I have long considered Jane Austen to be one of the better Christian authors. She doesn't preach conversion, brimstone and damnation, yet she reaffirms Christian doctrine quietly, through her characters and stories. They may be a product of her own beliefs or of the overall Christian tenor of her society, but the messages are there. … Continue reading Jane Austen and Christianity, Part One
Category: Christian Aesthetic
I give my end-of-week post to other authors and bloggers whose work is worth noting. There are so many excellent articles out there, so many good poems and stories that I want to use my online space, once a week, to send all of you to read something you might otherwise miss. To see last … Continue reading Spotlight Saturday #5
Lately I’ve been thinking about how soon one should start looking for a publisher. The moment the manuscript is finished? Once the first rewrite is done? When your Beta readers say it’s good enough? Authors have historically run into this dilemma. J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit, then revised it and published it again, … Continue reading The Rush to Publish and Half-Baked Writing
Over the last few years, I’ve been trying to read more Christian Fiction. Since some of what I write would fall into that genre, I wanted to give it another shot, despite having been scared off years ago by its excessive “preachiness.” Unfortunately, the preachiness is still there, in varying quantities, but there is another … Continue reading What’s Become of Christian Fiction?
If what we read becomes part of us, as C. S. Lewis asserts is inevitable when one reads deeply, taking in a work to enjoy every aspect of it, then what we read becomes vitally important. If our reading is more than just “passing the time” and becomes something we talk about, think about, and … Continue reading The Evil in Good Books
In his book, An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis examines many facets of books and reading in support of his thesis that a better way to examine the merits of a book is to examine how those who read the book approach the work and why they like it. However, along the way he … Continue reading The Problem of Preachy Prose in Christian Fiction
A Glimpse at the Writing Philosophy of the Man who created Thursday on Tuesday As part of our ongoing series on a Christian Aesthetic (the philosophy a Christian could or should have when dealing with all things artistic), this was due out yesterday, but since its focus is on G. K. Chesterton, the writer famous … Continue reading One Day Late or Two Days Early…
Writing for The Boston Globe shortly after the second The Hobbit movie installment came out, Ed Power claims that seeing J. R. R. Tolkien as the model for the fantasy genre “makes it all too easy for those new to these fantastical worlds to assume Tolkien’s prudishness, his sometimes archaic prose, and his Boy Scout … Continue reading Do We Still Need Heroes?
I thought it fitting to begin our series on Fantasy and a Christian Aesthetic with J. R. R. Tolkien’s own thoughts on the subject as found in his article “On Fairy-Stories” (a version of which can be found here; I am quoting from the article as it appeared in print, in which he references his … Continue reading Tolkien on Fantasy: His Own Words
One of the questions I have recently encountered is why I, as a Christian, write fantasy novels. Though many have accepted fantasy as an acceptable Christian genre due to the works of MacDonald, Tolkein, and Lewis, there are others who still hesitate since it involves creating a world quite different from ours, where “magical” things … Continue reading Why I Write Fantasy
Andrea Lundgren 