Within a two-week period last month I lost two of my favorite writers: Wendell Berry, who died August 31st, and Annie Dillard, who passed away on September 15th. I’ve already written about both of them on the blog and elsewhere. My Annie Dillard appreciation appears today in the Washington Independent Review of Books. My Berry essay ran last month.

I write here more generally about literary idols and the power they can have in your life. How many times have I pulled a Berry or a Dillard volume from my shelf? I still have their books, of course, but now there is no promise of more. Their work on earth is done.

For the first 14 years of this blog, I used a quotation from Dillard’s An American Childhood as the frontispiece: “When everything else is gone from my brain … what will be left, I believe, is topology, the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way or that.” Her writing never failed to inspire me, to jumpstart a writing day or encourage me in a down moment.

As for Berry, I sought him out for clarity and tone. His prose heartened me, convinced me I could say what I wanted to say, as long as I was direct and pulled no punches.

I feel bereft without these writers. I take comfort in the work they left behind.

(Dillard and Berry share a shelf in my office library)