WoFo is honored to have writer and teacher Blake Kilgore participate in the “Why I Write” series. Blake’s writing has been featured in various literary magazines such as Stonecoast Review and Forge. Please check out Blake and all his writings at.blakekilgore.com.

“Why do I write?

I teach history, and this requires me to read stories almost incessantly. I am often surprised and almost always delighted. Some of the accounts make me angry and others break my heart. And I find inspiration in the courage of the dutiful, who faced death rather than turn a blind eye to injustice.

Yet most of the adventures are about the rich and powerful, the winners. Sometimes arch-villains are set up as marks to be taken down. But the common, poor, illiterate souls who lived in quiet, sustained dignity below the gaze of the scribes, well – we know little about them. In the last half century, some historians have tried to uncover the patterns of simple folk living in the depths or along the edges of society. Nevertheless, we often don’t even know their names. I want to hear their story.

Much of my writing starts there, telling stories of the unnamed.

My writing is also about the struggle to believe. There are simply too many questions, and I know that I will find too few of the answers. Yet my soul continues in faith. There is deep illumination waiting beneath our thoughts and cravings. For me, writing helps stir that part, and a little wonder rises, and I find the hope to press on. I know that I am not alone. Many are wandering, buoyed by faith yet throttled by despair. I pray my writing might be a balm for those skeptics who still believe.”