{"id":36,"date":"2003-09-01T01:02:00","date_gmt":"2003-09-01T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=36"},"modified":"2003-09-01T01:02:00","modified_gmt":"2003-09-01T01:02:00","slug":"the-middle-initial-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=36","title":{"rendered":"The Middle-Initial Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that The Paganism Reader<\/i> (see July 10th entry<\/a>) is in production with Routledge (pub. date early 2004?), the odd little queries from the copy editor are starting to come in. The latest involved my middle initial. It is all right to have it on the cover, but must I be referred to as “Chas S. Clifton” inside?<\/p>\n

That’s an American preference, said my co-editor, the inestimable Graham Harvey. <\/p>\n

It makes no difference to me, I responded, although I do want the “S.” on the cover because all my other writing has it. Is it really an American preference? I have no idea. But, come to think of it, I cannot think of too many British authors using middle initials. <\/p>\n

Actually, I’ve always thought that “Chas Clifton” was not a good combination for pronouncing out loud. But I’m stuck with it since I picked “Chas” as a nickname when I was 10 or 11, because I did not like being “Charlie.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that The Paganism Reader (see July 10th entry) is in production with Routledge (pub. date early 2004?), the odd little queries from the copy editor are starting to come in. The latest involved my middle initial. It is all right to have it on the cover, but must I be referred to as “Chas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[5,7],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-paganism","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-A","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":44,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=44","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":0},"title":"The Pagan cover-design dilemma (again)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 24, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Graham Harvey, my co-editor on the Paganism Reader, tells me that Routledge editors are still agonizing over a cover design. Admittedly, the one shown in the online catalog is pretty pedestrian.It seems that there are only three choices for Pagan books.1. A tree2. A standing stone, as on Michael York's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":833,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=833","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":1},"title":"My continued fascination with Gleb Botkin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently found a Wikipedia entry on Gleb Botkin. I still think that he is one of the most fascinating figures in American Paganism, with a life whose arc connected the lost world of the Russian royal family to the contemporary Pagan revival of the 1950s and 1960s.He is worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1018,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1018","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":2},"title":""Hearing Voices"","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My series co-editor Wendy Griffin and my editing collaborator Graham Harvey (The Paganism Reader) appear on the BBC Radio 4 to discuss hearing voices and Paganism. (Real Player download -- you will hear some BBC news first.)","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":682,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=682","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":3},"title":"In my hot, sweaty handsYesterday\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"In my hot, sweaty handsYesterday I had my first email from someone who was reading Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America. That was great, but where were my copies? I fired off a plaintive email to my editor.Today I came to the university, and there\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6893,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6893","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":4},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and ‘Hard’ Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"There was some discussion last week at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting as to whether the Contemporary Pagan Studies Group should sponsor or co-sponsor a session devoted to issues surrounding animal sacrifice. Some voices in the Pagan world suggest that you are not really a \"hard\" polytheist (truly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Hinduism\"","block_context":{"text":"Hinduism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=hinduism"},"img":{"alt_text":"imrs.php","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/imrs.php_-300x204.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12225,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12225","url_meta":{"origin":36,"position":5},"title":"How Old is the Cerne Abbas Giant?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have read anything on ancient Paganism(s) in Britain, you have probably read about the Cerne Abbas Giant, the huge figure made of chalk (crumbled into ditches) with an upraised Hercules-style club and an upright Cernunnos-style penis. You probably read that he was prehistoric, or at least pre-Roman \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}