Writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror – the three main speculative genres – face challenges that don’t trouble mainstream fictioneers. We’re supposed to strive to be original, constantly looking for a new conception, a new scientific or technological development, a new evocation of wonder or terror. The flattest and least refutable of all …
Category: love
Nov 07 2023
The Portents Look Good…
…for this recently wedded Tennessee couple: LEBANON, Tenn. (WZTV) — A Middle Tennessee couple exchanged vows on a lovely, family farm two days before Halloween. Then they had their reception with a side of hashbrowns. Eli Holbrook and Mary Cate Hedge met during high school in 2016. The Wilson County natives …
Sep 17 2023
Marriage And The Loneliness Epidemic
There have been some articles and videos on “male loneliness” recently that have struck a chord with me. (Yes, I’m male; don’t let the androgynous first name fool you.) I sense that the problem is both real and extensive. I’ve known men of all ages who suffer from it. And while there are some …
Jun 04 2023
Love And Suffering
With today, Trinity Sunday, the liturgical year continues into “ordinary time.” That’s a misleading title for this period. It’s intended to mean that we’re beyond the special season of Easter and have not yet entered the special season of Advent. Yet any part of the year in which believers practice the Christian faith is …
May 14 2023
The Death Cults’ Primary Target
…is motherhood. For them to achieve what they seek, motherhood must be defamed, made ever less socially acceptable and ever more difficult, and ultimately – dare I say it? – divorced from procreation and childrearing. Such procreation and childrearing as they intend to allow, at any rate. The campaign to part children from …
Mar 28 2023
I Don’t Know What To Call This One
At first I thought something like “Marauding Madness” would do the job, but it didn’t quite fit. Then maybe “Death Cult Chronicles,” but that seems a bit over-broad. Then maybe “Dark Gods 2023?” No, that doesn’t quite work. So call it what you like. Maybe “Fred.” *** Tuesday mornings are tough for this …
Mar 10 2023
Happiness Is
I’m wiped out this morning. Yesterday was unusually strenuous, and my night’s sleep was less than satisfactory. But I want to post something every day if possible, so I turned to my Archives in search of something my Gentle Readers might find refreshing. Long, long ago, I knew a semipro editor …
Oct 30 2022
Early Morning Thought
Edgar Allan Poe used a Greek-mythology-inspired way of expressing the comforts of home, hearth, and spouse: Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, …
Aug 21 2022
Strokes
I’d intended to write a Jeremiad about this bit of viciousness — thank you, John Hinderaker, for bringing that to my attention — but I’m just recently back from Sunday Mass, and events, or perhaps non-events, have pointed me in another direction for today’s tirade. You’re unlikely to read anything else today like …
Jul 22 2022
What Matters
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away childish things. [First Epistle to the Corinthians 13:11] A fiction writer must know what matters to the reader. But this is far easier if …
May 30 2022
Why I Write Love Stories
Yes, I’ve been asked that question…mostly by people who dislike love stories and exhort me to concentrate on other themes. I call them “romances,” because that’s the name of the genre. However, they don’t bear a lot of resemblance to typical contemporary romances. The attraction comes early, as does the commitment. There isn’t …
Feb 07 2022
The Cruelest Consequence
“Death is the price we pay for life, and for all life.” — Ursula Le Guin It is so. All that lives must die. Whether it’s by accident, disease, violence, or simply old age, all that lives must die. Realists know it. We know it couldn’t be any other way. That doesn’t …
Jul 25 2021
Gifts, Love, And Miracles
Today’s Mass reading from the Gospel of St. John told of the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes: After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. …
Jul 08 2021
For The Masculine Readers Of Liberty’s Torch
Has a woman ever betrayed you? Has a woman you’ve cherished abandoned you? Do you live with the inability to trust to this very day? Then this is for you: They think we do not value them. They think their bodies are all that matter to us. They …
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
