In his book on the craft of writing, Stephen King condensed his advice down to two simple axioms: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Hard to argue. But where do you start… reading, that is? If you’re a writer, [...]
Profanity alert! Sarcasm alert! Alert, alert! * * * Millennials have been vocal about the shitty job us Boomers did in raising them. I mean, how else can you explain our kids’ mass defection from organized religion and their embrace of social liberalism other than as a reaction to their evangelical parents’ soft, shallow, narrow-minded, [...]
So I recently received this letter from a “devout Christian” who is struggling with reading “dark fiction.” Here’s the gist of the letter: I recently read your post concerning Lovecraft and since you seem to have a pretty good grip with Lovecraft, I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me? I was [...]
Dear Oscar, I didn’t watch. Again. Okay, I caught some snippets, if that makes you feel any better. I went to bed early. Again. You see, those books on my bed stand are far more interesting than that 3 and 1/2 hour lovefest you keep staging. But if it’s any consolation, I correctly called the [...]
If you’re a novelist, there’s good reason to keep your politics to yourself. Then again, some authors are very vocal about their politics and seem to do just fine. So what gives? In an interview with Time Magazine, John Grisham cautioned, One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a [...]
This weekend, I had the pleasure of joining a panel of authors live-chatting the subject of Christianity and Speculation. (Thanks to Thea van Diepen for making things happen!) We seemed to represent a fairly broad swath of religious perspectives. So it wasn’t too surprising to discover we all approached the subject from different angles. On [...]
The Book of Eli is rated R for adult content, profanity, images of rape, and excessive violence. It also, rather startlingly, has an overt, fairly profound Christian theme. So is the Book of Eli a “Christian film”? That question — and the film — illustrates the ambiguity of the concept of “Christian” anything. Especially Christian [...]
This weekend, I met with my writing group. It’s always a good time when we get together and was even more so because I’d missed the last four or five groups. Being that none of us had any major projects to bring to the table, we were free to reflect on our lives and writing [...]
In Part One, I responded to the suggestion that I believe “that theology ought not be ‘imposed’ on [Christian] fiction.” I clarified that I see it as a matter of degree. “As Christians, theology should be a lens we view everything through, especially art… The question is not IF theology should be imposed on our [...]
My previous post No Zombies Allowed (in Christian Fiction) prompted some interesting pushback. Becky Miller’s Reading, Truth, and the Bible over at Speculative Faith took on what she considered two faulty conclusions I make regarding speculative Christian fiction and theology. She summarizes: …spurred by Mike’s thinking, I have long argued against both of his conclusions… [...]
