Summer Reading Program

Source.

I'm going to be spending a week hiking in the Adirondacks, and I'm not sure how quickly I'll be getting back into things afterwards; the massive technicolor net-vomit (from every viewpoint) that succeeded the recent SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage has me rather tuckered out, emotionally and intellectually.

However, lest you all be left adrift without my illustrious opinion factory to guide you, I'd suggest the following few things to place your eyeballs directly onto.

First, my friend Bill Hoard, who typically hosts the writers' group Pints & Prose of which I'm a part, is working to release his first independent book, The Dagger and the Rose. It's a fairy tale which he spent over a year perfecting, and is currently having illustrated by Leah Morrison; he's set up a Kickstarter for it, which you can view and/or donate to here. I specify that this is his first independent book, because he and my friend Ben Y. Faroe have already begun releasing a series, partially an homage to Fawlty Towers, titled Hubris Towers. Ben, too, has independent work out, also a fairy tale, called The Stone and the Song. Bill and Ben are outstanding writers, and I feel privileged to create in their company.

Speaking of excellent authors, Melinda Selmys, authoress of Sexual Authenticity (book and blog) and Slave of Two Masters, has been picked up by Patheos. You can find her at her new blog, Catholic Authenticity, though I understand she'll continue updating her previous blog on occasion. Melinda has also written for Spiritual Friendship, and was among the first Christians I ever read who was capable of doing imaginative justice to both sides of the Christendom-glistendom divide.

Thirdly, read Pope Francis' encyclical! Lots of people have hailed or decried it without showing any sign of having opened it, on account of its being pro-green and all. I haven't finished it myself, but I am enjoying it; one of its great strengths thus far (which has, to be blunt, been a failure of the modern environmentalist movement in many cases) is that of setting care for the earth and care for humanity in a proper relation to each other.

If you are desperate to get more of my writing, and haven't hitherto found the selections from my own upcoming dark-fantasy-Victorian-gaslamp-vampire-gothica-Catholic-bildungsroman novel, Death's Dream Kingdom, you might take a peak at these two posts, which feature passages from it.

And finally, with special thanks to my brother-in-law and sister, if you're not familiar with Rick and Morty, well, God still loves you, probably. But fix that.