Credo
I didn’t long for the suffering, but a part of me envied the certainty it seemed to produce.
Courtney Zonnefeld graduated in 2018 with a degree in writing. She currently lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she works for Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. In her free time, she enjoys reading, baking, and saving up for more herb plants. You can usually find her wandering a farmer’s market, hunting for vintage books, or browsing the tea selection in coffee shops.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Sep 15, 2020 | 3 comments
I didn’t long for the suffering, but a part of me envied the certainty it seemed to produce.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Aug 15, 2020 | 1 comment
For thousands living abroad or in Spain, wondering and waiting, the years dragged on and on.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jul 15, 2020 | 2 comments
Like most people around the world, I have not attended a live performance in months.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jun 15, 2020 | 5 comments
I’ve arranged this top ten in a completely subjective, completely nerdy manner: how excited am I to write with it?
by Courtney Zonnefeld | May 15, 2020 | 2 comments
When you work with children’s books, cats are inescapable.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Apr 15, 2020 | 3 comments
After a month of stay-at-home orders, suddenly everyone’s a baker.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Feb 15, 2020 | 2 comments
I remember kids’ delight in the graphic novel section, the way they stacked book after book in their arms. But I also remember parents’ reactions when their kids reached that shelf.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jan 15, 2020 | 2 comments
While the myth of the lone genius is dangerous for the successful artist, it is absolutely cruel to the aspiring artist.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Dec 15, 2019 | 1 comment
We tell the stories as we want to know them, withholding the details that would round them into truth.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Nov 15, 2019 | 2 comments
With every bite of these foods, we eat our history, and we inherit the ingenuity of immigrants, slaves, presidents, and chili queens who crafted the foods we love today.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Oct 15, 2019 | 7 comments
When we cannot speak to God, cannot even say the barest “I love you,” we are carried.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Sep 15, 2019 | 0 comments
Several things happen at once: ba-boom. Flicker. Shatter.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jul 15, 2019 | 0 comments
While the pace of change has slowed down, my identity is still catching up.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jun 15, 2019 | 0 comments
In the many centuries of death and love and loss since this story was first told, when would we not return to this story?
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Apr 15, 2019 | 0 comments
On paper, on screen, will you see my words?
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Mar 15, 2019 | 0 comments
Living alone doesn’t have to mean eating alone.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Feb 15, 2019 | 0 comments
A craving for apples doesn’t vanish just because you planted an orange tree.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Jan 15, 2019 | 0 comments
Each title is an era trapped in amber, a fossil record of a former self.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Dec 15, 2018 | 0 comments
Thick, globby specks of white dotted the sky, like Impressionist brushstrokes viewed too close up.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Nov 15, 2018 | 0 comments
14. Whip the egg whites until “stiff peaks form,” a description that—even after over ten years of making this recipe—you still can’t confidently identify.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Oct 15, 2018 | 0 comments
Teach me the quiet virtue of janitors and night stockers. Of saints who wake and sleep and live—and that is enough.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Sep 15, 2018 | 0 comments
When the show released its most recent episodes on US Netflix earlier this month, I of course hit play as soon as I could. But I—like hundreds of others tweeting and otherwise panicking on social media—immediately noticed a difference.
by Courtney Zonnefeld | Aug 15, 2018 | 0 comments
And then—after all that hectic activity—all I had to do was drive. For five hours. On the same road. Beside a repeating pattern of corn and soybeans.