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This month, the CSFF Blog is touring the online version of the magazine, The Sword Review. I haven’t been able to plumb this as deeply as I’d like, so I can’t vouch for the contents, but at the price of free, it’s probably worth taking a look at if you’re a fan. For poets especially, it’s worth taking a look, as this appears to be a paying market, and there aren’t many of those for any kind of poetry, let alone speculative. As to the contents, as I said, I haven’t verified this, but the standards laid out in their writer’s guidelines are very promising.Read More →

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ORCHARD OF HOPE (Revell March 1, 2007) by Ann Gabhart ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ann H. Gabhart has published a number of adult and young adult novels with several different publishers. The author of The Scent of Lilacs, Ann and her husband live a mile from where she was born in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. She is active in her country church, and her husband sings bass in a southern gospel quartet. ABOUT THE BOOK: In the summer of 1964, drought has gripped the quiet Kentucky town of Hollyhill, and Jocie Brooke is nervous about starting high school. Her sister Tabitha is experiencing the wearinessRead More →

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In: Occult/Urban Legends

Dear Andrea, Every one at school is talking about Bloody Mary and they believe in her. I don’t cause I’m Christian. Who is she, is she real?Clara Dear Clara, Yes and no. As Wikipedia points out, “Bloody Mary” is a epithet for Queen Mary 1 of England, and earned it for her persecution of protestants. The ghost, however, is just an urban legend. I would not, however, advise taking part in the popular sleepover game (I remember my sister and a friend trying it when we were kids). Because demons are real, and these kind of games attract them. With any kind of ritual, ofRead More →

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In: Bible and Theology, Gospel, Grace, Post-Modernism

 Gentle readers, Lately, I’ve been hearing, in one way or another, and from diverging sources, a single cry, ringing out. Namely, that the Church is supposed to be a family, but too often in America, it has more in common with daycare, a country club, thrift store, pick the business metaphor of your choice. Too many churches today are literally run as non-profit commercial enterprises and mean “when you’re here, you’re family” in the same spirit as the Olive Garden. We have people in the Church today, raised in it their whole lives sometimes, who have no, or little, understanding of the gospel. The surroundingRead More →

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Forget the “if you have children” part of the CFBA’s advice on Amy Wallace‘s first book of the Defenders of Hope Series, RANSOMED DREAMS, if you’re happily married, ” it will hit you like a stab in the gut and wrench you with a twist of the knife.” For that matter, if you’ve ever been unhappily married, I suspect the book may have the same effect, but for very different reasons, as I’ll mention more of later. They’re also right about the book covering depressing territory, Wallace has put on paper more than just her own worst fears, she’s captured mine, and many other’s asRead More →