Liminal Wordsmith

When I think about writing, I usually picture a screen. The blinking cursor, quiet room, the soft hum of a laptop. But Jody Shipka’s Toward a Composition Made Whole reminded me that composing doesn’t have to live inside a document. It can be the sound of scissors cutting paper, the texture of a pen dragging across a page, the way light falls on a handwritten note.

Shipka reminds us that meaning isn’t born only through words or digital tools. It’s shaped by materials, gestures, and small decisions that happen along the way. A folded letter, a photograph taped to a wall, a smudge of ink. All of these things speak, too.

I love that idea. It feels like permission to slow down, to see composition as something alive, not just typed. Maybe writing becomes most “whole” when it steps off the screen and into the world, where it can be touched, heard, and felt.