What I’m Reading: ‘Big Magic’

Big Magic is the latest from Elizabeth Gilbert, who is known for her best-selling memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. In Big Magic, Ms. Gilbert explores the idea of “creative living,” or “living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.” She draws out the idea that we all have some creative fire inside, yet in most cases don’t cultivate it.

This is a promising book for many disciplines. As a professor of writing, I find that many of my students, despite being creative, live from a place of fear, a place where their dreams are lost before they even begin to dream.

I often assign, early on in the semester, a reflection essay on “lost dreams.” It’s amazing how many wishes and desires of students, hardly 20, have been squashed or derailed already, be it a would-be pro athlete who suffered an injury and can never play, or someone whose parents said being a writer won’t pay rent.

Big Magic has a way of saying what students need to be reminded of: that they can achieve happy lives, especially when given permission to live creatively.