I found an assortment of interesting links around the blog world today, at least they interested me, and hopefully, you too.
With a hat tip to the ever informative Charles Tan, I found this link to an essay by John Ottinger III about Christian Fantasy. While I'd never considered that fantasy might have a Christian bend, it doesn't surprise me. If you take a stroll through the Bible you'll find the Valley of Bones where the dead rise up from the ground, a man who walks into a fiery furnace and comes out unscathed, not to mention burning bushes, plagues and assorted masses of vermin unleashed on the enemy. http://www.resaliens.com/2010/07/guest-column-on-christian-fantasy/
That essay is published in the current issue of Resident Aliens, a zine that is looking for spiritually infused spec-fiction. They're looking for flash of 900 - 1500 words, shorts from 1500 to 6000, and serial novellas up to 20,000 words. The pay is $5 story. http://www.resaliens.com/
Pari Taichert has started a discussion about writing rules over at Murderati this morning that could prove interesting by day's end. http://www.murderati.com/blog/2010/7/12/rules.html
If you've got some Thanksgiving, Christmas or Halloween stories gathering dust in your files you might check out the guidelines over at Sniplits http://sniplits.com Through the end of August they're accepting holiday stories, new or reprints. And August is the opening month for mystery/crime submissions, so mark that date on your calendar all you mystery writers out there.
And over at the Clarity of Night, Jason Evans has announced his 13th flash fiction contest with the top prize for a 250 word flash of $100. Drop on over and check out the picture that will inspire your story. http://clarityofnight.blogspot.com/2010/07/uncovered-short-fiction-contest-is.html The contest opens to submissions on July 19th. With buried treasure as a theme there's apt to be all kinds of great stories to read in every genre under the sun.
4 comments:
In all honesty, I don't get Christian fiction. Is it just supposed to be wholesome, family-friendly writing? Does it proselytize? Or is it something else?
I think basically it's family friendly while trying to teach the tenets of basic Christianity. But if you start getting into each religion's own presses, you're talking a full court press to conversion especially with the Baptists.
Years ago, I read an article that said if you wrote for a Christian Press you also had to have a spotless past and be attending church faithfully because they didn't want any scandal attached to the Press. That might have changed by now.
Re fantasy and Christian fiction, it isn't new. C. S. Lewis' Narnia series (Lion Witch and Wardrobe, etc) is many decades old. He also wrote an adult sci-fi trilogy that had gospel story elements. The second in the series, Perelandra (following Out of the Silent Planet), is a retelling of the Biblical garden of eden story, temptation and the struggle with evil. Quite a fascinating read.
The essay mentioned Lewis and several other writers. When I think about most of the older novels, no matter the genre, there was always a Christian overtone. Morality plays I believe they called them, especially Westerns. I think religion colored most of our lives in the past and it shows up in the old stories. What surprised me, was that they were still writing them as most of the world seems to shrug their shoulders when it comes to faith.
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