Weekly Links: the "My Writer Friends are Awesome" edition

My first link this week is really exciting! (to me, anyway, but to you, too, if you like good fiction!)
My friend, Ann Dominguez, has just released her first novel!

You might know Ann from the Ordinary Time chapter of "Let Us Keep the Feast". And if you do, you know she writes clear, beautiful prose that makes you happy to be alive in the world.

Well, the same is true of her fiction. I had the honor of reading one of the first drafts of this novel, and it kept my attention throughout the whole story. I love how she marries the tense, commercial form of a thriller with acute observation of the rhythm and flow of ordinary, everyday work and relationships.

Also? She's a practicing physician herself, so you can count on the medical details of the thriller being accurate. :)

Anyway, here is a link for "The Match", a medical thriller by Ann Dominguez.  Enjoy!



Okay, now on to shorter reads . . .

-And now that I've mentioned Ordinary Time and the church year, here's an interesting little post on Advent: "The War on Advent". An excerpt:

For many centuries, Advent was a season of spiritual preparation before the Feast of Christmas. It began four Sundays before Christmas. Contrary to the practice of so-called Advent in many churches, it wasn’t focused on the story of the birth of Christ and the singing of carols. That’s for the Christmas season. Instead, Advent is a time of reflection, penitence, and preparation, not of celebration.

-A piece on freelance writers and ethics: "Wil Wheaton and Why I Won't Write for the Huffington Post Anymore".


-"How to Stage Your Home for Living" - this article has such a very, very good point:

So then, in the weeks prior to our house hitting the market, we spent numerous hours "stageing our home for the sale . . . I can't help but be struck by the irony of the situation. We spend countless hours getting our home into its best possible condition, only to leave it? Most of the time while staging our home for sale, I wondered why we had never put in the effort to stage our home for living. You know, so we could have actually enjoyed it more while we called it home.

"50 Things a Man Should Be Able to Do" - I thought this was much better than most lists of its sort.


Oh, this is wonderful! It's a reprint of an old interview with J. R. R. Tolkien, and reams could be written in response to every paragraph. Lovely.  "JRR Tolkien: I never expected a money success".  The bit I keep particularly chewing over and over again in my mind is this:

Some people have criticised the Ring as lacking religion. Tolkien denies this: “Of course God is in The Lord of the Rings. The period was pre-Christian, but it was a monotheistic world.” 

Monotheistic? Then who was the One God of Middle-earth? 

Tolkien was taken aback: “The one, of course! The book is about the world that God created – the actual world of this planet.”

"Evangelicals Need to Read Richard Hooker": this article hooked me as soon as I read the phrase: Think of him as Anglicanism's John Calvin. Of course I had to read it all! And so should you. :)



Finally, this isn't a proper link, really, but this last week's collect (from the Book of Common Prayer) was amazing. I was so glad to have it as part of my daily prayers and thought you all might appreciate it, too. Here it is:

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might
destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God
and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may
purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again
with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his
eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Amen.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell


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