Several of these essays focus on the author's dual role as a writer and publisher--the paradoxes of having a deep faith in good writing in an age that sometimes doesn't always seem to embrace it. A few essays are about Philip Brady's status as an aging writer--one about his obsession with pickup basketball at the age of 60, another about how a sudden medical condition causes him to sort out some of his earliest reading. Still other essays are about poetry and the teaching of poetry, particularly to nontraditional students.