Todd Heldt’s essays explore literature, personal narrative, and cultural topics across platforms including Medium and other online venues. These essays reflect Todd Heldt’s work as a writer, poet, and librarian, connecting critical thinking with personal and cultural analysis.
Selected Essays by Todd Heldt
Information, Power, and Problems: Cognition, Bias, and Evolution
There are many factors that can play into our biases — culture, gender, politics, religion — but a big one is just that our brains function differently. They have different morphologies. These differences go all the way down the evolutionary ladder back to pre-history, back to pre-human, technically speaking. And all of it leads to why you scroll past a Facebook post you know you are going to disagree with. Read Full Essay
The Crying Church (2015)
Thirty years removed from an evangelical childhood: An exploration of survivor’s guilt, religion, and redemption.
I left for work early because sometimes it is good to be on the sidewalk before everyone else. The sun was blinding on the horizon, and the jets flew a few feet over 63rd, coming into Midway. I am far from my east Texas childhood, but it often comes back to me. Read Full Essay
Additional essays by Todd Heldt are published across online platforms and contribute to his work in literature, teaching, and information literacy.