What I'm Reading, Working On, and Have Coming Out

David Russell Mosley

Eastertide
21 April 2016
The Edge of Elfland
Hudson, New Hampshire

Dear Friends and Family,

My life has been a little busy as of late. Between my family, teaching online, applying for more jobs, trying to think of new projects, trying to come up with a proposal for the upcoming Patristics, Medieval, Renaissance Conference, and finalizing, sort of, things for my two forthcoming books, it’s been hard to find inspiration to write here. I tried to start blogging through Taylor’s A Secular Age and while I’m still reading it and taking notes, blogging through all 700+ pages of it feels overwhelming. That said, I am going to try harder to blog more often. So today, I’m going to give some updates on what I’m reading, what I’m doing/working on, and what I’ve got coming up.

What I’m Reading:

Along with Taylor’s A Secular Age, I’m reading Andrew Greeley’s The Catholic Imagination, which I am enjoying; Lord of the Rings; and Dante’s Paradiso. If you look at my goodreads page you’ll see several other books that are currently on the back burner. I’ll also be picking up several new review books over the next few weeks which I’ll write about here once I have them.

What I’m Working On:

So I have four main things I’m working on. First of all, I’m working on putting together an online intro theology course for Johnson University. I’m really enjoying putting this class together. Currently, I’m assigning McGrath’s Christian Theology Reader, Ron Heine’s Classical Christian Doctrine, and C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I’m also working on three possible writing projects. The first is a project on Sacramental Ontology. I’m wanting to follow on from the work of Hans Boersma and connect sacramental ontology to actual sacraments. The second is a collection of essays. I’m working on pulling together some of the things I’ve written here along with some new essays on the relationship of Faërie and theology. Finally, I’m working on a proposal for the upcoming PMR (see above) conference at Villanova. I think I’m going to propose a paper on the relationship between the bread and wine in the Eucharist and bread and wine in daily consumption in Thomas Aquinas.

What I’ve Got Coming Up:

I have two books due at the end of this month. Well actually, I have one book (as in the manuscript) due at the end of the month and marketing stuff due for another book, whose MS has been submitted, also due at the end of the month. To be more specific: The MS for my novel, On the Edges of Elfland: A Fairy-Tale for Grown Ups, is due at the end of the month to Wipf and Stock publishers. Look out for more information on that over the next few months. My other book, the publication of my PhD thesis––Being Deified: Poetry and Fantasy on the Path to God––has the rest of its marketing stuff (I can’t really claim to understand it all) is due at the end of the month as well. Both books will, hopefully, be out this Autumn at the latest. I’ll post more about it as well as time goes on.

So, that’s what’s going in my life, aside from watching my adorable children grow up, spending time with my beautiful wife, and trying to deepen my faith and work with God to prepare myself for the Beatific Vision. I hope you all are well and hope to do better by you here on Letters from the Edge of Elfland.

Until then, I remain your Elfland correspondent.

Sincerely,

David