The Celestial Vault

By Deborah M. Prum

Years ago, I read a book that animated and forever changed my creative process.

In The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers says, “It is a universal experience that a work of art has no existence apart from its translation into material form.”

That is, people think a painting doesn’t exist before it’s painted, a sculpture before it’s sculpted, or a story before it’s written.

But Sayers went on to posit that a work of art, let’s say a story, not only lives in our mi...