This week on The Habit Podcast, I talk with Randall Goodgame, songwriter, TV show host, and leader of the Slugs & Bugs universe. He has a brand new Slugs & Bugs Christmas Special: Make Ready for Christmas.

We discuss the essential role of collaboration in all of Randall’s work, the importance of writing out of freedom and not out of condemnation, and the irrepressibility of childlike joy.

This week on The Habit Podcast, I talk with Christiana Peterson, author of Awakened by Death: Live-Giving Lessons from the Mystics.

We discuss the link between mysticism and mortality, our culture’s lack of rituals for confronting death, the writer’s role in engaging with mortality as an antidote for self-absorption, and death as a teacher of compassion.

In this week’s episode, I talk with Tsh Oxenreider, teacher, podcaster, literary tour guide, and author of Shadow and Light: A Journey into Advent.

We discuss the challenging art of graceful endings, the perils of absolute accessibility, and what sets the Advent season apart from merely a “happy clappy countdown to Christmas.”

Crystal Downing is the co-director of Wheaton College’s Marion Wade Center and an expert on the Inklings and Inkling-adjacent authors. This week on The Habit podcast, I speak with Dr. Downing, about her new book, Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers.

We discuss the dangers of Christian celebrity, the strategy of shock in Dorothy Sayers’ work, and the subversion at the very heart of the Christian faith.

In this week’s episode of The Habit Podcast, I speak with Charlotte Donlon, author of The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other and host of the Hope for the Lonely podcast.

We discuss the two-way street between loneliness and belonging, the power of stories to de-stigmatize our loneliness, and the crucial difference between loving someone and understanding them.

This summer I started hearing about a new book called Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, by Dane Ortlund. Sam Allberry called it a book “that astonishes us with the sheer abundance and capacity of Christ’s love for us. 

I read the book, and it was as good as I had heard. I very happy when Dane Ortlund agreed to be on this week’s episode of The Habit Podcast. We talk about beauty, theological correctness, and the importance of surprise in the spiritual life.

This week on The Habit Podcast, I speak with Andrew T. Le Peau, former Associate Publisher at InterVarsity Press, blogger, and author of Write Better: A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality.

We discuss the simple power of physical exercise to generate creative ideas, as well as the things that get in the way of the writer’s voice. Also, we go back and forth on the constructive tension between my own emphasis on self-forgetfulness in writing and Andrew’s claim that all writing is autobiographical.

Anne Snyder is editor-in-chief of Comment Magazine. In this week’s episode of The Habit Podcast, Anne and I discuss our culture’s antipathy towards institutions, the role of theological reflection during a time of crisis, and her work with Comment Magazine to serve both readers and writers in uniting thought and action.

In this week’s episode of The Habit Podcast, I talk with music industry legend Brown Bannister about the difference between “Here I am” and “There you are” personalities, the similarities between producing a record and teaching students, and how Brown has avoided cynicism over his long career.

This episode was recorded for last weekend’s Hutchmoot:Homebound conference, where it aired as a video.

In the latest episode of The Habit Podcast, I speak with Russell Moore, President of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and author of The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear without Losing Your Soul.

We talk about the various ways that fear presents itself to the writer, the self-sabotage of chasing relevance, and many other related topics.