Background

Dr. Webster is on a quest to find enchantment in a disenchanted age. He seeks wisdom in Gandalf, sense in poetry, and beauty in the abiding presence of the Cascade mountains. A native of Canada, Dr. Webster emigrated to the United States when he was seven years old. He has taught for two decades in a variety of contexts including public high school, private tutoring, and higher education. Dr. Webster’s scholarly interests include Modernism, Eastern European Fiction, Mythology, the Epic Tradition, and the songs of Antiquity. In addition to his service at Northwest University, Dr. Webster is an ordained deacon at Advent Anglican (ACNA) in Kirkland, Washington.

Selected Publications

• After So Many Fires: Second Edition (Poetry Collection) Wiseblood Books – 2018
• After So Many Fires (Poetry Collection) Anchor and Plume – 2017
• A Rumor of Soul: The Poetry of W.B. Yeats (Critical Introduction) Wiseblood Books – 2015
• The Spirit of Adoption (Anthology / Co-Editor) Cascade Books – 2014
• Paradise in The Waste Land (Critical Introduction) Wiseblood Books – 2013

Dr. Webster’s poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals including North American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Crab Creek Review, Floating Bridge Review, REAL, Rock and Sling, Dappled Things, Relief, The Penwood Review, and elsewhere. 

Selected Conferences / Lectures

Poetry Readings: Auntie’s Bookstore (Spokane) / Brick and Mortar Books (Redmond) / BookTree (Kirkland) / (2017)

“Seeing the Invisible: Affirming the Soul through Poetry” – Northwest Christian Writers Association (NCWA) / Kirkland, Washington (June 2016)

Northwest University / Commencement Speaker / Redmond, Washington (May 2016): Class of 2016 Commencement Address

“And in Short, I was Afraid: Confrontations with the Problem of Evil in Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928) and Cuarón’s “Gravity” (2013) – Seattle University / Conference on Christianity and Literature: Religion in Literature and Film in an Interdisciplinary Age / Seattle, Washington (May 2015)

Northwest University / Keynote Speaker / Dean’s List Reception / Kirkland, Washington (February 2014): “Second Space: Czesław Miłosz and a Vision for Education”

Northwest University / Regius Award Speaker / Kirkland, Washington (October 2013): “Reviving the Poetry of T.S. Eliot”

“Eros Abandoned: Chastity as Communal Preservation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” – Viterbo University / Theological Virtue Conference: Love / La Crosse, Wisconsin (March 2013) 

“Novel as Cenotaph: Bohumil Hrabal’s Defiant Love Story” – Seattle Pacific University / Belief and Unbelief in Postmodern Literature / Seattle, Washington (May 2012)

“The Twelve Labors of Publication” – Richard Hugo House / Workshop / Seattle, Washington (July 2011)

”Sing in Me Muse: The Lyric” – Richard Hugo House / Workshop / Seattle, Washington (June 2011)

“The Sense of Poetry: Writing in an Age of Miracle, Wonder, Madness” – Whitworth University / Guest Lecturer / Spokane, Washington (February 2011)

“Enjambment: Making sense / arise from ordinary / line breaks in your revolution / poem” – Richard Hugo House / Workshop / Seattle, Washington (December 2010)

“When Temperance is a Deadly Sin: God, Liberty, and the Novels of Marek Hlasko and Ivan Klíma” – Viterbo University / Cardinal Virtues Conference: Temperance / La Crosse, Wisconsin (April 2009)

Recommended Reading

• After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre 
• A Secular Age by Charles Taylor
• Leisure: The Basis of Culture by John Pieper
• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
• Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot 
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville 
• The Collected Stories by Flannery O’Connor 
• The Divine Comedy by Dante 
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne