Hello, dear friends! Happy autumn. It's gorgeous here in upstate New York; the garden is still producing like crazy, so I'm pretending to be a trad wife, making tomato sauce and soup, canning pickles, drying herbs, baking and freezing bread and muffins, and working on the landscape. I look forward to welcoming one of you dear AC members here to the homestead for a visit this coming weekend. <3
So, I made lots of things for you in September, and I hope that some of them bring you joy, deep thoughts, amusement, or insight. First, I started putting together a bunch of classes that I'll offer over the next few months, and I'd be so happy if you like them! Here they are:
Upcoming courses
My “Galahad & the Grail” course starts THIS TUESDAY, and it'll run October 6, 13, 20, & 27, from 3-5pm eastern. It's an in-depth examination of Volume I, Galahad & the Grail, of Malcolm Guite’s four-book epic Merlin’s Isle. We’ll look at the meter, rhyme, form, sources, adaptation methods, themes, meaning, and beauty of Guite’s first foray into Arthuriana. Visit https://wyrdhoard.com/gg-class/ to register.
Next, I'm running a workshop called “How to Write Like an Inkling,” October 22, from 7-9 pm eastern: A two-hour workshop for students, faculty, and friends of Northwind Seminary. The first five people to enroll may submit a writing sample for live wordsmithing. Buy tickets here.
Through Politics & Prose Bookstore, I'm teaching “The Quest for Happiness & the Holy Grail,” November 19, December 3, December 10, from 2-4pm eastern. An adventure through three British authors on the quest for happiness as they retell the story of the Holy Grail: Charles Williams in War in Heaven, T. H. White in The Once and Future King, and Malcolm Guite in Galahad and the Grail.
Later on, I'm planning to teach a course on “The Coming of Merlin,” December 1, 8, 15, & 22, from 3-5pm eastern: an in-depth examination of Volume II, The Coming of Merlin, of Malcolm Guite’s four-book epic Merlin’s Isle. More details TBA!
If those go well, then I'll teach a course on Prince Caspian in December (buy the coursepack for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe here if you missed it!).
and THEN if that goes well, we will finally get into Charles Williams with a course on War in Heaven in January! You can see a lovely little mosaic of course logos here. Aren't they pretty? Collect 'em all!
Podcast
So that's some stuff that I'm working on that's upcoming; what have I actually finished that you can enjoy now? Well, the podcast was on summer break while I worked on the next series, but I'm happy to say that Season 2, Series 4, "A Gentle Answer," has begun! Episode One of that series, entitled "A Gentle Answer Turneth Away Wrath?" is available now. Wow, I'd love to know what you think of it! I've also released a teaser: the first five minutes of "Soup vs Cereal: A Collaborative Conversation!" Dr. Jennifer Steele and Dr. Ben Utter joined me for a practice session so they could get used to the Rogerian format, and they debated whether or not cereal is a soup. If you want to view the rest of this video, become a patron or a paid subscriber. And then tune in this coming Sunday (10/4/26) when Ben & Jennifer discuss a serious topic: the perils and promise of Artificial Intelligence.
After that, here's the lineup of guests and topics:
Baylor colleagues Kelly and Chris on Gender Identity
Stewart Riley and Slim Thompson on Immigration
Michael Hitchcock and Holly Berkley Fletcher on Capitalism vs. Communism
(Maybe) Bradley Birzer and Lisa Fullam on Sexual Ethics (still confirming)
Kevin Hensler and Ben Slivka on MAGA vs TDS
Whew! Recording these has been exhausting but rewarding. It's intense stuff, y'all. If you haven't yet subscribed to the podcast, please do--and comments on YouTube are very welcome, because they'll eventually help me monetize. Can you think of two other people who might like the show? Will you send it to them? That will help me keep making shows like these for you!
Substack
I didn't write a whole lot of articles for you this past month, sorry! I put too much time into writing books I(see below) and recording podcasts (see above). Oof, I guess it was really just one article: "Who’s a Good Girl--Aslan?!" I posted a bunch of other stuff, but it was all podcast episodes and announcements. I've got more coming up, never fear!
The Oddest Inkling
As you know, I've been writing like crazy to try to get a draft of The Oddest Inkling done. But I'm a bit stuck. I thought I was 1/3 of the way through, but I don't think that's right at all. I started in on the book summaries section, and at my current rate of going, it's going to take me another year. That's not cool. I need to find a way to speed it up! So those of you who are in my Author's Circle have gotten to see drafts, but the rest of you, well, who knows how long you'll have to wait. Instead, I took two weeks off to work on:
Staging Occult Modernism
This is a revision of my dissertation, which was called From Thaumaturgy to Dramaturgy. I spent hours each day last week and this week rewriting it into a book, including writing a whole new chapter on Florence Farr. I'm happy to say I should be able to send it out tomorrow! That would be a huge relief, and then I hope that would mean you'd get to read it sometime, in, like, real book form.
Annotated Arthuriad
AND I got back together with my collaborators to get going (again? finally?) on The Annotated Arthuriad of Charles Williams. We have lots of messy notes, and our goal right now is to get a proposal out to a publisher. If we have a contract, theoretically that will force us to actually write all of the thing.
I'm discouraged, though. I have all these amazing projects underway, and I have had them in the pipeline for years, and I'm worried I'll never finish any of them. I'm plagued by daily anxiety, chronic pain, and deep exhaustion. I bear the burden of our collapsing republic. I haven't healed from trauma yet.
So. That's the stuff I made or am making for you, in addition to projects with clients. I hope you find something here that you love, and if there's something I can write, edit, teach, or talk about with or for you, let me know! Meanwhile, be well and write beautiful things.