Roaring writing

I'm a writer first, activist lately, so it was a great honor to be included in Harriet Brown's Roaring Lion post.

The Roaring Lion honor comes with two delights: I get to name three qualities of powerful writing, and then pass the designation to five powerful writers.

Powerful writing, to my mind:

• Addresses fear. The reader's fears, and especially the writer's.
• Lingers. It travels with you an hour, a day, for good.
• Hurts a bit. Because you wish you'd known, or wish you'd written it yourself.

Powerful writers I know:

• Phyllis Theroux isn't a blogger, but she is my mentor and the creator of Nightwriters, where I learned to "write what you fear most."
• Kristina Chew at Autism Vox does intelligent, fierce advocacy like no one else.
• Carrie Arnold is as pure a writer as I've encountered, the woman has no dogma but truth - even during change.
• For the careening, manic pleasure of her prose, my friend the Counterfeit Farmgirl.
• And the writer who cooks: the Rokenman.