Literary Endeavors

One of things that made Chesterton’s time unique was the fact that what he and other Christians wrote about found so many venues of publication. Can you imagine any mainstream publication today publishing their essays? They had many places to work out their view points and style. Literary magazines were also many and varied. True, the web has that availability but there is no admission charge and anyone who has a key board is now a writer.

Today there are few Literary magazines and fewer still for Catholic Christian writers. Magazines are important because they are tangible - you can fold them, put them in your pocket, read whenever or wherever, underline them, cut them out, pass them along or save them. Yes, I know with a few button pushes and PDAs you can do that with the web too but what you do not have with the web is the intimate relationship of touch and smell. As with love, works on paper come to you through all your senses.

I mention all this because we need to support the efforts of those working to put out Literary magazines especially of those of a Christian nature. Here are two:

St. Linus Review. published by William Ferguson. He tells us, this magazine is a place to “Explore the world through the writing of Catholics who see the Faith as an endless inspiration and orthodoxy as the artist's liberator.” St. Linus Review is a semi-annual magazine of poetry, short prose, book reviews and art by orthodox Catholics.

No, really, it’s not just because they publish my stuff it’s a good deal.

The other magazine worthy of note is the young upstart Hereditas Magazine. Its fifth issue is now complete. For us Chestreton Fans the Editor, Colleen Drippe’, tells us, “We have also been so fortunate as to secure two different pieces on that, er, massive subject, Gilbert Chesterton. Allison Thornton, a student of Regina Coeli Online Academy has provided us with an excellent study of Chesterton’s “Ballad of the White Horse”, and Kathy Gavlas (author of “Eagle Mountain”) has written a short piece on Father Brown. So dig in. Read for the Glory of God. It’s lots better than watching television.”

Here is the cover art:

This portrait of G. K. Chesterton, charcoal/pastel on paper, was done especially for Hereditas summer 2006 issue by Joseph Drippe'.

Again it’s not just because I had a small hand in giving birth to this mag and they have used some of my art and writing, Honestly.

Get your subscriptions today- supporting these efforts could bring forth great fruit.