s radical lesson for Christians: Live what you believe
(RNS) — The farmer-poet's life was a model for all Christians.
religionnews.com
I just finished writing about “the infinite sky” in a pivotal scene in War and Peace (and in my own life). Coming in 2028: My Year of War and Peace.
We’re reading a little Samuel Johnson and all of France Burney’s Evelina this fall at The Priory! Sign up and join us for free! karenswallowprior.substack.com/p/fall-readi...
Fall Reading Schedule: Samuel Johnson and Frances Burney!
A little bit of Johnson and a lot of Evelina
karenswallowprior.substack.com
There’s a sentence in my book I’ve been working on for days. Finally, while reading a “for fun” book, I found the verb I needed.
Oh no 😭 I'll never forget her NGV exhibition in Melbourne a couple of years back. Whimsical and gorgeous.
Karen Swallow Prior@karenswallowprior.bsky.social · last mo.The world has lost another great artist. Goodbye, Yayoi Kusama.
The world has lost another great artist. Goodbye, Yayoi Kusama.
