The Quiet Courage of Writing with Conviction

Evan Swensen
September 8, 2025

“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” With those simple words, E.B. White distilled what countless writers have discovered when staring at a blank page: writing requires belief. Belief in the story, belief in its worth, and belief in the unseen readers who may one day move it. Grammar sharpens expression, but faith carries it into the world.

E.B. White, known to children and adults alike through Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, and to essay readers through One Man’s Meat, lived through times that tested belief. Born in 1899, he came of age in a century punctuated by two world wars, economic upheaval, and cultural shifts. Yet he turned to words as both compass and comfort. For White, faith in writing was never abstract—it was survival.

Early in his career, White endured a long stretch of uncertainty. After graduating from Cornell, he worked odd jobs and wrestled with rejection slips. Doubt often crowded his desk more than words did. Yet he held to the conviction that writing mattered, even when editors rejected him. That perseverance, grounded in faith rather than immediate success, eventually led him to The New Yorker, where his essays and sketches shaped the voice of American humor and commentary for decades. White’s struggle reminds writers today that faith sustains when grammar alone cannot.

Faith surfaced again in a quieter, more personal way in White’s relationship with animals and rural life. Moving to a farmhouse in Maine, he wrote about geese, pigs, and seasons with the same reverence one might give to scripture. When he introduced the world to Charlotte and Wilbur, he offered more than a children’s tale. He gave generations a meditation on mortality, friendship, and renewal. His prose appeared effortless, yet it was his faith—in the dignity of creatures, in the rhythms of nature—that gave the story its enduring power.

White’s writing reshaped how Americans approached both language and life. His collaboration with William Strunk Jr. produced The Elements of Style, a slim guide that still sits on desks worldwide. But even in that book, the emphasis was not on rules alone. White pressed writers toward clarity, honesty, and faith in simple words. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s Web became more than bedtime reading; it invited families to talk about death, love, and the hope of renewal. In classrooms, homes, and libraries, White’s work cultivated tenderness and courage.

His essays, too, shaped civic thought. In “Once More to the Lake,” he captured the ache of time passing, a reflection that still resonates with anyone who has revisited childhood places. He showed that writing’s true gift lies in its capacity to bridge generations and preserve what would otherwise slip away.

E.B. White’s legacy is not merely his mastery of style but his embodiment of faith. He trusted that words could hold both simplicity and depth, that a story about a spider and a pig could address life’s largest questions. His life and work urge writers to stop chasing perfection in commas and clauses and instead trust the pulse behind their words.

Writing, in White’s eyes, was always more than technique. It was faith in language’s ability to connect hearts, to speak across time, and to make the invisible visible.

Explore White’s essays and stories. Read Charlotte’s Web again, not just as a children’s book but as a writer’s act of faith. Then, when you return to your own page, write with belief. Trust the words before you polish them. Faith will carry your voice further than grammar ever could.

The Power of Authors: A Rallying Cry for Today’s Writers to Recognize Their Power, Rise to Their Calling, and Write with Moral Conviction, written by Evan and Lois Swensen with a foreword by Jane L. Evanson, PhD, launches this September. You’ve been reading its heartbeat in these Monday messages — soon you can hold the book in your hands.