Good news about recent & upcoming writing projects

I haven’t shared much about my writing projects outside of the columns lately, but quite a bit has gone down lately, so I thought I’d catch everyone up.

Probably the biggest news has to do with Chalice Press, the publisher of my first two books. I presented a proposal to them for a book of spoken word poetry, combined with a CD of authors reading, back before my book on LOST even got approved. They liked the idea, but said they didn’t know how to market it, especially coming from a first-time author.

Well, after doing two books with them I thought it might be time to pitch it again. This time I partnered with another author of theirs, Brandon Gilvin, who has experience with spoken word, and he agreed to co-edit with me, bringing in contributors from all over. The result was “An Improvised Faith: Modern Psalm in Spoken Word.” We promoted the concept as something that might even fit within a series of young adult books, which they had been considering anyway.

The good news is, the proposal was approved, and “An Improvised Faith” will finally be published. Though a date has not been set, expect something around Spring, 2009. The even better news is that they asked me and Brandon to be series editors for an entire young adult series they are going to publish. We’re starting with 5-6 titles that will come out over the next couple of years, and we’ll see how those sell and go from there. So basically, I’ll get to help guide the overall vision of the series, pick authors/editors for each volume and probably contrbute to some along the way.

If you have not yet heard my spoken word stuff, check it out on my other MySpace Home Page.

In other news, I’ve been asked to be a consulting editor for a new translation of the Bible the Methodist Church is putting out, probably in 2010. I’ve been asked to help edit the book of Job, which ain’t my favorite book, but I’m sure not going to say no.

Also, it’s a little out of date now, but I contributed a week’s worth of Meditations to the Chalice Press Lenten meditaitons book this year. If you bought one and never cracked it, go back and check it out.

Next, I’ve been doing some more writing for WorshipConnection, a website associated with Cokesbury, Abingdon and some other Methodist publishing groups, and they’ve given me three feature column spaces so far. My next one comes out July 4th, and another in August. It reaches about 150,000 or so per issue, which is cool, and if you’d like to sign up for their free e-newsletter, follow the link above.

Finally, I’m not giving up on the mainstram book work. my novel, Blood Doctrine, is still being shopped my my agent, and we’re waiting to hear hopefully good news from a mass market publisher that’s shown some interest. I’ve also begun writing a memoir about a series of events in my life which I’m not quite ready to divulge in the Blogosphere just yet, but which has been getting good buzz from folks who have read what I have so far.

On top of all that, I’m still doing my weekly Pueblo Chieftain columns, which you can read here, and my column for Disciples World magazine every other month.

Thanks so much to everyone who continues to offer their support, prayers, time and attention to my work. It’s my hope that at least some of the ideas have sparked a thought or two for others, and as long as I keep having ideas and people keep letting me put them out there, you can count on hearing more from me.

Peace,
Christian