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And the quarterly zine: Scienda Quarterly is the armchair adventurer’s magazine, featuring short stories, literary essays, interviews and book reviews. Available from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
I’m totally in White Rabbit mode trying to get this done while the teenaged feet which live in the bedrooms through that doorway are gone for a week. But also, 7am is a grand time to stroll through the yard. Since I missed my Wednesday photo post, here’s a look at the spring’s blossoms around my country homestead. Continue reading
Mike is an author and discusser of thinky things (my favourite!). We recently engaged in a thought-filled ramble through the wildernesses of postmodernism, Christianity, postmodern Christianity, art, life, and gender issues. Also hideous soul-eating angels. Yes. Lighthearted fun was had by all. Here’s the gist… Continue reading
The summer’s issue came together in a serendipitously beautiful way. “Do we have a theme?” the writers asked. “Just…summer,” I said. And with little prompting from yours truly, Shakespeare met King David, life met death, and art met life. Also … Continue reading
I haven’t blogged much in the last year, but I’ve kept reading and observing. I’ve had a front-row seat to the anti-evangelical-post-evangelical-postmodern discussion online, in all its de-churched fury, passion and emotiveness. Some of it is very thoughtful and important. Some of it is just stupid. And here’s why. Continue reading
For this week’s photo hike, we went to a local river valley. We saw a number of the usual things: deer and coyote leavings (though neither animal), freshly chewed trees and a beaver lodge, hawthorn flower buds. As we approached … Continue reading
I found Matt Ridings’s pithily titled post on opposition in dialogue tremendously insightful. I have the same “problem” in that I’ll allow an opposer a lot more leeway than many will. But Ridings also points us to the boundaries of … Continue reading
There is magic down the track. The geometry of spikes and ties, the sinuous iron flowing away around a curve to who knows where–they pull me to look with every kind of focus I have at my disposal. I need these few moments alone in my countryside. Continue reading
Here is what a trip to a surgical room is like in my world: I freak out. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am. In fact, I go completely nuts about it. Continue reading
If you are a 12-year-old girl called Tiger Lily, and you lose to your little brother at Punch Buggy, you must find a way to win. Even if there are few cars in your small town that are not a farmer’s Ford truck or a soccer mom’s van. Continue reading
Following up on that thing I said the other day: y’know, ages and ages ago I wrote that I don’t know where I belong. That’s not true anymore. I was being all whimsical, talking about being a happy tree in … Continue reading
Long, long ago, in a galaxy not so far away that we can’t hyperlink to it, Mr. Marcus Schooley Calvin “Wile E.” Quixote said this: “What notitia of the gospel, or perhaps even its rational support, can the natural man … Continue reading
…And yep, these are mostly of me. I’ve gotten disenchanted with the idea of posting my family online of late–even somewhat of being so digitally present myself. It amazes me how the large services invite people to build other people’s … Continue reading
I would like you to imagine, for a moment, a gentleman a full foot taller than I, of a leanish frame. He wears a leather jacket and boots, a black cotton shirt and slacks. He is slightly balding, with a merry face that reminds one of old pictures of his father in these later days. The left eyebrow tends to arch sharply at odd moments.
He has found himself a chair, stretched out his legs, and settled in for an extended torpor.
That last trait should give away my literary partner, Mr. Marc Schooley of Houston, Texas. Continue reading
Author Janalyn Voigt picks Marc’s brain on what it’s like to write by the seat of the pants. Asking Marc to stop writing and be useful: Top-notch strategy! Continue reading
It’s the commencement of 2012, and the recommencement of Scienda’s regularly scheduled madness (for real this time I think maybe). Continue reading
At the end of last year, I’d had enough. More and more people were hanging out here (cool), but with it came an increased level of random internet static, such as the Jezebel incident. Or the mate-seeking brainless rooster incident. There’s a scum layer at the bottom of the cyberpond, and it’s composed of utterly moronic dorks.
This is my personal space, and I have let a lot of my life hang out the window. The level of exposure started to feel too high. The behind-the-scenes writing workload exploded in the first half of the year, and I saw that as a good thing. I could still do what I love without being so public.
So off I went… Continue reading
The woman of my earliest memory has no body. Just a round face with skin like a plum. Smooth and tight. Firm. A smiling plum with dimples. She is not my mama. I don’t remember my mama. Many years later, … Continue reading
An interesting dynamic plays out between conservative evangelical women and false teachers. In the first place, a cultural tradition of rigid segregation of the genders tends to drive a wedge between husbands and wives, effectively dividing and conquering. Separated from their husbands’ oversight, women are exposed to a lot of teaching that their husbands don’t hear about, or hear about too late–after their wives have absorbed and accepted unbiblical, manmade “doctrines of the home” or “doctrines of femininity.” Continue reading
P.A. Baines has made the Indie Book Award final list in both the Religious and Sci-Fi categories. What is this, you ask? Basically, it’s the Sundance Film Festival of publishing. And I really encourage you to take a look at this book. Alpha Redemption was my favourite editing job of 2010, hands down. Continue reading
This month, I’m delighted to have Meredith Efken as Scienda’s Very Savvy Guest on Relevant and Swashbuckly Topics. Meredith is a freelance editor and the author of Lucky Baby, which became one of my all-time favourite books upon reading it. … Continue reading
Today, I continue the conversation with Meredith Efken, the author of Lucky Baby. (Read Part 1 here.) Previously, we discussed experiencing discomfort and a sense of orphanhood from within the religious culture commonly known as “evangelical.” We also talked about … Continue reading
It’s a nightmare I can’t shake, and it does not come to me in sleep. It comes to me in waking and keeps my eyes from closing. It’s the sort of thing we called heinous when we heard of it … Continue reading
Being “relevant” is such a big deal to the internet culture, with its minute-by-minute changes, and yet it presents a practical impossibility that threatens to burn out those who strive to ride the content waves. There is a difference between … Continue reading
On the third weekend of October, the weather in Regina, Saskatchewan was fair. As we pulled up to the Ring Road, we spotted a young man standing on the boulevard with a backpack and a sign. The sign read, Travelling … Continue reading
Think back through the history of the Bible. Abraham, who didn’t exactly believe God, at least not all the time. Samson, a drunken womanizer. David, a power-mongering adulterer, who was also not the best father. Solomon, the unwise wise man. And finally, a young virgin in an out-of-the-way corner of a vast empire.
God often begins with small people and unlikely things. Continue reading
A To-Done List does what a To-Do List can never do. It talks about what really happened today and how you handled it, not what you wanted to have happen and how you imagined yourself handling things that didn’t end up existing. Continue reading
To My David,
Ten days seems like a short time when I think about everything I want to prepare for your return. It seems like a long time when I lie down at night.
I’m doing alright. It’s possible you’re missing me more than I’m actively missing you. But then, I miss you all the time. When you’re working, when you’re too tired or distracted to really be here. So I hope you come home refreshed. In the meantime, I must keep myself busy, because this is different than the usual separations.
The wind is screaming through, the sun is hot, the tomato jungle in the living room is driving me crazy. I’ve been tilling and planting a bit. I have constant errands and child-events to deal with. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and constantly behind. Nothing is broken so far.
