David Russell Mosley

Ordinary Time

21 August 2015

The Edge of Elfland

Hudson, New Hampshire

Dear Friends and Family,

As I announced on my personal Facebook page and both twitter accounts yesterday, I have had my faërie romance, On the Edges of Elfland (still just a working title) accepted for publication with Wipf and Stock Publishers under their Resource Publications imprint. While more well known for their theological books, they’ve also published several works of fiction as well as one volume of poetry from theologian John Milbank. Needless to say I’m overjoyed. I’ve spent the last four years of my life writing about the deificatory importance of human creativity, particularly that of poetry and fantasy. Now I’m being given a chance to show that I at least attempt to live this out.

You may have several questions like: what is my story about and when will it be available? To answer the second question first, the answer is, I don’t know. It will likely be available on Wipf and Stock’s website approximately 3-5 months after I’ve submitted the final manuscript. About six weeks or so after that it will be available from online stores like Amazon and about four to six weeks after that will an ebook be available. As for when I will be submitting the final manuscript, I’m not sure. I still have thesis corrections to do, so it likely won’t be ready until sometime after October.

Now, for what the book is about: Here’s an abstract I wrote for my publication proposal for Wipf and Stock:

When Alfred Perkins was a young boy, growing up in a pub in a small English village, he was often told stories by his godfather, Oliver Cyning. Mr Cyning’s stories always dealt with elves and fairies, and they were usually placed in the past of Alfred’s hometown. Alfred grew up believing these stories and spent many hours in the local forest looking for the denizens of Elfland. After a traumatic childhood experience, Alfred stops seeing his godfather and ceases to believe that Elfland exists. Now grown and having graduated from university, Alfred is forced to believe that his godfather’s stories were true. This discovery also leads Alfred to the knowledge that a plot is afoot to destroy both Elfland and his village. Now he must join together with friends from his village and Elfland in order to stop the evil plots of the Goblin King and take his rightful place in both the village and Elfland.

If this sounds interesting to you I hope you’ll consider buying the book once it comes out. I’m also trying to think of people to provide blurbs for the book so if a fairy-tale for adults is your thing and you have a name that might mean something (no offence to my many friends and family but I don’t think they’d accept blurbs from just anyone, sadly) or you know someone who might be good for providing a blurb for a book like this let me know by emailing me at elflandletters at gmail dot com. I’m also looking for copyeditors if you’re interested, let me know.

In the mean time I’ll keep writing here about the various and sundry topics covered by this blog. Also, to those of you who have read the portions of the book I’ve posted here or read earlier versions of it, I thank you. This book wouldn’t exist without you.

Yours,

David