All summer I have been editing and laying out a biography of the American Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944). I just sent the galleys to the writer, a professor in Arizona, and am working on my own corrections as well. There have been the usual hassles—missing “essential” photos, notes that did not match the [...]
Via Rod Dreher’s new blog, Macroculture, comes this essay by Richard Morgan on the horrors of freelancing. By the time that I finished it, I was thinking of Knut Hamsun’s novel Hunger. See the movie version—I saw it as a teenager, and how I ever became a writer afterwards, I do not know. Youthful optimism, [...]
In the early 17th century, a condemned witch goes to the gallows, saying under her breath an incantation of the Old Religion. Only the incantation invokes the Virgin Mary, Ave, Regina Caelorum, and the old religion is Roman Catholicism, made virtually synonymous with treason during the reigns of Edward VI, Elizabeth I, and James I [...]
If I were still teaching magazine writing, I would be sending students to this blog (which I found on Rod Dreher’s blog). What a great feature-writing idea, albeit in blog form. (Which all goes to show how publishing is changing, &c. &c., and I am glad not to have to be the one to explain [...]
A New York Times media-section piece suggests that “professional photographer” is a poor career choice if you are just starting out. Since graduation in 2008, Mr. Eich, 23, has gotten magazine assignments here and there, but “industrywide, the sentiment now, at least among my peers, is that this is not a sustainable thing,” he said. [...]
News release: ESOTERIC POETRY INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION esotericpoetry@googlemail.com YOU ARE INVITED TO SEND short poems of up to eight lines (not including the title) on an esoteric subject. These may refer in a general sense to ‘inner’ knowledge, this may be esoteric in the sense of inner knowledge as in: Astrology, Alchemy Gnosticism Magic but may [...]
I noticed this post about Mark Teppo and urban magick on Instapundit, linking to an Amazon blog item about his thoughts on the nature of magick. Like I said, the definition [of magick] is a bit slippery, and it might be a bit much to attribute to the writing of a pulpy occult noir book [...]
• Icelandic Pagans curse the nation’s economic rivals. See what happens when you mix polytheism and international banking? (Via Pagan Newswire Collective.) • I do like what Iceland may do for freedom of the (online) press. • We are the Empire, and we have the chariot-racing to prove it. Video no. 2 is the better [...]
An op-ed piece in Sunday’s Denver Post made an interesting suggestion. People who work—or want to look like they are working—in coffee shops ought to move to their public libraries instead. Then coffee shops could go back to being coffee shops—places of intellectual ferment and conversation, instead of solo customers taking up a booth or [...]
From my current reading, Essentials of Fire Fighting: As you look at the world around you, the physical materials you see are called matter. It is said [passive voice!] that matter is the “stuff” that makes up our universe. Sheesh. Maybe instead of being a volunteer firefighter I should be editing the textbooks. Anyway, got [...]
