Welcome to The Habit of Art by Kelcey Ervick, an illustrated newsletter about the ups, downs, twists, turns, and life-changing power of making art and telling stories. Created by a writer who draws. Here’s where I write and draw:
I’ve been writing for a lot of years. I got a PhD in it. I’m a professor of it. I’ve published multiple books of literary fiction and nonfiction. But several years ago, I started drawing every day, and it changed everything. How I look at the world, how I SEE the world, how I think, how I write, how I teach, how I draw. It also led to getting an agent and publisher for my graphic memoir, The Keeper.
I am passionate about writing and drawing these Substack posts, where you’ll get creative inspiration and illustrated stories based on my work as an author, artist, and professor.
What is The Habit of Art?
I borrowed the phrase from a line in Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners, which she borrowed from the French philosopher Jacques Maritain. O’Connor says that “teaching any kind of writing is largely a matter of helping the student develop the habit of art,” which she defines as “a way of looking at the created world and of using the senses so as to make them find as much meaning as possible in things.” For me, as a creative writing professor and as a writer who started drawing, I think a lot about what it means to develop a habit of art—both as a regular practice and as a way of using our senses to find meaning in the world.
Free Subscriptions: I love sharing my posts with everyone and responding to your comments. Everyone receives regular illustrated posts about:
Why it’s so important and radical to make art and tell our stories.
How to cultivate a “habit of art”—lessons from my years of daily art-making and ongoing work to make meaning and connection through art and words.
Tales from teaching creative writing and comics at the university and beyond.
Paid Subscriptions: For those who want a bit more access and are able to upgrade to a paid subscription, I’m offering monthly-ish zoom hangouts focused on writing, drawing, & storytelling as well as discounts on my classes and workshops. Paid subscribers will also get some bonus material behind the paywall such as video chats and demos. I may even send you some snail mail!
Substack Featured Publication: The Habit of Art has been featured twice on Substack. My post A Woman Reading was cited in Substack Reads. Soon after, The Habit of Art was featured on Substack Discover.
About me
I’m Kelcey Ervick, the author of four award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the graphic memoir, The Keeper (Avery/Penguin), which was featured in the The New York Times Book Review’s Holiday Gift Guide and which Publisher’s Weekly called a “work of disarming emotional power.” It’s about growing up in girls’ sports in the early years of Title IX, and figuring out how, if I can’t become Miss America, I might become a writer like my fellow goalkeeper Vladimir Nabokov.
Inspired by my own shift toward visual storytelling, I co-edited The Field Guide to Graphic Literature, which is about how to make all kinds of comics, graphic poetry, and literary collage.
My previous award-winning books are For Sale by Owner, a story collection of suburban surrealities; Liliane’s Balcony, a novella set at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater; and The Bitter Life of Božena Němcová, a poetic biography of a long-dead female fairy tale writer—and the postcards I wrote to her. More about all books here.
I live on the banks of the St. Joseph River in northern Indiana, where I am regularly attacked by geese and red-winged blackbirds. I’m a professor of creative writing at Indiana University South Bend, which also happens to be on the banks of the St. Joe River.
Links
I’m mostly hanging out here on Substack these days, but I have some other spots online.
Author website: kelceyervick.com
Art sometimes on Instagram.
Doomscrolling has moved to Bluesky.
I wrote about the experience of daily art-making at The Rumpus, twice.
