if i were discussing this book: "god is dead" and i don't feel so good myself

in my transition from the college to post-college life, i responded to the decreasing frequency of late night musings and existential inquiry by instead spilling my thoughts online. strangely enough, the e-place that i most frequently turned to for ravenous debate was englishforums.com, a website where moderators and well-meaning amateurs helped ESL speakers tackle this great monster we call english. and so when i got bored answering grammar riddles, i wandered into the controversial subjects forum.

yet rather than argue for my own causes, i ran to the side of perspectives that seemed, to me, falsely maligned. perhaps because of the vitriolic, one-sided tenor of argument that is a universal fact of the internet, or perhaps because of some innate character flaw, or perhaps because of the empathy-inducing influence of fiction and the gospel, whatever the cause, in between offering advice on commas and prepositions, i ignored my own quest to prove that mormonism wasn't a subset of christianity, for example, to prove that catholicism was (clarification: i'm not catholic).

this tendency for counterintuitive apologetics has, i think, found its way into my real-life character as well. at many a cousin-camping trip, i've stood at the fire, defending catholic theology to my fellow protestants. i campaign for liberal causes among my conservative friends, and conservative causes among my liberal friends.

and now, with the help of my fellow editors, chris keller and jon stanley, i've taken the ultimate crazy step: i've published a book that uses analytic essays, social commentary, poetry, interviews, and art to ask what we christians can learn from atheists. that is, how can christian theology approach atheism, that very concept that seems opposite and anathematic to christianity?"

my intentions are a bit different here--i don't intend to argue that atheists have been misunderstood--but they are related. as we suggest in our introduction, the cultural conversation surrounding new atheism and christianity has become a great swelling of voices, so loud and so self-righteous, that there's no space for quiet, compassionate consideration.

in any case, i encourage you to check out our book, "god is dead" and i don't feel so good myself: theological engagements with the new atheism, and see what you think.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

this is clearly a 17/17 read! OK, OK, you probably shouldn't trust me. i'm a bit biased by the fifty cent royalty for every thousand or so copies sold. look at the website below to see what brian mclaren says about this "brilliant book," or how james k. a. smith refers to it as a "stunning collection" and an "intellectual feast."

you can purchase and read about god is dead here (where it's cheaper than at amazon!).

introductions

when you manage a quarterly journal, there are certain things you must do. here’s the business of acquiring and editing pieces, the glamor of email and conference calls, and the madness of deadlines and missing persons. there’s also the matter of finding funding so you can pay your writers and staff and generally stay afloat, if you’re into that kind of thing.

and then there’s the issue introduction, the editor’s preface, or the editorial statement—call it what you will, but someone must write something that sets the tone for the issue.

it must be catchy and yet reflective. it must make readers swoon, stir their tea with intrigue and delight, keep reading. and it must be left to the very last moment.

at some publications with which i’m familiar, this means an essayist of considerable means will sequester himself in a hotel room, order room service and some smokes, and then emerge last-minute with perfect, shining prose.

i assume that, give or take the hotel food, this is pretty standard practice among literary quarterlies. but at the other journal, we strive to ever greater lengths of editorial chaos. we have no go-to-girl, no pre-appointed all-star ready to tap the keys in the last hour. in past issues, our introductions have been written by our editor-in-chief, our managing editor (me), and even a team effort crafted by our entire staff.

and as usual, in the last hours before the launch of our latest issue, a great question mark hovered over the world. would we have an introduction? who would write it? what would it say?

it turned out that, no, we would we not have an introduction—we would instead have two introductions, and they would say very different things.

you can find the one introduction to save all introductions here. It was selected because it better addresses our vision of what we hope to say in this issue, because it clearly frames a touchy topic, race, in the context of theology and life in america.

in contrast, the unused version, my version, is patched together from some flailing metaphors that hope to disguise my cluelessness concerning race and how it pertains to these questions of life and theology.

still, there must be a place for andrew's racey rubble. oh, right, this blog—

photo: andrew david. "the fog and introduction." logan pass, glacier national park.

my new book!

hey, everyone, i edited my first ever book! you can (please) buy it here or ask buy it directly from me.

and to add to the thrill of having a book published, image journal featured our book in their newsletter. whoohooo!

check it out:
Remembering the Future, edited by Chris Keller and Andrew David

Remembering the Future is a selection of works published in the last three years by The Other Journal, an online journal at the intersection of theology and culture. Included in the anthology are poems by the likes of Luci Shaw, Marjorie Maddox, and Paul Willis, interviews of contemporary thinkers such as Lauren Winner, Brian McLaren, and Charles Marsh, and essays on everything from genocide to pop music (including a piece by music writer and former Image intern Joel Hartse). The anthology charts a course across human transgression—poverty, rape, violence, genocide—into the iconography of contemporary culture—Borat, Britney Spears, reproductive technology, the ONE campaign. The book will naturally appeal to readers with a theological bent, but it does not remain in the realm of mere ideas. Rather, its contributors are interested in the ways that theology is incarnated in real life, here and now—in family and community; in politics, economics, and education; in works of social justice; and in art, literature, and music. In the preface, the editors articulate their vision that “authentic, redemptive Christian practice requires double-vision, that is, thoughtful engagement with both the biblical tradition and the cultural moment.” From a broad spectrum of creativity and theology, this anthology encourages us to rethink our comfortable paradigms in light of such thoughtful engagement. The contributors, including voices from the emergent church and the evangelical, Catholic, and mainline traditions, are not always in agreement with each other, and many of the pieces are provocative—a testimony to the diversity of perspective that The Other Journal values. The opening poem by Luci Shaw, “A Few Suggestions for an Insubordinate Idea,” sets the tone for the whole book, which seeks to goad and stir, to “fling / a glitter of ash over the ocean, pocking it like rain. / Ignite a burning bush. Transfix the universe. Then,”—and here’s the beauty of what Remembering the Future does—“having found a mind of your own, come home. / Burrow my brain. Be one of a neuron couplet / that breeds a host of your own kind.”

Click here to buy the book.

my vocation

10/18/07

i sometimes wonder about the utility of my vocation. if society is sucked down the tubes of economic ruin, my job would be one of the first to go. if the global market crashed, my wordsmithing skills and knowledge of grammar would make me an eloquent beggar, but a beggar i'd be. and when i'm feeling doubtful about my career path, these thoughts make my skills seem insignificant: i don't have a practical skill, i think, i can't build houses, kill deer, or fix automobiles. i can't heal insomniacs, calculate foreign tax returns, or operate an oil refinery.

i'm not sure where i was going with that--in fact, one of the labels for this post was originally "soccer"; i don't know how that fits in--but i suppose it's all true. if you think of maslow's hierarchy of needs (remember, that pyramid from your freshman psychology class), art is somewhere at the top. but does that mean that my intended profession is less valuable than the professions that may occupy the bottom? or, conversely, does that mean that my intended profession is more valuable than the professions at the bottom? does it matter?

some thoughts on quotation marks and italics

+updated 6/19/08+

I wrote this for another context, but I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd bore the world rather than just my colleagues.

As you may know, my day job is as an editor for a university. In this position I work for a bunch of academics, and over the last five years I’ve developed the bias that many academics are not great writers.

This is compounded by a few factors.

First, the overarching goal of most academic writing is not the creation of good writing, it’s the generation of new ideas, or if I’m a bit less generous, the goal is to sound smart and innovative. Thus, academic writing is by its very nature flush with field-specific terminology and verbosity.

Second, because academics are bright and successful within their field, many seem to naturally assume that they are also good writers. Actually, this is probably true of non-academics also, but in my department, I’ve found that it takes a long time for the higher level faculty to seek editorial assistance. But they all need help, and once I find my way to their manuscripts, they hardly ever bat an eye if I swap some quotation marks for italics or make a few nouns roman type (I suppose they’re usually too busy!).

Likewise, I think the academics that write for nonprofit theology journals could use some help, and I doubt they’ll really care if lowly journal editors assert their will on matters of emphasis. But if they do care, such editors have the big guns in their arsenal: (1) they’re using CMOS, the king of style since the early 1900s—it happens to be the stylebook of most book publishers, the stylebook of most scholarly work in the humanities—and as far as writing style is concerned, CMOS is like the US constitution, and the journal editors are the Supreme Court; (2) they’re attempting to keep all of our articles consistent, so an author could be consoled that there’s nothing wrong with their style, they’d just like it to match the rest of the issue’s content; (3) they’re attempting to make their content relevant to a larger audience than just other theologians; (4) they’re an interdisciplinary journal with a creative writing section, so unlike other theology journals, great writing will never take a backseat to great theology; and (5) even if the author is a big name that they just have to publish, they are still the one’s pulling the strings, so authors are really beholden to their editorial decisions.

My perspective is that academics, especially in the humanities, attempt to compensate for their lack of writing genius by using artificial means of emphasis like the quotation mark. In most instances, a word can be emphasized naturally in the sentence or paragraph construction without stooping to quotation marks or italics. Moreover, by making sparse use of this convention, words that are set off by italics will stand out more. Also, many writers seem to use (or overuse) quotation marks for ironic use (see CMOS 7.58) when it really doesn’t make much sense.

So given that it’s generally best to trim a manuscript of excess italics and quotation marks, here are the guidelines that I'd recommend for a theology journal:

• Foreign words unfamiliar to readership = italics
• Emphasis (try to avoid) = italics
• Terms, words used as words, letters used as letters = italics
• Nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense (try to avoid!) = quotation marks

Of course, ultimately, the author is always right. Editors can usually get away with enforcing matters of style, but if there’s an impasse, an editor's only options are to give in or reject the piece.

letter to you!

April 1, 2008

Dear Everyone I Know:

Baseball’s had its opening day (Hooray, Bedard!) and the calendar says April, but I’m not yet convinced that it’s spring. Yesterday I dashed through the VA parking lot in a big fat hail storm, and just last Friday my coworkers were leaving work at noon to avoid icy roads and the promise of snow—what’s going on? This is Seattle, the land where clouds and sun play peek-a-boo all spring long, the home of drizzle, not snow.

So since I’m in a wintry mood, I thought I’d send a Christmas letter of sorts, an annual holiday update but with a twist (WARNING: that twist means that I’m asking you for something).

I think that people usually start these letters by describing the highlights and lowlights of the year:

THINGS I DID
I founded a soccer team. During the first season we were known as The Others, but after a season of soul-searching, we changed our name to the Powerhouse Penguins. We’ve even won a game!
I performed in a Sufjan Stevens cover band and a Backstreet Boys karaoke group.
I contacted my legislature and governor about various SuperSonics related issues, got cynical about their lack of response, and haven’t yet contacted them about Darfur.
I wrote several book review blurbs that were published in ImageUpdate, dozens of blog entries, two pages of an in-progress novel, and a few articles about Alzheimer’s research.

PLACES I VISITED
New York City, NY: Beth and I attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference and visited with Matt and Jacinda Basinger.
Ocean Shores, WA: I celebrated my birthday in the penthouse at the Gray Gull with a dozen or so of my friends.
Belize: Beth and I joined my parents and grandparents in a Belize adventure. I have some great memories from the trip, and it was good to be able to travel with my Grandpa one last time before he passed away in October.
Portland, OR: I made several trips to visit my parents for holidays (e.g., Thanksgiving), Pietros Pizza fun, and Powell’s Books.

MY NEW FAVORITES
Book: Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy
Food: Indian curry

OK, so now the twist.

As you may know, I’ve been working as an editor for the University of Washington (UW) Department of Psychiatry for a few years now. It’s interesting work—I’ve learned a ton about schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease—and they even paid for me to get a certificate in editing from the UW, but I’ve been hoping for something with a little less statistical genetics, something a bit more creative.

Then, in August of 2007, I was invited to join the staff of The Other Journal, an online quarterly that explores matters of faith in the context of art, culture, social justice, and theology. The journal aspires to be a meeting place between the academic and the popular, and they publish essays; book, film, and music reviews; visual art; blog posts; and creative writing. They asked me to edit their upcoming print anthology and the Imagination section, a hub of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Since then we’ve published an issue on psychopathology (“Virtue, Sin, and Psychosis in the New Millennium”) and an issue on atheism (which is currently ongoing), and I’ve had the opportunity to work with a great collection of amazing writers and poets. I even got to meet poet Luci Shaw, who was shocked to find that I was a twentysomething rather than a bespectacled old scholar in a tweed suit.

Now, I said that this was something of a Christmas letter. That’s because I’m kind of asking you for a Christmas gift.

The Other Journal is a non-profit organization, staffed primarily by volunteers (and people like me, working at about a buck an hour) whose work is made possible by the generous financial contributions of our readers. They hardly pay me, but I’m excited nonetheless. The experience is great and I think we’re publishing important content that needs to be seen—check us out at http://www.theotherjournal.com/. Therefore, I’m asking that you consider giving to The Other Journal.

We would use your contribution to help fund the continued work of the journal and to increase our ability to impact the world. This month, for example, we plan to attend the Faith and Writing Festival at Calvin College, an important gathering of leading voices in the exploration of faith, writing, and culture. The Faith & Writing Festival represents a unique opportunity to promote The Other Journal by hosting an exhibit and networking with publishers and writers. The conference will also allow our team of editors to meet from across the United States to refine our focus for the upcoming year.

Your contribution would also help run a series of films, lectures, and panel discussions called Film, Faith, and Justice. Last year we joined with the organization Human Rights Watch, to have the festival at the UW campus, where over four days we drew more than 1,800 participants from Seattle’s eclectic community of activists, students, academics, videophiles, and people of faith.

We need your support; all donations to The Other Journal are tax-deductible.

We are accepting online donations through the Mars Hill Graduate School donations page (https://www.mhgs.edu/af/donate.asp); in the Gift Information section, be sure to write the following:

apply my gift to OTHER
if other: The Other Journal

Donations, made out to “Mars Hill Graduate School” with TOJ/AD in the memo line, can also be sent via snail-mail to The Other Journal at:

The Other Journal at
Mars Hill Graduate School
2501 Elliott Avenue
Seattle, WA 98121

Thank you for reading my letter and considering supporting The Other Journal.

Cheers,


Andrew David
The Other Journal

PS I’m also hopeful that this working-nights-and-weekends gig might eventually turn into a more legitimate part-time job, and if we do really well at getting donations, that might be a possibility.

the good news and the bad news

the good news
my soccer team won 4-1 last night! whoohooo!

in addition to my research editor position at the VA, i am now working as the creative writing editor for the other journal, an online quarterly that publishes essays, reviews, and creative writing that investigate theology, culture, and social justice.

and it gets even more exciting. for its ninth issue birthday, TOJ received a great big check from mars hill graduate school (not to be confused with ballard's mars hill church). this financial support is a sign that TOJ is growing, and with this growth in mind, the TOJ editors are making matters of style, punctuation, and writerly perfection a priority. therefore, becky (the former creative writing editor and new master copyeditor) and i get to establish (and enforce) a house style. this may sound daunting or even painful, but the creation of editorial guidelines is really a copyeditor's dream come true.

the bad news
you've probably noticed that the 17 point scale content has been scarce recently. well, get used to it. because of soccer and TOJ, i don't really have much spare time for blogging. i'll try and keep the numeric book and film ratings up-to-date, and i may occasionally post reviews (e.g., i have an in-progress review of cormac mccarthy's border trilogy that i hope to publish one day) or life updates, but don't expect many of my signature quirky reflections or picture captions.

someday the 17 point scale may return, but in the meantime, i won't be hurt if you stop visiting or change your homepage to some other blog.

send me an email (sparklinandrewivories@hotandrewmail.com but remove the andrews) or leave me a comment if you're interested in hearing directly about future incarnations of the 17 point scale.

-andrew


andrew david. "the setting point scale" ocean shores, wa.

faking the news

as many of you know, i work as an editor for the UW department of psychiatry. as the only editor in my department, i wear many different caps. one day i'm the copyeditor and the next day i'm rewriting an entire manuscript. in the morning i may find myself navigating the obscure nuances of the question mark and then return from lunch early to teach exasperated faculty to use endnote, the handy reference manager that makes citations a breeze. but apparently there wasn't quite enough variety to my day.

earlier this week i received a phone call. "we've found something for you to do during your down-time."

"oh?"

"we'd like you to create a newletter."

"oh."

after meeting separately with four MIRECC heads of state, i determined that they actually want me to develop three or four newsletters, each with a different audience and slightly different content. and get this: they envision me toting a tape recorder to work so i can interview the top brass for the lead stories. that's right, the newest incarnation of andrew the editor will be as reporter, writer, and designer. yikes! i'm not sure what i think of this; several adjectives have crossed my mind--interesting, cumbersome, challenging, harrowing--but the overwhelming thought is something like "what the crap do i know about newsletters?"

anyway, if you have any newsletter advice, feel free to leave me a comment.

don't hold your breath

i hope post something soon, but it could be a few nights. i'm trying to finish a book blurb by thursday morning (errr, i haven't finished the book yet) and i may do some freelance fiction editing with a rush deadline of october 15th. in the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions of how much i should charge for copy editing? g--- w---- (editor of i----) recommended $35/hour and these websites seems to quote rather similar figures: http://www.writersmarket.com/content/howmuch8.asp; http://njcreatives.org/members_only/reference/how-much.htm; and http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/45813.

the decision
I think I've been so focused on GRE minutia that I neglected to consider thebigger picture -- like what programs I would most enjoy, how I might fare in anacademic environment that sounds a bit cutthroat (rather than the cuddliness ofSPU), and whether I'm prepared for the dismal job prospects that I'd face afteryears of tough study (its supposably quite horrible; i have no stats, but various websites report that 1/20 English PhDs can find work as college professors -- that's scary!). Moreover, outside of work, I'm not much good at juggling bricks; that is, my 'to do' list is so long and unwieldy that I'm afraid I might crack under its weight (choose schools, craft personal statements, conjure up an amazing writing sample [that's thick with post-modern literary criticism, something i don't much understand], study for the literature GRE, etc, etc, etc).

Soooo...I'm going to spend the next year sorting this out and pursuing my othervocational interest: editing. After all, I have 2+ years of technical editingexperience, and, in contrast to English professors, the employment rate foreditors is expected to parallel the national employment average rather than sit stagnantly below it (per the US Department of Labor). If I can find (and enjoy) a job working for a publishing company or an interesting magazine of some sort, perhaps I'll forego graduate school.

a. the dilemma (of how to get from a to z, that is, of what to do in life and of how to pare that vocation down to the simplest possible terms)

b. THE PRESENT
c. andrew likes to write in books.

d. he likes to analyze what he reads in terms of content. he especially likes works with brooding protagonists or characters that are forced to confront the crazy wildness within. if books have a theological bent (rather than religious bent), andrew likes that too.

e. he likes to analyze how authors approach the craft of writing. he especially likes books that approach their subject matter with unobtrusive personal metaphors. in this sense, he likes writing that is poetic. if books swap poetry for the colloquial voice of a particular time & place (like say 'the poisonwood bible,' 'the catcher in the rye,' or anything by william faulkner), andrew thinks it brazen and lame. perhaps this makes him a bit of an odd language snob.

f. in a related fashion, andrew likes to edit. he likes to tear apart sentences, paragraphs, and manuscripts. perhaps this curious delight represents an attempt by andrew to press his aesthetic ideals on others. in any case, andrew thinks that he has a good ear for language. plus, he likes grammar.

g. andrew may like to write. he's not sure. but once its written, he certainly likes to edit it.

h. andrew likes to learn. traditionally, he has both enjoyed school and done very well.

i. THE FAR FUTURE
j. andrew could see himself enjoying the following careers: teacher and editor.

k. as a teacher, andrew would enjoy helping students illuminate life-changing texts. however, he's not entirely confident that he would measure up to the standards of insight required of collegiate professors. he wonders whether he could pull enough thoughtful content from a work to spark discussion or merit classroom respect. moreoever, andrew believes that books are important, but feels like a bit of a stoic when it comes to his response to books. like other 'deep' things in his life, andrew sometimes feels a static admiration for the sublime meaningfulness of a passage but never experiences the actual passionate response. again, andrew questions whether this might be an obstacle for enlightening students.

l. perhaps andrew's favorite part of teaching might be the opportunity to impact student writing. during his time at the spu writing center and in freelance editing,andrew encountered a lot of potentially good writing that was just plain crappy. with a tweeking, these writers could be fine. andrew thinks he would enjoy editing student papers and working with students to improve.

m. but andrew would not like playing the role of baby-sitter. he might have difficulty contending with students that lack interest in his class.

n. if andrew wound up teaching at a high school, he would want a piano in his classroom.

o. as an editor, andrew wouldn't have to put up with apathetic students. on the otherhand, he might also miss the hands-on nature of the editing that he has hitherto experienced. this could be difficult. moreover, it might take a bit of work before he reached a position where he was editing material that he found personally significant. and once he reached a position where he was editing material he really enjoyed, would he get bored of it?

p. THE NEAR FUTURE
q. to be a teacher, andrew would need to pursue a masters or phd (or both).

r. why andrew is worried about this:
http://gradschool.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.upenn.edu%2Fcareerservices%2Fgradprof%2Fgrad%2Fgradenglish.html
http://gradschool.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cas.suffolk.edu%2Fenglish%2FGRADSHOP.HTM

s. so, we see that the road to a degree (800 pgs of reading a week) and job prospects for wanna-be english profs are tough.

t. andrew is also worried by the competively esoteric nature of grad school. this may be because he feels unprepared for the intense submersion into critical theory that may await him. andrew once claimed that there are no geniuses. while this claim was 90% silliness, he actually had a tablespoon or two of belief invested in it. now, he is surprised to find himself INTIMIDATED by the cerebral giants that lay in the shadows of grad school.

u. ack! andrew feels so stinkin rushed. if he pursues his initial plan of fall 2006 enrollment, he would have to study for the lit gre (where he needs a kick-butt score in order to overcome his less-than-amazing ordinary gre score), decide on schools and programs (that is, find attractive programs that can be reasonably expected to say 'come on over drew'), prepare forms for professor recommendations, find an insightful writing sample that is drenched in literary theory, prepare applications, and compose a heart-wrenching personal statement -- all in about a month!!!

v. ALTERNATIVE PLAN
w. finish work at the va in august 2006

x. during the intervening months thoroughly explore my employment options in the editing field. sign on with a publishing company or speciality journal. if nothing else, volunteer for beth's tutoring program.

y. and spend the next 12 months studying for the gres, perfecting a personal statement, scouring grad school programs for that perfect match, and then applying early.