A late hour, a quiet screen, and that familiar restlessness in the fingers – this is usually where I begin. Writing scratches an itch for me. When life has been troublesome, in the past and again more recently, the page offers a kind of healing I can’t quite find anywhere else.
The Borrowed Voice
I have always kept one eye on history and the other on science – watching the long arc of human folly and the small, precise miracles that explain it. Yet, I rarely write as myself. It feels simpler, safer, and almost more honest to let the “I” belong to someone else.
The Creed on the Doorstep
There is a line that sits at the threshold of my work: “Feign the virtue thou dost seek, till it becometh thine own.” It tells the truth in an old-fashioned way – we practise our way into becoming. On difficult days, I don’t always feel brave or steady, but I can write a person who is. Sometimes, that borrowed steadiness follows me back into the room.
Forgotten and Imagined Witnesses
I tell stories and share accounts of voices that were overlooked, mislaid, or never existed at all. Pretending is often easier than facing my own reality. If that sounds like cowardice, it is also craft: a mask that lets the truth breathe without turning the spotlight into an interrogation lamp.
New Corinth
And then there is the world of New Corinth. For a long time, Catherine Bennett was my daily companion in the margins, poised enough to say what I could not. While she has since taken a step back from her daily watch, the town itself remains restless. Now, a weekly series invites other residents to take the floor – voices curious enough to chase what I would otherwise leave untouched. Through this widening chorus, I get to be both witness and listener, making sense of trouble by giving it a collective voice that can stand to be heard.
A Living Conversation
I invite you to engage with the voices and stories presented here – whether they are the forgotten women of STEM, the characters from my short fiction, or the disparate residents of New Corinth. Do not be surprised if they respond. Indeed, they may answer in character – flaws, warts, and all – drawing upon a vast wealth of emotion, history, and experience. By extending the conversation in this way, we can help make these accounts a living experience for us all.
About the Author
If there is a biography here, it is this: I am Bob Lynn. I am more comfortable in the chorus than at centre stage, still learning, sentence by sentence, how to turn surviving into meaning.
If any of these voices – forgotten, imagined, or merely waiting in the wings – have kept you company, subscribe to Vox Meditantis to have future posts delivered straight to your inbox.
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