Heather King's Blog

God’s will, says Guardini, is what “by his decree should be accomplished in the world” — and that depends, absolutely, on our cooperation and consent to his grace. Read all about it in this week’s Angelus News.

Next Thursday I fly out to Dublin. Why? To host a MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP at Kylemore Abbey!

We’ve already calendared out next year for September 6-12, 2026, so put that in the hopper.

We had a death in the family this week, my 23-year-old grand-niece back in New Hampshire: car accident. Then–the chlldren in Minneapolis.

Makes you kind of want to hunker down.

Visit and subscribe to my Substack at DESIRE LINES: BOOKS, CULTURE, ART, for at least twice-weekly posts.

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER: ROMANI GUARDINI’S “THE LORD’S PRAYER,” CONNEMARA, TRAGIC YOUNG DEATHS first appeared on HEATHER KING.

MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP! IN CONNEMARA! COMING UP! NAB THAT LAST SPOT…

FOR MORE INFO AND TO SIGN UP:

THIS WEEK’S ANGELUS COLUMN

Boston native Nicole Treska has written a memoir to read with an ache in the throat: “Wonderland” (Simon & Schuster, $27.99).

“How do you turn the province of drunks, sailors, and hookers into a dream of bright escape?” she asks in the opening paragraph. “You build Wonderland, one of America’s first amusement parks, located on the water right outside of Boston. Wonderland only operated for a few bright seasons, from 1906 to 1910, but its legacy shines on.”

It’s one of the best books I’ve read in ages–I even wrote Nicole a fan letter–and if you love memoir, and especially if you grew up in New England, I urge you to buy and read it.

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 22, 2025: ONE SPOT REMAINING IN IRELAND WRITING WORKSHOP first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is on a book called The Most Overwhelmed Women of the Bible by Mary DeMuth. Granted, they didn’t have e-mail and cell phones, BUT.

Today of course is a beautiful Solemnity and a Holy Day of Obligation: The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary body and soul into heaven. A few years ago, I went to a Mass at a women’s retreat place and the “progressive” priest man-splained the whole homily about how of course we women didn’t believe such nonsense, and all but apologized on behalf of the Church for having to celebrate the feast. I can’t bear playng “the woman card,” but give me a break–he didn’t even get how insufferably obnoxious it was to be forced to sit and listen to a guy tell me what I was supposed to believe and feel…especially because I was in fact trembling with joy at the thought of Our Lady’s special way of being welcomed into Paradise, there to be crowned QUEEN OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

I felt exactly like the hungering and thirsting send-off crowd in Titian’s painting–

MEMOIR-WRITING WORKSHOPS AND PLAY ADAPTATIONS!

iI am making a HEADING, per my website designer, as I have apparently been horribly negligent for about the last 15 years vis-a-vis failing to use KEYWORDS that will DRIVE TRAFFIC to my site.

I’m supposed to say Memoir Writing Worskhop every chance I get, for example.

So–I just wrapped up an online READ IT OUT LOUD Writing Workshop (not confined to memoir) and the eight weeks were rich and deep!

Then, as I have mentioned innumerable times, I’ll be giving a weeklong MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP at Kylemore Abbey in Connemara from Sept 7-12.

Meanwhile, I am working myself ragged trying to get a few columns done in advance so as to be able to host my Memoir Writing Workshop in Ireland. Which is full, but will be held next year same general time, same place.

On other fronts, it has cooled down to a mere 96 or so in Tucson this week and the whole city is breathing a mingled sigh of gratitude and relief. It’s actually cloudy today, speaking of heaven. The barrel cacti are starting to bloom, the skies are dramatic, and all in all, it’s a delightful time to be here. As are all times, really. Though we could def use some rain.

I’m reading way too many books at once, among them volumes on Van Gogh and Rembrandt–starting to prepare for my trip to Amsterdam in January.

Wishing you all a beautiful week.

Don’t forget to join me over at Substack, where you’ll find the real meat-and-potatoes of a life ordered to art.

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 15, 2025: OVERWHELMED WOMEN, THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BVM, AND A MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is called “Against Ease” (or was, before they changed the title to “How Much Failure and Suffering Must One Endure for a Good Life”).

Anyway, as Flannery O’Connor observed: “We are all rather blessed in our deprivations if we allow ourselves to be.”

Here in the Sonoran Desert, the high yesterday was 113. The whole last two weeks it’s been well above 100 every day. The effect is kind of like an extended snow day back East. You’re excused from just about all activity. Noon Mass is fun cause the thermometer in the car will say like 121 degrees when you come out afterwards and till the A/C kicks in you have to handle the steering wheel like a hot potato.

One plus is that you can wash your clothes, drape them around in the back yerd, and within half an hour tops, they’re bone dry. Another, if you can hack the fact that it’s still over 100 at 7:30 pm, is that the sunsets have been spectacular. Also it’s quiet, partly becuase the U of A students haven’t quite yet returned and also most sane people simply stay indoors for the duration.

I wouldn’t want that kind of heat all the time but there is something appealing about the extreme weather. The diehard walkers are out early morning and for a shorter time at night…Lots of time for reading, playing the piano, housecleaning, and writing.

Also, I’m going to Amsterdam for a week next January where it will be FREEZING COLD. So enjoy things while you can, I say.

I’m getting excited about the Memoir Writing Workshop I’ll give at Kylemore Abbey in Ireland starting September 7. Sprucing up my Power Points, discovering all over again that there is so much more I want to say than there is time to say it in.

I am on a Sister Wendy kick–ordered a bunch of used books–she has trillions–where she talks about art. But also, or more to the point, Sister was a hard-core prayer. She rose at 1:30 in the morning and prayed for seven hours–or maybe she put in five hours in the morning and then went to Mass and then did two more hours throughout the day. Worked for a couple of hours, attended Mass of course. Was not only cloistered but a hermit and thus did not speak to anybody other than I think her caretaker or some person who helped in her later years. This kind of life sounds more and more appealing…

She also has a few books on prayer, so I am reading and digesting slowly.

I didn’t get around to making a video this week…has anyone been watching the Montreal Open? Allez Vicki Mboko!

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 8, 2025: AGAINST EASE, SUMMER IN THE DESERT, AND IRELAND AHEAD first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is called “Against Ease” (or was, before they changed the title to “How Much Failure and Suffering Must One Endure for a Good Life”).

Anyway, as Flannery O’Connor observed: “We are all rather blessed in our deprivations if we allow ourselves to be.”

Here in the Sonoran Desert, the high yesterday was 113. The whole last two weeks it’s been well above 100 every day. The effect is kind of like an extended snow day back East. You’re excused from just about all activity. Noon Mass is fun cause the thermometer in the car will say like 121 degrees when you come out afterwards and till the A/C kicks in you have to handle the steering wheel like a hot potato.

One plus is that you can wash your clothes, drape them around in the back yerd, and within half an hour tops, they’re bone dry. Another, if you can hack the fact that it’s still over 100 at 7:30 pm, is that the sunsets have been spectacular. Also it’s quiet, partly becuase the U of A students haven’t quite yet returned and also most sane people simply stay indoors for the duration.

I wouldn’t want that kind of heat all the time but there is something appealing about the extreme weather. The diehard walkers are out early morning and for a shorter time at night…Lots of time for reading, playing the piano, housecleaning, and writing.

Also, I’m going to Amsterdam for a week next January where it will be FREEZING COLD. So enjoy things while you can, I say.

I’m getting excited about the Memoir Writing Workshop I’ll give at Kylemore Abbey in Ireland starting September 7. Sprucing up my Power Points, discovering all over again that there is so much more I want to say than there is time to say it in.

I am on a Sister Wendy kick–ordered a bunch of used books–she has trillions–where she talks about art. But also, or more to the point, Sister was a hard-core prayer. She rose at 1:30 in the morning and prayed for seven hours–or maybe she put in five hours in the morning and then went to Mass and then did two more hours throughout the day. Worked for a couple of hours, attended Mass of course. Was not only cloistered but a hermit and thus did not speak to anybody other than I think her caretaker or some person who helped in her later years. This kind of life sounds more and more appealing…

She also has a few books on prayer, so I am reading and digesting slowly.

I didn’t get around to making a video this week…has anyone been watching the Montreal Open? Allez Vicki Mboko!

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 8, 2025: first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is about Georgia folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe, her vibrant drawings, installations, sculptures, and paintings, and the phantasmagorical “playhouse” she created from, in, and around her modest bungalow.

The link leads to a guided tour of the current exhibit at the California African American Museum called Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe.

Plus, check out the free preview of my latest Substack post: The Joys of Road Trips, Jane Eyre, and Aging :

“Write only if you must, but, if you must, do not let yourself be discouraged by either youth or age. For ‘of making books there is no end’.”

–From Iris Irigo’s Images and Shadows: Part of a Life

Check it out and consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to Desire Lines: Books, Culture, Art...two or three times a week, you’ll receive the same kind of posts I’ve featured on my blog for the past 15 years! Come on over! Subscribing is a beautiful way to support my life and work.

FINALLY, THIS WEEK’S YOUTUBE VIDEO: WHY DOES GOD TAKE SO LONG TO ANSWER OUR PRAYERS? (If He answers them at all, ha ha). The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 1, 2025: THE JOYS OF ROAD TRIPS, AGING, AND THE LORD TAKING HIS OWN SWEET TIME first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is about a chance encounter with a fellow random, gloriously joyful loner, in a rose garden, on the 4th of July. It’s also a paean to LA, and a tribute to the child-like heart.

Meanwhile I’ve been at St. Andrew’s Abbey all week–being revealed to myself in new and startling ways!

AND HERE’S THIS WEEK’S VIDEO:

DON’T FORGET TO VISIT ME OVER AT SUBSTACK WHERE I POST AT DESIRE LINES: BOOKS, CULTURE, ART .

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 25, 2025: THE CHILDLIKE HEART, A ROSE GARDEN, AND BE PREPARED TO WITNESS TO YOUR HOPE! first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column is a reflection on The Paradox of Beauty.

I am off to St. Andrew’s Abbey next week for a private retreat. Very much looking forward.

And a message from your sponsor!

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 18, 2025: THE PARADOX OF BEAUTY AND THE POVERTY OF PRAYER first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s arts and culture column is a review of a memoir (his first book, at 75!) by my college friend Dougie Dodd.

Our Father Who Art in an Iron Lung is a memoir about growing up with a father who was stricken with polio in his early 30s and lived 21 more years.

I visited the Norton Simon Museum today, home of Van Gogh’s “The Mulberry Tree,” Zurburán’s “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose,” about which the Pultizer Prize- winning food critic Jonathan Gold once wrote an iconic essay, and Cézanne’s “Tulips in a Vase.”

TULIPS IN A VASE, CÉZANNE, 1892, NORTON SIMON MUSEUM, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA.

One painting caught my eye that I’d never noticed before: “Resurrection” by Dieric (aka Dirk) Bouts, Flemish.

BOUTS, DIERIC THE ELDER, RESURRECTION, c 1455
NORTON SIMON MUSEUM OF ART, PASADENA

The painting is on of the panels of the Crucifixion Altarpiece, together with the London Entombment. The central panel was probably the Crucifixion in Brussels.

here’s a commentary on the painting. I like it partly because of the hiddenness of his left foot and hand, and also because of the understated way Bouts depicted this stupendous, cosmos-shattering event. Cosmis-shattering it is and was, but the way it manifests in our daily lives is often barely discernible.

Nonetheless: the staff, the red banner, the angel, and Christ stepping firmly from the tomb. Peace be with you, too, my Lord.

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 11, 2025: OUR FATHER WHO ART IN AN IRON LUNG first appeared on HEATHER KING.

This week’s Angelus News column profiles four stellar California food writers: Jonathan Gold, MFK Fisher, Alice Waters, and the lesser-but-should-be-better-known Helen Evans Brown, the mother of them all…

Desire Lines won second place from the Catholic Media Association this year in the category Best Column, Arts, Culture, Food and Leisure.

Leisure! Who has time for that?!

I do! Sort of…

My plan for the day is to motor down to the California African American Museum, stroll about the Exposition Rose Garden, and hit Immacuate Heart of Mary in East Hollywood for the 5:30 Mass.

Speaking of Immaculate Heart of Mary–a little tribute, and a reflection on the ever-ridiculed, ever valuable virtue of purity.

The post WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 4, 2026: FOUR GREAT CALIFORNIA FOOD WRITERS first appeared on HEATHER KING.