My second novel, The Other Side of the Bonfire, is scheduled for release in just over a week!
Reviews so far are very positive, and I’m looking forward to my favorite moment—the first time I get to hold the baby/book in my hands. I know e-books are the wave of the future, but I love the weight of a paper book. I love the sound of pages. Electrons will never replace that loving feeling.
To pass the time until the book is a reality, here’s what you could learn about the story by reading the back cover. Continue Reading →
Have you read it? Read it! This is a must for anyone interested in the possibility of an Orthodox Christian literary genre. If you read it, we can talk about it! I’m eager to hear other views of the book and to discuss it.
I promise to avoid spoilers. Even without touching on the finer points of the plot (and it had some fine points!), there are many things to say about this novel. Continue Reading →
As of page 143, this is definitely a book that falls into the category I was describing earlier, a novel written from a Christian viewpoint but without being “Christian fiction” in the sense in which we most commonly see that genre in the USA. First, it’s historical fiction without being about the American West, the American South, or World War II. Second, it’s written by a man and (judging by what I know of men as an observer but clearly not a member of that gender) it would be appealing to men. It’s well-known that the primary reader of a Christian fiction novel in the US is female.
What makes this book even more interesting is that it’s not written from an Evangelical Christian or even Protestant Christian perspective. Continue Reading →
I just started reading a novel that might qualify as a member of the genre I was just discussing…Christian worldview, but simply because the characters are Christians, not because the author is out to hit us upside the head with his views. If it keeps up all through the book, I’ll be writing more about it here soon.
My husband and I watched this movie last night on television. It’s an award-winning secular film based on the true story of a group of Catholic monks caught between a military government and extremist guerrillas in Algeria in the late 1990s. There is tremendous pressure on them to leave the country, and they must decide whether they will leave or stay as the situation around them continues to disintegrate.
The film is beautifully made. The cinematography and the portrayal of each character were perfect, in my mind. It was difficult to remember that the actors were actors, and that the film was not a documentary. It remained wholly human and touching, all the way to the end.
As I was watching it, and musing on how attached I was becoming to the monks in the story, I started thinking about how I would (or wouldn’t) place it in the frame of Christian culture. I followed my own train of thought for a few minutes, then turned to my husband, opened my mouth, and heard myself saying, “See? This is a real movie, not a Christian movie, but look at how it’s portraying these monks!” Continue Reading →
