Waywords Studio
Wanderings on Literature and Language
Waywords
our studio
“Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.​”
Angela Carter
Waywords produces a web of programs and media designed to improve our thinking in democratic action, in critical literacy, in global understanding. We provoke, inspire, and wrestle with the ambiguities and richness of human thinking, from times modern to ancient.
While offering serious educational support for those who want it, Waywords entertains and engages with surprising takes on a wide range of global topics, from Western social trends to modern mythological thinking.
Criticism & Reviews
The Waywords podcasts and blog explore the workings of global literatures, language, and mythology through a social-epistemic rhetoric. Book reviews explore a wide range of genre, era, and region.
Fiction & Verse
Original prose includes verse, short fiction, work from the ImageMaker cosmogony, the Sam & Nadi English learners series, published collections like Unwoven, and audio drama.
Teaching & Learning
Programs to support students in lifelong literacy training, Advanced Placement® Literature, IB® Theory of Knowledge, philosophy, composition and critical reading, and English language learning.
Nursery Rhyme for 5-Year-Olds
“London Bridge” and “Ring Around the Rosie” had their day, too.
Cassandra: Uncertain Steps
And what if nobody listens? Yes, entering our calls for justice into public space carries no small amount of anxiety. And the poster-child for being unheard, the Trojan princess and priestess Cassandra, may--if we read our mythology...
(no poetry here)
An image. An act.
Without comment.
Writing Back: Letters to Humanity
26 Dec 2025 Episode 6.21 - Writing Back: Letters to Humanity A different sort of New Year Resolution, moving us from personal improvement to public advocacy! Let's write an essay of address, framing our passions into a perspective that would make...
The Great Societies: Lowry’s “The Giver”
19 Dec 2025 Episode 6.20 - The Great Societies: Lowry's The Giver Another thorny utopia, Lowry's Community practices a different kind of strategy to the Hideous Bargain: ethical evasion, a too tempting strategy for all of us. Political? Yes. But...
The Great Societies, Pt 2: Metropolis & The Ways of Meaning
12 Dec 2025 Episode 6.19 - The Great Societies, Pt 2: Metropolis & The Ways of Meaning We finish our discussion of the silent film Metropolis and answer our question of art and politics by examining the text, context, and reader meaning-making....
Is All Art Political? The Great Societies, Pt. 1: Metropolis
It seems everything is politics these days. But at least can’t we keep art pure? You know, art for art’s sake? I offer my thoughts on the topic while we examine the classic silent film, Metropolis (1927).
“Pet” by Akwaeke Emezi
This YA story is at once a serious look at repressed trauma (personal and societal) and a sensitive examination of diversity and compassion. A wonderful introduction to community and responsibility.
True Horror: Le Guin, Poe, Cavarero, Bataille, and Arendt
We finish our side trail on the implications of Poe’s horror by stepping more deeply into our own capacity to violence, reaching finally to Le Guin’s own direction: look to our modern political scene and the impulse to annihilation.
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Programs for students, teachers, and devotees to literature
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