Dear writers,

Have you noticed that in many creative circles, and particularly in creative Christian writing circles, any mention of money is treated with some embarrassment? It’s as though suggesting pecuniary remuneration for creative work is gauche, or vaguely sinful, even.

This reaction is understandable. It’s true that making art with money as the highest priority means selling out on what it means to be made in God’s image. But it doesn’t follow that the inverse is true: it isn’t necessarily a virtue for artists not to make money.

At St. Basil’s, we want our writers’ books to be read. We want our writers’ books to be published. We want our writers to be paid enough that they’re able to continue to offer their creative gifts to readers. This is something our Dean, Dn. , talks about frequently. That’s why we spend the majority of the year helping our students hone their craft—good craft is always ground zero for success—but we also end with an introduction to publishing to help our students begin to enter the business side of writing.

Recently, Dn. Nicholas hosted a free summit for authors on “How to Run a Creative Writing Business Without Selling Your Soul.” Here’s the opening session from that summit, in which Dn. Nicholas peppers one of the most successful non-sell-out creatives of our time, Dr. , with all the tough money questions most people avoid and Dr. Martin Shaw does not squirm. Enjoy!

“I’ve always been somebody who feels rich if there’s a good bottle of wine, fresh coffee, and friends around. If there’s a good book nearby, I feel the cup runneth over. It doesn’t take much for me to feel that I live in an abundant universe. When I reflect back, even in times of tremendous fiscal poverty, I barely noticed.

“The only time I really noticed—and this will be the case for many of us—was when I became a parent. When you become a parent, you really do have bills to pay; you’ve taken on the responsibility of bringing a child into the world, and you don’t want them to feel foolish. I came from a family everybody thought of as poor. And I thought, whilst I don’t want my kid having high-faluting ideas about being rich, I don’t want this to be an issue either…”

~ Dr. Martin Shaw

Recent Publications from Our Grads

Vivian Allou, cat-toting creator of strange and magical worlds

• The Homunculus and His Scientist: And Other Stories is a collection of fantastical novelettes and short stories for fans of T. Kingfisher, Kelly Link, and Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm’s The Inheritance and Other Stories. You can purchase the book here and learn more about the author here.

Notes from Anna

Dear writers,

In our last newsletter, we shared an interview with Dn. Seraphim Rohlin on the interplay between human effort and divine inspiration in creative writing. Today, we want to share a related interview with Gasgovski, who speaks very practically about what writers need to know when they face the inevitable reality of marketing their book as well as writing it.

Peco examines the two modes of a writer’s life: one that is personal/creative/spiritual/free, and another that is public-facing/audience-building/human effort-driven/self-aware. Most writers will need to inhabit both modes. Today, Peco shares some very helpful commentary on what this tension looks like in daily life and how to be strategic about guarding your attention as you navigate between the two.

Listen Now

Teaser:

“Noise can be physical, mental, or spiritual. This is where you need to learn to be attentive to what disrupts the quietness that you need to write creatively. There’s a simple answer for how to get to a place of silence: it’s already all around us, and all you have to do is subtract the sources of noise and distraction.” ~ Peco Gaskovski

Recent Publications from Our Grads

Last month, we highlighted some recently-published works by our St. Basil graduates. There were too many works to share in a single newsletter, so we’re continuing this month with a few more. Enjoy!

From our 2025 Graduates

, environmentalist and writer repairing the rift between nature, faith and fantasy

• Beneath the Old Yew Tree, a novelette

, author of lyrical short stories at the crossroads of hope and despair

• “Tuesday at the Cathedral”, “Wednesday at the Cathedral”, and “Death of the Prodigal”, a three-part short story series

, who writes about nature, memory, and the search for home

• “The Bucket” from Clayjar Review

, author of stories that attempt to awaken both author and reader into states of wonder

• “When the Air’s Right“ from Cereal City Review and “Where is the Lamb?“ from New English Review

Sylvia Dorham, a wife and mother who writes rhymed children’s books between loads of laundry

• The Monks Stand Guard from TAN Books

Dear writers,

Much ink has been spilt over the relationship between human effort and divine inspiration, between refined technique and receptivity to the muse. I don’t have anything particularly ingenious to add to that discussion today, but I do want to contextualize the conversation that is the subject of today’s newsletter.

In his book The Matter with Things, says this of creativity:

“You can’t make the creative act happen. You have to do certain things [e.g., acquiring knowledge and practicing techniques], otherwise it won’t happen. But it won’t happen while you are doing them. They create the terms on which the thing will arise. It’s a question of how we dispose our consciousness – that is, how we attend. Attention is a creative act, and creation is really about the induction of a highly attentive state. It is like an ear that is listening and receptive, without actually having anything at all clear yet to hear. You’ve got to have some intimation of what it is that’s coming, however, because otherwise it couldn’t come. On the other hand, you can’t actually close down too precisely on what sort of thing it is, because if you do, you will undoubtedly close down on something else. It involves remaining open, and yet being able to receive something which is, in the end, quite specific and particular. (In this, it is somewhat like prayer.)”

As always, Iain McGilchrist does a phenomenal job synthesizing what exactly is happening in the creative act, particularly in how he speaks of acquiring skills, practicing attention, and at once apprehending an idea while not controlling it.

This is the preface for two related talks from our recent summit, Spiritual Renewal and the Creative Life. These talks are conversations between our Dean, Dn. , and our guests, Dn. Seraphim and Gaskovski. This month, we’ll share our conversation with Dn. Seraphim, and next month, you can look forward to the thematically-related talk with Peco.

Get ready for a narrative on discipline and inspiration, which frames Dn. Seraphim’s reading of an epic poem on “the patron saint of atheists.” In the Q&A, you’ll hear why AI is so seductive for writers (hint: it’s a synthetic substitute for prayer), why journaling is a helpful habit for aspiring novelists, and why writers sometimes need to just fly to Scotland and get on a train to Oban.

Listen Now

Enjoy!

Recent Publications from Our Grads

Last month, we highlighted some of our instructors’ recent projects for your enjoyment. This month and next, we’ll feature recent work by our grads.

From our 2023 Graduates

, award-winning poet

• “Grandfather’s Watch,” a poem published through Verily magazine, read by the author here. Learn more about Sherry here.

, award-winning author and illustrator

• A Knot Is Not a Tangle, written by Daniel Nayeri and illustrated by Vesper Stamper. Learn more about Vesper here.

A.J. Prufrock, author of thematically-rich fairy tales

• The Strange Experiment of Thuria von Mulligan, a fairy tale in the tradition of George MacDonald (recent interview here). Learn more about A.J. Prufrock here.

, author of dark academia mysteries

• Death and Devices published by Wood Between Worlds Press. Learn more about Anna here.

Dear friends,

What if writing wasn’t just that thing you do on the side, that self-indulgent hobby you feel half-guilty about since it steals your time and attention away from more practical matters? What if writing meant more than that? What if it was, in fact, central to what it means to be created in God’s image?

Granted, creativity encompasses a lot more than creative writing. It also encompasses every aspect of how we move through our days, cultivate our relationships and our prayer lives, and bring order to our physical surroundings. But for many of us, writing is the particular manifestation of our creative inclinations.

So if, today, you need to remember why you write, why the creative act is central to being human, and what it means to exercise our creative talents in a way that helps us grow from being God’s image to His likeness, I invite you to listen to ’s talk with our Dean, Dn. , from our recent Summit on Creativity and the Spiritual Life. Andrew is the founder and president of The CiRCE Institute and brings a wealth of wisdom.

On a personal note, I’ve listened to this talk three times now and am drawing deeper connections, inspiration, and insights from each listen. I think my husband is tired of hearing me preface mini monologues with, “That’s just like what Andrew Kern says!” Enjoy!

Listen Now!

Speaking of habituating a creative life, several of our instructors and graduates continue to write and publish on a regular basis. We’ve highlighted some of our instructors’ recent projects for your enjoyment below, and next month, we’ll feature work by our graduates!

Until next time,

Recent Publications from Our Instructors

New Books by

• Justice with James, the seventh and final volume in the Crime with the Classics cozy mystery series, which includes:

  • Arsenic with Austen

  • Bloodstains with Brontë

  • Cyanide with Christie

  • Death with Dostoevsky

  • Fatality with Forster

  • Hanging with Hugo

• The Ghostwriter, a novel coming from Chrism Press this August

  • When Margaret Thompson agrees to stand in for her identical twin, reclusive bestselling novelist Maeve O’Shaughnessy, in public appearances, her life begins to spiral out of control.

New Book by Jonathan Pageau

• The Tale of Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf, the fourth in a series of illustrated fairy tale retellings from Symbolic World Press. The series includes:

  • The Tale of Snow White and the Widow Queen

  • The Tale of Jack and the Fallen Giants

  • The Tale of Rapunzel and the Evil Witch

New Book by

• Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, a New York Times bestseller from Penguin Publishing Group

While the timing wasn’t the best (Dn. Nicholas’s wife was, at that very moment, giving birth to their fourth child!), the question was a genie-in-the-bottle kind of miracle.

So a week later, Dn. Nicholas called back with his wish: “I want to create the definitive workshop for intermediate writers who are on the cusp of publishing or are at the beginning of their publishing career. I want to give them the last push of craft mentorship they need to embark on or reignite their author career with confidence. And I want to do that by assembling all the best teachers I myself have learned from.”

Fr. Adam said, “Ask your teachers, your wish is my command!” or something to that effect.

So at that very hour, Dn. Nicholas called Jonathan Pageau, Paul Kingsnorth, Katherine Bolger Hyde, and Nicole Roccas. Without even deliberating, every single instructor said yes.

Five years later, we just closed our applications for 2026-2027 with a record number of applicants. But St. Basil’s hasn’t just grown quantitatively. It’s also grown qualitatively. Today, we want to share highlights of our five-year journey with you.

2021

Dn. Nicholas gets the call from Fr. Adam. He invites his dream team: Jonathan Pageau, Paul Kingsnorth, Nicole Roccas, and Katherine Bolger Hyde. Everyone says yes!

2022

Our first cohort of 12 authors shows up in upstate New York for a writing retreat that kicks off our year-long workshop. We’re still getting our sea legs under us, but we’re doing something right: this cohort goes on to meet on their own every week for a writing group and every year for their own in-person retreat. A huge tribute is due to Suzie, Dn. Nicholas’s business coach at the time, who organized and cooked for and generally championed the Workshop.

2023

Maybe because we’re teachers and not administrators, we forget something kind of important… telling people St. Basil’s exists! We only get 15 applicants and decide, rather than moving forward with applicants who aren’t at the level of craft expertise we’re looking for, to take a year off and organize ourselves. We hire Anna Vander Wall, a graduate of cohort one, as our operations director.

2024

Based on feedback from cohort one, we revamp our course curricula to improve cohesion between courses and add three new focus areas: a deep-dive on genre-specific techniques, an introduction to trade and self-publishing, and a peer critique class taught by Dr. Samira Kawash, another cohort one grad. It works! We get 52 applicants, all incredibly strong writers, and the program takes off at a new level!

2025

This program starts running itself! We have another year of 53 very talented applicants. Our St Basil grads begin to pitch their books, receive acceptance letters, and publish debut novels.

2026

We just closed our application cycle with a record number of applicants (60!), pushing our acceptance rate to 25%.

What’s next? Through the prayers of St Basil, another incredibly strong year with writers who become lifelong creative support buddies, as well as some really wonderful new novels by our grads!

Why St Basil’s? Here’s what our instructors say

“I sincerely believe this: I think that Christians hold the future of storytelling in their hands. But I think there’s a lot of work to be done for that to happen. For several generations, most Christian storytelling has been boring and ideological.

Now there are so many things happening all at once that make it possible for us to create powerful and transformative stories from the Christian point of view. It’s like a zeitgeist. It’s hard to explain. No one person is responsible. It’s just something that seems to be happening. I’m watching people like Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw convert, and I think we’re going to see a lot more of that. It’s time.” ~ Jonathan Pageau

“There needs to be a third space for writers that is not the church and is also not a conventional writers’ circle. We need this third place, almost like a playground, where you get the kind of creative space to play with what God has given you, and there are no stakes, and there is room to grow and tools to grow, and then figure out what it means to show up in the wider world with the talent God has given you.” ~

“I really like the idea of St. Basil’s. I think it’s really important. The idea of an Orthodox writing academy is a really good one, because it’s very difficult to write as a Christian without just being a ‘Christian writer’ who writes Christian propaganda that even bores Christians. No Christian wants to watch Christian films, because they’re awful, but they shouldn’t be!

It’s like political people writing boring books because they want to focus on the message and not offend anyone.

It doesn’t work like that. You have to let some wildness in. You have to be confident enough in your faith to be able to let some wildness in. So I wondered how much wildness you could let into a Christian Orthodox writing academy, but also how Christian you could be when you’re teaching nature.” ~

“Part of what’s great about St. Basil’s is that we can work with students on a more individual level so that we can guide them in the direction they want to go rather than a predetermined direction that we think is good. My impression of many MFA programs is that everybody comes out pretty much sounding the same–there’s a certain style they’re aiming toward; and the whole workshop vibe encourages that sameness because it’s like the old man, the boy, and the donkey–you’re listening to all these people telling you to do different things with your work, and it can end up homogenized and boring with all the life sucked out of it.

“The other thing, of course, is the Orthodox orientation. Writers going into any generic secular program are going to be on the defensive all the time if their writing has any Orthodox content or worldview at all. They’re constantly going to be having to say, ‘Well this is how I see the world, and it’s a valid way of seeing the world.’ And then the focus is off of improving their writing and on defending what they’re writing about. It’s extremely valuable to have a place where Orthodox writers and Christian writers in general can be nurtured within their own worldview.” ~

Sign up To Attend

Summit Schedule for February 20th

• 9 am EST: , The Place of the Logos in Art

• 10 am EST: Dn. Seraphim Rohlin, “Earth, earth on Oran’s Eyes”: My 5-year struggle to tell the story of the Patron Saint of Atheists

• 11 am EST: Gaskovski: Out of the Silent Heart: A Fiction Writer’s Voice

• 12 pm EST: Lunch Break

• 12:30 pm EST: : Q&A with Dn. Nicholas Kotar

• 1 pm EST: Michael Warren Davis: Hesychasm and the Imagination

• 2 pm EST: : The Idea Machine

• 3 pm EST: Dr. : Life According to the Holy Spirit

• 4 pm EST: : What is Art For, Anyway?

• 5 pm EST: , Q&A with Dn. on Spiritual Renewal and the Creative Life

  Get Your Link to Attend

St. Basil Applications Are Open Till February 28th!

We opened applications on January 1st—new calendar St. Basil’s day—and already have several applicants.

If you haven’t applied yet, there’s still time!

Follow this link to submit your $25 application fee and a 5,000-ish-word writing sample (fiction only). Complete short stories are acceptable, as are excerpts from novellas

and novels. Acceptance is determined by Dn. Nicholas.

Applications are open until February 28th, 2026. Students will be notified of their status by March 31st, 2026.

Apply Now

Finally, enjoy this short, personal message from our Dean about the St Basil Writers’ Workshop:

Best of luck!

Anna Vander Wall

In just a few weeks, Dn. Nicholas and his family are headed to Louisiana to spend a weekend with this year’s St. Basil’s students, who have planned their own mini retreat just to gather in person again. I wish I could join them!

I can’t tell you what a blessing it has been to watch St. Basil’s become a place where incredibly talented writers find not only their inspiration and the mentoring to refine it, but also friendships that affirm and nurture it. St. Basil has certainly had a hand in this.

In an era where we hunger to return to intimate communities in the face of internet isolation, St. Basil’s provides purposefully small class sizes and in-person fellowship. In an age where we’re barraged with an ongoing stream of information, St. Basil’s offers a dedicated space where talented writers enjoy direct mentorship from incredible writers.

Today, we invite you to join us.

Applications are now open for the 2026-2027 year. Come study the craft of creative writing with Dn. , , Paul Kingsnorth, Samira Kawash, Jonathan Pageau, and .

About the Workshop

Now in its fourth season, St. Basil Writers’ Workshop is a 9-month writing program for writers following in the footsteps of the Inklings. The Workshop begins with an in-person retreat in September, after which all courses are hosted online. Admission is capped at 15 students per year to ensure personalized mentorship and tight-knit community bonding.

Learn more

How to Apply

Follow this link to submit your $25 application fee and a 5,000-ish-word writing sample (fiction only). Complete short stories are acceptable, as are excerpts from novellas and novels.

Acceptance is determined by Dn. Nicholas. Applications are open today through February 28th, 2026. Accepted students will be notified of their status on or before March 31st, 2026.

Apply Now

Learn More

Come chat with our Dean, Dn. Nicholas Kotar, at our open house on January 15th, 8 pm EST.

Get your invitation now

In the meantime, blessed Nativity and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Anna Vander Wall

P.S. If you want to familiarize yourself with our program, take a look at our academic calendar and course curricula.

What if I told you there’s a place where you can find “your people”?

When we founded the St. Basil Writers’ Workshop in 2021, we set ourselves a lofty goal: to find and cultivate a new generation of Inklings. We live in a time of great chaos that is also a time of great opportunity. Our world is hungry for good stories. Recognizing that, we sought out the very best storytelling instructors of our time–Paul Kingsnorth, Jonathan Pageau, Nicole Roccas, and Katherine Bolger Hyde.

A few years later, we’re starting to see the fruit of our work, with several of our students publishing their own books with great success.

But guess what?

All along, there was something a lot bigger going on, something we didn’t foresee and can’t take credit for: St. Basil’s has become a place where Christian creatives find a cure for their creative loneliness.

• Our cohort one graduates live all over the US, and they still meet up every year in person for an annual writing retreat, as well as gathering weekly on Zoom to share their writing.

• Our cohort two graduates live all over the world, and they still meet up weekly on Zoom to catch up on life.

• Our current students are the first cohort scheduling regular read-alouds of their work and planning their own in-person reunion retreat mid-year!

Something is going on here, and it’s something very special. Glory to God, St. Basil Writers’ Workshop is becoming a place where incredibly talented creative writers are finding each other and spurring one another on with generosity and joy.

Yes, you can write alone and achieve success. But it’s a bit like trying to renovate a home on your own–even simple cosmetic fixes like hanging a curtain rod are far easier and faster when you’re working alongside others who share your vision and match your skill.

So if you’re tired of writing alone…

of losing momentum half-way through a project…

of not knowing what you need to do to break through to the next level of craft or how to begin thinking about publishing…

The St. Basil Writers’ Workshop may be for you.

Applications open January 1st for the 2026-2027 term!

To apply, all you need is:

• 5 minutes to complete the application.

• A credit/debit card to pay the $25 application fee.

• A 5,000-word writing sample (fiction only). Complete short stories are acceptable, as are excerpts from novellas and novels. Acceptance is determined by Dn. Nicholas based on submitted excerpts.

• Applications will close February 28th, 2026.

• Accepted students will be notified of their status on or before March 31st, 2026.

Learn More

Dn. Nicholas Kotar, Instructor and Dean

About St. Basil’s

St. Basil Writers’ Workshop is a 9-month writing program for advanced beginning and intermediate fiction and narrative non-fiction writers following in the footsteps of the Inklings. The Workshop begins with an in-person retreat in September, after which all courses are hosted online. Admissions is capped at 10-15 students per year to ensure personalized mentorship and tight-knit community bonding.

Our instructors are Paul Kingsnorth, Deacon Nicholas Kotar, Jonathan Pageau, Katherine Bolger Hyde, and Dr. Nicole Roccas.

Applications for our Fall 2026-Spring 2027 term open on January 1st!

Learn More

We’re also hosting our annual Open House on January 15th at 8 pm EST—you can sign up below!

Take Me to the Sign Up Page

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning into our live video! Join us for our next live video in the app.

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About Death and Devices

16-year-old Cole Erickson didn’t know an internship at the world’s leading AI Lab meant unearthing a warlock’s legacy… a legacy that turns out to be his own.

Cole’s life with his friends at Vendler Academy, a former Kirkbride insane asylum turned STEM school, is a haven from his absent mother and addict father. Starved for a sense of belonging at home, Cole jumps at the chance to apply for an internship at an AI Lab developing an algorithm that opens communication with the dead.

But between the Lab owner’s hidden agenda and Vendler Academy’s haunted past, Cole and his friends are plunged into a world of mystery and black magic that ends up threatening everything Cole holds dear.

The layered mystery of Piranesi meets the binge-worthy action of A Deadly Education and the heart-warming friendships of Harry Potter in this new dark academia novel for adults and young adults.

Sign up to be notified on launch!

Note from the Author

I really love this story. Maybe that sounds like an obvious thing for an author to say about their own novel, but as a recovering perfectionist and a demanding reader, the truth is I discard about 95% of everything I write. So when I say that I really love this story, that I’m very fond of my characters, and that I’m deeply proud of my plot, maybe you can glimpse the suppressed excitement of an artist who has worked relentlessly to chip away at the rough and lumpy shell of an idea until all that remains is the story itself, as it was meant to be, like a freed geode glinting in the sun.

When I say I’ve worked relentlessly, I don’t want you to think the story is pure technique. There was something wild and untamed about it from the start. When I tried to abandon it—and I tried many times—the characters haunted me in my dreams. Literally. This story wanted to be told. That’s why it took me so long to get it right—I was listening to something as close and as quiet as my own heartbeat until I could transcribe the rhythm just right.

Now, my story is yours.

Let me tell you how it came to be.

It started as a thought experiment. Like most teens of my generation, I read Harry Potter, and I was thinking about how Rowling used the classic Western understanding of man as heart, head, and hand for her three main characters, Harry, Hermione, and Ron. What would happen, I wondered, if the head was forced to be the main character, as it is in our own age of disembodied digitization? What would it look like for a head to be forced to seek holistic re-integration with the heart and hand? From there grew the story of a boy who had severed himself from his emotions and body as a survival mechanism to cope with paternal abandonment. This boy would hyper-rely on his intellect to create a world he could control and thrive in.

The next question, of course, was what it would take for this boy to confront his demon. And the answer was an encounter with a mystical world that would be alien to his intellect but familiar to his intuition.

Thus was born the story of Cole and his encounter with dark magic. For what is magic but a temptation to control our environment by manipulating the spirit world, then finding out that the spirit world is wild, that it demands its due, that even though you think you control it, it controls you. And all of this would be linked to Cole’s own ancestry, forcing him to confront his own dark past.

That is the story I wrote at 16.

But I knew the story hadn’t finished with me yet. I knew there was more to it, because my characters wouldn’t leave me alone. They kept finding me in dreams, demanding to have their story told.

The final piece of the puzzle came when I was working in tech, interviewing the executives in Silicon Valley who were at the forefront of leading the AI movement. More often than not, they spoke of their work with AI as a way to account for and control all variables of the human experience in order to eliminate suffering. They spoke with a religious fervor, a spiritual drive. And all at once, I had the missing key to my story: the counterpart to seeking control through the occult was seeking control through technology, a much more attractive and ostensibly innocuous entry point.

Interestingly enough, my favorite character was born at the same time: Bridget. Bridget is flame. She is a powerful force for good. She is overlooked and awkward in “real” life but deeply rooted in the positive counterpoint of the mystical world.

Along the way to writing this story, I drew on my love of art (I used to teach drawing and painting at a classical academy), my love of ancient mythology (as a kid, I spent hours drawing characters from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology), my love of neuroscience (seriously, is there anything cooler than neuroplasticity?!?), and my adoration of British detective fiction (thank you, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, and P.D. James for showing me how to write layered plots where every detail matters!).

The result is an approachable story that sucks you in but doesn’t make you feel like you need to go to the gym, eat broccoli for dinner, and take a shower afterwards. It’s well-crafted and perfect for re-reads. The characters are fresh, funny, and capable both of quiet heroism and of following a trail of seemingly benign compromises that lead to estrangement and despair. When you read it, I hope you will experience the mystical in the mundane, the jarring sensation of a world you think you know revealed as strange and miraculous—like seeing a childhood home by moonlight—both familiar and surprising. I can’t wait to share this story with you!

Sign up to be notified on launch!

Through the Eyes of a Cook

“How is it possible to feel nostalgic for a retreat that I’ve been to only once, for chopping veggies with dull knives, for making stronger coffee than ought to be legal? I don’t know the answer, but the time spent together in that special place with this special group of people seems somehow more precious and significant than I would have expected.

From the first arrivals (hello Brothers J!) on Tuesday afternoon sharing music and a glass of wine in the kitchen, to Bella stumbling into the kitchen each morning in quest of coffee, to Kris making us laugh until it hurt - each chat in the kitchen, over meals, or outside left me grateful to get to know the people of St. Basil’s. Overhearing the talks and lectures in bits and pieces - and better yet, the readings from the writers, I was inspired by your cohort’s commitment to craft, your curiosity, goodness, and above all the beauty and wonder and magic you are weaving in your work. As a parent and as a reader, I’m so grateful for what this cohort is embarking on. It was an honor to be a small part of this work. The world needs your stories!”

~ Holly

(Note from Anna: they say the kitchen is the heart of the home, and Holly truly made this so. Every morning our writers gathered around the kitchen for coffee and conversation or spontaneous singing while Holly finished cooking a delicious breakfast.)

Through the Eyes of a Kiwi

“I admit to some initial trepidation. New Zealand, you may recall, is slung low on the round belly of the earth, so getting to the Adirondacks took some doing. And I was there to meet fourteen strangers, for four days, in an old house in a remote spruce wood with low-key noir vibes—in spruces, no one can hear you scream. But soon, very soon, my trepidation gave way to joy and gratitude. Strangers who share a love of stories, the same quiet, urgent call to write, and a deep faith that God is somehow caught up in creative work do not stay strangers for long. Add to this great food, endless cups of coffee, walks in the woods, open fires, music, s’mores, the delight of hearing aloud what others have written and marvelling at their talents—and strangers quickly become friends. Even the noir-like isolation of the place became a blessing, a lens magnifying the rich sense of budding community. I had not realised how much I longed for good company in my writing life. I found it at St Basil’s Writers Retreat. And through it all was woven good and wise teaching on the craft of writing. I left with a journal half-filled with advice and ideas, and a fire in me to keep writing. I am so grateful I made the journey.”

~

(Note from Anna: Andrew holds the record for traveling the farthest to our retreat! We’re grateful to Andrew for facilitating great discussions, cracking hilarious jokes [ask him about “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme”], and sampling American s’mores even when the chocolate “tastes like a candle.”)

Through the Eyes of a Cake-Decorator

“Given the isolating nature of writing, it has been such a joy to meet others who can empathize with the struggle to write good fiction, particularly fiction that reflects the full palette of human experience while aiming toward hope, truth and purpose. The camaraderie found after our in-person retreat has left me feeling deeply seen, understood, and connected with not only other writers, but writers who share my world view. I look forward to the promise of mutual support, community and mutual accountability for the next nine months. I'm deeply grateful for this program, and would recommend it for any other Christian fiction writer who is dedicated to finishing their project well, and could use encouragement!”

~

(Note from Anna: Emily is a woman of many talents, including design, music, and cake-decorating! Emily is thoughtful in every sense of the word and could generally be found fostering deeper connections in small groups.)

Through the Eyes of a Campfire Crackerjack

“I was nervous about the retreat and was uncertain about what to expect. It exceeded my expectations in every way. I don’t tell many people that I am a writer and when I do, I share few details about my book, both because it’s a hard to describe to non-creatives and because I have always felt a need to protect my work from outside eyes and criticism. It was wonderful to be with a group of people who were supportive, kind and loving. I loved that we have the common language of faith directing us as we write and encourage each other. I loved our conversations about writing and the interplay of culture with our work. I left feeling fed spiritually and physically (you and Holly did a fantastic job with the food, Anna!).

Being surrounded by such tremendous talent and inspired by the lectures and introductions to the instructors has fired me in ways I did not anticipate. Deacon Nicholas, your lectures and feedback have given me new confidence and courage to tackle the work in front of me. I’m excited to sit at my desk and I’m looking forward to the classes to come. I’m mostly grateful for an introduction to a community of writers I already adore. I left invested in the work and success of everyone there and I cannot thank you enough.”

~ Ali

(Note from Anna: not only does Ali make some of the most melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever tasted, but she can also survive in the wilderness with nothing but a single match!)

News from Anna

At the end of this month, our Dean is hosting a webinar to give you industry info on today's publishing landscape and share his path to publishing for financial freedom while maintaining artistic control. He’s offering this webinar at two times to ensure everyone can attend. 

And yes, the webinar is free! 

This webinar is for you if:

• You're not yet published and want to set up a successful online business from scratch

• You're already self-published and want to improve marketing strategies for increased engagement & sales

• You're traditionally published and want to make the switch to indie publishing for increased revenue and full control of your intellectual property

Here's the link to sign up. Please do sign up, otherwise we won't be able to send you the zoom link to the session of your choice. 

Sign up to attend

See you all at the end of the month! And feel free to share with your friends. 

A Publisher for St. Basil Grads

This leads me to some other exciting news. In less than two months, our next cohort of St. Basil authors will gather for our in-person retreat in the Adirondack mountains, where students will have an opportunity to get to know one another, hear one another’s writing, learn about the year ahead, and bond over good food and storytelling… 

… before embarking on a rich, year-long journey through classes that invite them to explore their relationship with writing, see the world around them with new eyes, understand the symbolic underpinnings of successful stories, explore fiction-writing techniques used by best-selling authors and—yes!—explore which publishing path matches their particular mission and values. 

We’re accepting talented students, and we want their work to reach readers. That’s why we established Press, an independent press that publishes adult and young adult speculative fiction in the tradition of the Inklings.

We want to give our writers somewhere to go when they’re ready to share their work. While WBW Press won’t exclusively publish St. Basil grads, and while all submissions still need to be accepted by the acquiring editor, St. Basil submissions do get first priority.

If you want to learn more about how WBW Press came to be, which books we’re currently publishing, and our future plans for publishing St. Basil grads, I invite you to read our latest article.

Check it out

In the meantime, we hope to see you at one of Dn. Nicholas’s upcoming webinars for writers on How to Get Published and Make Money without Losing Your Soul!

Anna

News from Anna

Anyone who has stuck with a creative discipline over time knows there’s a pretty common creative cycle that looks something like this:

Think of a creative pursuit you’re not trained in but dabble in and realize you enjoy, say painting. At first, painting is easy and fun. Maybe your initial enjoyment leads you to invest more by enrolling in a workshop. If the workshop is any good, it isn’t uncommon for the rapid upskilling to make you conscious of everything you’re doing wrong—you can become so consumed with ensuring you’re holding your brush right, mastering perspectives through geometry, and scaling proportions properly that you forget for a time why you liked painting in the first place.

This is where it’s key to keep going. Because just on the other side of mastering those skills is a breakthrough to even deeper enjoyment. 

It isn’t uncommon for this enjoyment-growing pain-enjoyment-growing pain cycle to repeat multiple times throughout the course of an artist’s life. Sometimes, each season lasts months, even years. Other times, they alternate so quickly that you can be in “growing pain/critical brain” for the first five minutes and then flip into “enjoyment/creative brain” and back again.

So if a creative dry spell happens in your writing as a result of increased craft knowledge (and it will if you stick with writing long enough), don’t worry. It’s normal. Expecting this cycle is half the battle. 

C.S. Lewis as Critic and Creative

Over at our publishing arm, , Dn. Nicholas just spoke with Dr. Michael Ward about how C.S. Lewis managed to inhabit both critical and creative brain spaces well. You can listen to the full talk below.

Listen to the Full Talk

News from Our Graduates

Our second cohort of writers just graduated, and they’re already producing wonderful work, some of which you can read below:

“What If We Look for God’s Glory. Right Here. Right Now?” By

“Wright’s Sunken Cathedral” by Dorian Wolfe

“The Grotto King” by

We’ll be featuring more student work soon—including another very poignant short story—so be sure to subscribe to for the latest fiction from our graduates!

Read Our Fiction

Other grad news

Award-winning author and illustrator , who participated in our first St Basil cohort, has a new picture book available in collaboration with award-winning author Daniel Nayeri. You can learn more and pre-order your book here.

Until next time,

Anna

Today, in lieu of a word from our Dean, we want to offer a vignette from (excerpted from an interview with Marketing for Hippies) on depth vs. growth: 

News from Anna

Does anyone else feel like Substack is turning into this Portlandia spoof?

There are so many articles out there—and many of them are genuinely worthy of our attention—that it can be easy to feel like we’ll miss something important if we don’t read all the `stacks. 

But if we are to keep our sanity and live a life that allows us to engage with people and the world deeply, there’s nothing for it: we have to choose to be limited.

For those of us who are writers, the problem is compounded: because we need to reserve significant energy for deep creative work, we have to guard against spreading ourselves too thin. We have to guard against reading every article, taking every class, and participating in every community that may ignite our imagination or give us the missing craft knowledge to finally get unstuck with our writing. We can’t let ourselves fall into the trap of “Did you read? Did you read? Did you read?” Nor can we let ourselves fall into the related trap of producing “content” as a success metric (“Did you write? Did you write? Did you write?”).

We have to be purposefully small if we are to grow deep roots. We have to make conscious decisions to limit our focus if we are to create anything worthy of attention. To quote Martin Shaw again, “I recognize beauty in the limit of my choices as I age, because in limit I recognize depth, and depth is a doorway to beauty.”

This is why St. Basil Writers’ Workshop exists.

We are carefully curating the best advice from the best writing instructors within a small, tight-knit community of talented writers to foster the limitations you need to flourish creatively. 

Today, these curated resources focus on simplicity and trust.

Live a Smaller Life and Find Peace

What’s more anxiety-inducing than trying to know everything? Fr. Seraphim of Mull Monastery has wise words for those of us living in the internet age:

“I would much rather we all were simply humble enough to acknowledge that we cannot in any meaningful, practical way correct the world or change the world for the better. What we can do is enclose ourselves within the limits of our small lives and correct and embetter ourselves.”

If you want a glimpse of the small, focused creative community we’re fostering at St. Basil’s, you can check out our Story Hearth writing community, where our Dean, Dn. Nicholas, is currently offering a series on what it means to cultivate a lifestyle conducive to deep writing.

Until next time, writing friends.

From your resident small fry,

Subscribe now

St. Basil News by Anna

Dear friends,

Today’s quick tip list is inspired by the experience of… every author ever. Enjoy, and please comment with exercises you find helpful to add to this list!

10 Tips for Getting Unstuck When a Story Won’t Tell Itself

1. Switch POV. Yes, experimenting with a new POV can feel like you’re wasting work on words that won’t make the final cut. But you might be surprised by what’s unlocked when you try writing a scene from a different POV. Worst case scenario, you’ll receive confirmation that your original POV is right while seeing the story from a new angle.

   

2. Increase the sense of urgency: What’s at stake if your character fails, not only to achieve his overarching goal, but also to achieve the mini mile markers in each individual scene? Author and editor Susan DeFreitas breaks this down in her example on coaching a client struggling with pacing and tension. (For those focusing on revising, read the whole article—it’s gold!)

3. Play “What If?” Instead of writing your story, journal about your story. This exercise is especially helpful if you’re 1) stuck on a plot point or 2) making characters too predictable. Try writing proleptically. Grab a notebook and a pen, and ask yourself “What if?”— What if the story went another way? What if the antagonist actually succeeded at hacking into other people’s minds? What if your main character suddenly lost her cool and hurled a flower pot at her brother? What would happen next?

4. Write a scene exclusively in dialogue. Now write it exclusively in prose: Shifting back and forth here can force you into new ways of relaying information and getting to know your characters. On a related note, in Nicole Bianchi’s helpful article on writing exercises, she quotes George R.R. Martin saying: 

“I sometimes teach writing classes. And there are various exercises you can give to students. One of them is to describe a half dozen different characters. Write a speech for each of these different characters without a name tag. Just say, ‘Here’s a priest, here’s a soldier, here’s a housewife’… Invent whatever you want. Write a speech for each of them in which…they don’t give their name…just make each speech sound different from the other so you can instantly know just from the words this is the priest speaking, this is the prostitute speaking… If they all sound the same, you have a problem. They should sound different.”

Whatever you think of George R.R. Martin, this is a great exercise.

5. Shake it up: Write a poem, write flash fiction, write a letter, write a song—change up the genre you’re working in and see if something in your story breaks loose.

6. Do something creative that engages your whole body: Dn. Nicholas has talked about how adventure running inspires creative break-throughs. For me, it’s ballroom dancing. Other authors in our Story Hearth writing community swim. It’s amazing how easy it is for us to forget that getting the body moving—especially if you’re engaging in an exercise that requires creativity and elegance of form—can get the brain moving.

   

7. Phone a friend: Not all of us are verbal processors, but sometimes, talking out a plot point that’s tripping up your story can help you figure out that the problem has a different origin than you expected or isn’t as complex as you’re convincing yourself it is. (On a related note, check out our post on how to know when to share your writing.)

8. Start small: Jane Delury recommends writing a single perfect sentence.

9. Resist the urge to rewrite: Sometimes our writing is flowing just fine until we suddenly realize we need to rewrite the beginning (again) to fix mistakes. One of our St. Basil’s students recently recommended a trick for this: pacify your critical brain by making a list of things you’ll fix when you do eventually rewrite, then keep writing. Getting draft one done is your priority.

10. Set an artificial deadline: Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Douglas Adams, and several other authors famously combatted distraction by locking themselves inside a room with nothing but their writing. One way to simulate the focus you get from minimizing external distractions is to give yourself an artificial deadline like “I won’t eat lunch until I have 200 words on the page” or “I must finish draft one by October 1st.”

11. Bonus tip—inventory your lifestyle: Most of us probably don’t have the luxury of hermetically sealing ourselves within a perfectly designed writing chamber, but we can do a lot to make sure our lifestyles as a whole move toward supporting our creative work. Check out Dn. Nicholas’s free audio mini series on Cultivating the Lifestyle of a Writer.

What am I missing? What have you found to be some of the most effective ways to get unstuck? Any favorite writing prompts or exercises? Please share them in the comments!

Anna Vander Wall

Enter the Wood Between the Worlds

St. Basil News by Anna

Dear friends,

It occurred to me, as I was slithering under a thorny shrub into the foot-wide pass between my garden shed and fence trying to describe the smell of decaying leaves and feral rabbit so alluring to my dog, how strange are the things we writers sometimes do. But these strange things are the hallmark of curiosity and imagination.

There’s a famous study in which war veterans who experienced great trauma were shown a random blot of ink on a card. While most saw in that meaningless blot of ink a scene from the trauma they had witnessed, other veterans had an even more disturbing response: they said the ink blot was completely meaningless. In both cases, trauma debilitated a fundamental human organ—imagination. (Think of staring at clouds—you might see a sea dragon or a monkey or a mermaid, but rarely nothing.)

Much has been said about how imagination, the ability to step into someone else’s story, fosters empathy. And much has been said about how reading stories rehabilitates our imagination. From a writer’s perspective, my mind goes immediately to ’s class, Rewilding Your Words, in which students are encouraged not only to see through the eyes of another human, but also to see through the eyes of animals, trees, and stones. 

Some beautiful writing has come from this, and today I’d like to share it.

She Came from a Fire by Paul Kingsnorth

First, if you haven’t yet read or listened to Paul Kingsnorth’s story of St. Teodora of Sihla—narrated from the perspective of a bird!—you’re in for a treat! Better still, you can listen to Paul read it in his own voice. You may want to go outside as you listen.

Listen here

What If We Look for God’s Glory. Right Here. Right Now? By St. Basil Student Katie Andraski

“Theokritoff shows how St. Basil said it was useful to meditate on ‘the great wisdom in small things. A single plant…is sufficient to occupy all your intelligence in the contemplation of the skill that produced it’ (49).” 

Enjoy this beautiful post by St. Basil student , who shares both a reflection and a writing exercise born out of Paul’s class. 

Read now

Wright’s Sunken Cathedral

And now for some pure speculative fiction :). At , we’re beginning to share short fiction (free for now!) in addition to the books we’re publishing. 

Please enjoy this delightful short story about parallel universes, the Mad Hatter, and the wrong cat by one of the St. Basil Writers' Workshop students!

Read now

Subscribe to the Wood Between the Worlds

There’s a lot going on at Substack these days, including monthly short fiction, monthly reflections and reviews of speculative fiction by , announcements about new books, and articles on literature and the imagination by today’s great thinkers.

Come join us!

Enter the Wood Between the Worlds

Happy listening, reading, and writing,

Anna Vander Wall

A Word from Anna

Dear friends,

It’s my pleasure to introduce Samira Kawash, a good friend from my cohort at St. Basil’s who is now an instructor.

Meet Samira

Samira Kawash holds a PhD in literary studies from Duke University and is a professor emerita at Rutgers University. She is the author of Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure and Dislocating the Color Line, as well as the founder of the website Candyprofessor.com. She is a regular contributor to First Things, and her essays have also appeared in The Atlantic, Compact Magazine, and beyond. Kawash lives in Brooklyn.

How critique works at St. Basil’s

Throughout the fall semester, students are invited to submit and receive feedback from Deacon Nicholas Kotar. In the spring semester, students are encouraged to form peer support critique groups. Led by Dr. Samira Kawash, this workshop intensive helps students learn how to productively offer and receive feedback so they can form core critique groups that support their writing work for years to come.

A Guide for Writers: What the Theotokos can teach us about sharing our writing

A dear friend and fellow writer once told me that, when it comes to writing a new book, we should “be like the Theotokos who ‘kept all these things and pondered them in her heart’” (Luke 2:19).

What exactly was Mary pondering in her heart? The angel’s declaration to the shepherds: “There is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11).

These words echo in my mind whenever I’m deciding if it’s the right time to share my writing. They have me asking all sorts of questions about how these angelic tidings of good news are akin to the flash of inspiration for writing a good story, about the right time for pondering the story in our heart, and about the right time for sharing the story with a few people and then the world.

(Although the shepherds become some of the first evangelists of Christ’s advent, Christ’s time for public ministry has not yet come.) 

Anyone who has been writing for a while knows that there’s a proper time and place for “going public” with their writing and that there’s also wisdom in waiting. In fact, there’s a very real danger in exposing creative endeavors too early, too often, or to the wrong people. 

• Exposing writing too early: sometimes, when we talk about our ideas too early, we get the reward of attention and reaction, which can fool us into thinking we’ve already processed the idea without doing the work. So what happens? We move on. Social media is a prime example: it’s often a “quick catharsis” for creative impulses followed by a dopamine rush of likes and comments. But we never know what our quick and clever quip might have ripened into if held in our hearts a little longer. It might have been the germ of a full novel, but because we’ve prematurely wrenched the seed up from the soil into the light, we move on before we have the chance to find out.

• Exposing writing too often: too many cooks ruin the soup, and too many critics create a cacophony of confusion. Sometimes, even when we allow our nascent idea to ripen and mature before sharing our work, we can still lose our original vision through a type of false humility that allows readers an inappropriate influence over our ideas; this particularly happens if we involve too many readers too early and weigh all feedback equally.

• Exposing writing to the wrong people: sharing writing with the wrong people can, at best, result in ineffective affirmation and, at worse, result in evisceration that fells rather than prunes our work. Some people never write again after receiving this kind of feedback.

Nevertheless, despite all these cautionary words, there is a time and a place for inviting others into our work. The right comment at the right time from the right person can illuminate our blind spots and transform good writing into inspired writing.

How do you know when to share your writing?

Every writer will develop their own cadence for sharing work, but here are some guidelines many writers find helpful:

Zero and first drafts — these are private; you’re figuring out what you’re trying to say, and you don’t really need another opinion when you haven’t yet formulated your own.

Second and third drafts — involve trusted beta readers (generally 2-4) and/or a good developmental editor.

Fourth — involve a copy editor.

Fifth — involve a proof reader; open to ARC readers.

Publish and share with the world!

How do you know who should read your writing?

I’ve heard it said that the people we allow a voice in our lives should be those with whom we’ve established mutual respect, trust, and love. I see no reason why the same shouldn’t follow in the creative sphere. 

More specifically, I’ve found the advice helpful that you should look for readers who can fill these distinct roles:

1. A critic who knows your genre and the craft well and whom you can trust to be honest about where your work falls short.

2. Someone who “gets” your vision and will keep you honest about when you’re on track and when you’re deviating from it.

3. A cheerleader who believes in you as a writer and will encourage you when the going gets tough, as it inevitably will.

How do you know what to share and how to share it?

There is a lot that goes into becoming the type of reader who can offer helpful feedback and the type of writer who can process feedback constructively. In fact, that’s why we have a workshop on giving and receiving feedback at the St. Basil Writers’ Workshop.

If you want to know more, you may just have to apply ;). Applications are still open until February 28th, so be sure to submit today and spread the word to your writer friends!

Apply today!

All you need to do is submit a $25 application fee (using the link above) and email a 5,000-ish sample of your writing (fiction or narrative non-fiction) to Dn. Nicholas Kotar a nkotar@stacollege.org. 

You can learn more about our program here. 

Best of luck!

Anna Vander Wall

Dear writers,

For those who don’t yet know me, permit me a brief introduction: I’ve been working behind the scenes of St. Basil’s as Operations Director for about a year and a half now. Coming from the work world of interviewing Silicon Valley tech execs about AI, the opportunity to invest myself in nurturing St. Basil’s has been an immense joy.

Outside St. Basil’s, I am an iconographer, poet, and sacramental dark academia writer whose work hints at the secret mysticism of places, relationships, and embodied beliefs. I enjoy ballroom dancing, reading good books aloud, experimenting with new bakes, and walking my Goldendoodle Goldberry while we observe the small changes of the trees and sky in my neighborhood. Should you desire, you can learn more about me here.

Having received so much from St. Basil’s myself, I hope you all consider applying. I can think of few better ways to hone your craft and find your people.

Apply Today!

“I sincerely believe this: I think that Christians hold the future of storytelling in their hands. But I think there’s a lot of work to be done for that to happen.” ~ Jonathan Pageau

This work is exactly what we’re trying to do at St. Basil’s. If you want to join us, please submit your application by February 28th!

Apply Now

Recording: Open House 2025

Our 2025 open house recording is now available!

Learn about our applications, our instructors, our classes, our in-person retreat, and our new publishing arm: Wood Between Worlds Press.

Article Spotlight

It may be comforting for writers to know that the works we now uphold as gold standards faced a good deal of criticism in their time. Did you know that Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was criticized for having black and white characters and for being unrealistic? 

Lewis’s response to these criticisms leaves us with many gifts: 

1. A compelling defense of myth;

2. A reminder of what a boost it can be for author friends to support one another; and

3. Some stellar quotations like, “The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’”

You can read Lewis’s full article here, but keep in mind that the wonderfully meaty bit comes in the last two paragraphs. 

Book Recommendation

Sometimes, in our haste to know all, we forget to know deeply. Thankfully, Lewis once again comes to our rescue by reminding us:

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.”

So consider this your permission to re-read one of your favorite books.

If you’re hampered by “the veil of familiarity” and want to experience the story afresh, consider reading it aloud with your family and attend to how the story takes on a richer meaning when you experience it through someone else’s voice. After all, what else are cozy winter evenings for?

Happy listening, reading, and writing!

Anna Vander Wall

If you’ve ever wondered why St. Basil the Great is the patron of our program, allow me to tell you!

Although I might be preaching to the choir here, you might not be surprised to know that one of the most common questions I get from readers is how Christians are supposed to relate to fiction in light of the supposed Patristic interdiction against fantasy, against “creating images in our head.”

People who ask this question assume that there’s a kind of “Patristic consensus” that, at best, discourages reading anything not religious or, at worst, relegates all reading of fantasy to a special region of the Inferno.

Such people might be surprised to hear St. Basil, in his “Address to Young Men on the Proper use of Pagan Literature,” say that young men should read the classics (some of which are just as fantastical as The Lord of the Rings) even before they approach the Scriptures!

(Scandalous!!!)

He offers examples of Moses and Daniel, and how they each became proficient in the pagan wisdom of their respective empires, suggesting that this was a path for us to emulate, not revile. 

Essentially, his point is that reading good fiction, poetry, and philosophy allows us to see the searing truths of Scripture (which are as bright as the sun) like the reflected sun in a pool of water. By first becoming accustomed to seeing it this way, we can gradually become more and more ready to stare at the sun directly. 

And that’s only scratching the surface of his profound argument, which I break down in more detail in this post. 

That’s right. We don’t shy away from discussions on what it means to engage the imagination in the way God intended – this is why St. Basil is our patron saint. Fittingly, we’re opening applications for our next cycle on his feast day on the new calendar  – January 1st!

Applications Open in Two Weeks!

Don’t forget! Applications for the St. Basil Writers’ Workshop 2025-2026 open on January 1st. Start prepping your 5,000-word writing sample today!

If you want to learn more about how the in-person retreat and the courses are structured, I invite you to save your spot at our open house on January 21st, 8 pm EST. 

Sign up now!

Article Spotlight

Is speculative fiction really important enough to spend time reading and writing? Why waste our time indulging in fantastical worlds? Don’t the church fathers warn against flights of fancy?

The answers to these questions aren’t so clear cut, but using St. Basil’s “Address to Young Men,” I outlined a defense for reading and writing speculative fiction in this article for Wood Between Worlds, a new venture that publishes this generation’s Inklings. (Keep your eyes open for exciting announcements about new authors we just signed!)

Read here

Book Recommendation

Because we’re celebrating our program patron, St. Basil, in this newsletter, I have a treat for you! You can read the full text of his “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature” for free here:

Read St. Basil's Address

Storytelling Talks

You can’t have too much St. Basil, right? This talk by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Richard Rohlin is a wonderful accompaniment to St. Basil’s address above, providing an approachable explication and application of the text:

Watch here

Just in case you couldn’t tell how very important I think it is for Christians in our generation who want to renew a Christian culture to be familiar with St. Basil’s line of thinking…

Come listen to me talk about it live for The Great Tales on January 2nd! I’ll also speak about our program at St. Basil Writers’ Workshop, so if you’re interested in applying, you’ll want to stop by!

Happy listening, reading, and writing!

~ Deacon Nicholas

After I took ’s course Rewilding Your Words in 2019, not only did I publish my first poem, but I also feel connected to the natural world in a very real way, which has made the setting of my stories more of a character than a backdrop. That’s why, when I started St. Basil Writers’ Workshop in 2022, I knew I wanted to ask Paul to be an instructor.

So I was already excited for our students to start his course today…

… but then I caught a glimpse of Paul’s new syllabus, and all I can say is, this year his course is going to be very special!

Paul has kept the roots of the course the same, but he has reframed the content and reading material with a Christian focus. Let’s just say that I am very eager to watch this new course unfold. Our St. Basil students are in for a treat!

Here’s what Paul says about his course:

“I really like the idea of St. Basil’s. I think it’s important to have an Orthodox writing academy because it’s very difficult to write as a Christian without just being a ‘Christian writer’ who writes Christian propaganda that even bores Christians. It’s like political people writing boring books because they want to focus on the message and not offend anyone. 

It doesn’t work like that. You have to be confident enough in your faith to let some wildness in. So I wondered how much wildness you could let into a Christian Orthodox writing academy, but also how Christian you could be when you’re teaching nature.”

Join the Next Generation of Inklings

Don’t forget! Applications for the St. Basil Writers’ Workshop 2025-2026 open on January 1st. Start prepping your 5,000-word writing sample today!

If you want to learn more about how the in-person retreat and the courses are structured, I invite you to save your spot at our open house on January 21st, 8 pm EST. 

Sign up now

Article Spotlight

“To the Lani, I learned later, the forest lived. This was no metaphor. The place itself, in which their people had lived for millennia, was not an inanimate ‘environment’, a mere backdrop for human activity. It was part of that activity. It was a great being, and to live as part of it was to be in a constant exchange with it. And so they sang to it; sometimes, it sang back.”

Eight years ago, Paul wrote an article for The Guardian titled: “We imagine how it feels to be a character, why can’t we imagine how the land feels?”

I imagine Paul might have written this article with slightly different framing since his conversion to Christianity, yet the essence of his article is rooted, researched, and very much worth a read. It also provides an intriguing glimpse into his course at St. Basil’s.

Read now

Book Recommendation

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeline L’Engle is a wonderful series of meditations on the life of a writer who is also a deeply committed Christian.

In her own words:

"As I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. It is what makes me respond to the death of an apple tree, the birth of a puppy, northern lights shaking the sky, by writing stories."

Buy now

Storytelling Talks

Paul Kingsnorth’s Erasmus lecture, “Against Christian Civilization,” is the talk of the town. If you haven’t listened to it yet, go do that right now. 

Listen now

As I was reflecting on this talk and Paul’s course at St. Basil’s, I realized that both underscore the importance of telling the right kind of story at this cultural moment. (And for those of you who watch the talk, you’ll know “the right kind of story” doesn’t mean the kind that sets out to save the West or something. No one wants to read a story that’s poorly-disguised propaganda.) 

There is a very real difference between Christian civilization and Christian culture. The first is militant, the latter transformative. It’s the latter we’re interested in at St. Basil’s, and a key component of Christian culture is good storytelling, stories that cut past all the agendas, all the noise, and awaken our hearts to see Christ in one another and the world around us. So let’s tell better stories.

Happy listening, reading, and writing!

~ Deacon Nicholas