Ask Dee: Let the Lion Eat Straw

Over at Christian Fiction Blog I started a segment called "Ask Dee." You can email me and ask me anything related to christian literature and publishing and I would try to answer your question on the blog. I am transporting Ask Dee over here, since Christian Fiction will eventually become this sites book reviewing blog.

 

Today I received a question from Samara Joseph.

 

Hi Dee: 

 

I ran across your blog researching our bookclub's February selection,
Let the Lion Eat Straw.  Perhaps you can help me understand some of the
symbolism used in this novel. In particular, what is the signifance of Abeba's stepfather?  And the numbers?

Read here to get my answers to Samara's questions.

 

Related articles on this topic:

 Faith & Feeling: Creating Conflict

A Literary Paradise: Let the Lion Eat Straw

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Touched By Love Contest

Submission deadline: April 1, 2006

The purpose of the TOUCHED BY LOVE Contest is to inspire, motivate, and reward unpublished authors of inspirational romance. TOUCHED BY LOVE is the premier inspirational contest for the unpublished.

Eligibility: Participation is open to all unpublished authors and to any author not published in the past three years. All work must be the author's original work. Entrant must retain all rights to the entry and not have granted any of them to a publisher or other party by the contest entry deadline. The official entry form and fee must accompany each submission.

Inspirational Romance Categories: Contemporary (under 75, 000 words), Contemporary (over 75,000 words) and Historical

Click the icon to learn more about the contest.

 

 

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Dee's St. Valentine's Day Kit

For fun, today I thought I would list some of the top love stories on the web for your enjoyment, as well as my the contents of my very own Valentine's Kit, which includes movies, chocolate, poems and more fun.  

 

3 great love stories online:

1. Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubbervilles

 

An excerpt from Chapter 24(one of my favs)...

 

How very lovable her face was to him. yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never before seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow. Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But no--they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.

 

2. Edith Warton's The Fulness Of Life at EastoftheWeb

 

3. My short story, Mocha Lee.(still troubleshooting the pic)

 

My Valentine Kit must haves:

 

Click here to read my must haves!

 

 

 

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When Fiction Matters:Boycott the Movie

 

AFP/File Photo: ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) Agents sift throught what remains of the Galilee Baptist Church...

Mon Feb 13, 1:20 AM ET

BIRMINGHAM, United States (AFP) - A 10th Baptist church has been set ablaze in Alabama in less than two weeks, and authorities are searching for two men they believe are setting the fires and terrorizing the people of the southern US state.

Yesterday, I watched HBO films, Boycott. It was a memoir like account of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the Montgomery Bus Boycotts in 1955. Most of the movie is historical non-fiction, but for the sake of television drama and to create empathy for King and his relationship with Coretta Scott King some accounts our fictionalized (.i.e, the time it takes for the boycott to end has sped up, Martin's red pajama's, hanging out in a jook joint to remind citizens of the boycotts.) These little touches give the story more appeal and fiber. And our therefore, necessary.

As the mystery to the church bombings in Alabama begin to unfold, I wonder what type of story would come of this, since the churches are an equal mix of predominately black and white churches. Perhaps this is a time to extend the King's dream and united churches regardless of race.

If you have HBO, you can check out Boycott this week.  

 

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Swanson, Samson & Major Manuscript Surgery

 

Cindy Swanson has a great interview of Lisa Samson at Infuze. I pose a question related to this article at Gospel Fiction. Read Cindy's article, then come back and chime in.

Technorati Tags : lisa, samson, infuze, magazine, club, sandwhich, apples, of, God

Dee

 

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The Davinci Challenge

New website, The Davinci Challenge hosted by Sony pictures will "post essays by 45 Christian writers, scholars and leaders of evangelical organizations who will pick apart the book's theological and historical claims about Christianity.

 

Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Pasadena, California, who also "contributed an essay, "Why Christians Ought to See the Movie," said: "It's going to be water-cooler conversation, so Christians need to take a deep breath, buy the book and shell out the money for the movie. Then we need to educate Christians about what all this means. We need to help them answer someone who says, 'So how do you know Jesus didn't get married?"

-Studio gives platform to 'Da Vinci' naysayers By Laurie Goodstein.

of The New York Times

 

Some of the writers include: Hugh Hewitt, conservative radio talk show host, Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament studies and the author of Breaking the Da Vinci Code, George Barna, of Barna Research,Gordon Robertson, the son of Pat Robertson, Richard Mouw,  Charles Colson.

 

I don't know if the site is more of a propaganda piece with words like Let's Hear what the Experts Say column on the right sidebar. I understand why they chose them as experts, but I would like a more diverse group. Who? People that I respect more I guess. I'm not a big Robertson fan, so if his crew is talking I tend to not want to listen.  And Charles Colson offends me for some odd reason. But I'm glad that Christians are recognizing that this movie is worthy of a watch, since many more questions will be raised about our faith. I hope this site can give us some sort of guidance on how to butress such arguments about Christ's relationship with Mary M. I'm very knowledgeable in christian history, but there does need to be more information for the average jane out there who doesn't have an undergraduate concentration in religious iconography and art criticism.

 

Who do you think should be added to the expert list?

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A Wayward Woman Contest

 

Name three to five prostitutes or wayward women out of the bible that received grace and mercy from God. E-mail your answers to Vanessa Miller  and get entered into a drawing to win a Rain Series tote bag (so you’ll have something to carry all my books around in). And don’t forget to tell me a little bit about these women in the bible.

 

-Vanessa Miller

Rain Storm: Beautiful and lethal. Cynda Stephens expects nothing from life but the same kick in the head she’s always been given. Her hatred for life and men grows as her addictions force her into prostitution.

Keith Hosea Williams obeys God’s call to marry Cynda. But as his love begins to open Cynda’s heart in ways she never expected, her thoughts of unworthiness cause her to run away from a love she desperately wants to call her own.

Then she discovers a love even greater than the love Keith gave her. A love that has been with her all the days of her life, a love that refuses to let her go. Only then, can she receive all that God has to offer.

    Vanessa, we need to talk about this Keith Hosea Williams. Is he anything like the late, great Reverend Hosea Williams?  

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