This Week's Miscellany (09/23/23)
Book Midwife NEWS
Hi, I’m Haley! Book midwife (editor) and author. Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.
Before we jump in, for the month of September, get 20% off a paid subscription to this Substack for the next 12 months!
Typically, I feature links on a variety of things for TWM but this edition is a bit different. It was a huge week for us at Word on Fire Spark because we launched our first original title—a project that’s been in the works for 20 months!
For a book midwife, this is like when the baby finally arrives and you get to show everyone how beautiful she is.
Look at this beautiful book baby!
20 months ago I got an email from Alexi Sargeant pitching an idea for a book that was already on our wishlist. Positively providential! I found Anita Barghigiani’s incredible art and I knew she would be perfect to bring the book to life. Alexi and Anita were the most incredible author/illustrator team to work with! Helping them develop this book was my first project as an editor and with our WOF design team’s aesthetic vision for the book and support from the WOF publishing team, this book turned out so beautifully. I couldn’t be more proud to share this treasury of stories of Catholic saints and the animals who befriended them, protected them, and assisted them.
Read about the wolf of Gubbio and St. Francis, the tiger who protected Korean martyrs, the mice who listened to St Martin de Porres, the goose brought back to life by St Werbergh, and the pets of Bl. Carlo Acutis to name a few!
The storytelling is fantastic and the illustrations are gorgeous. Having been a part of the whole process of the life of this book, I am even more excited about this release than I’ve been about my own books! Grab a copy from WOF and get a free “Grigio” stuffed dog (St John Bosco’s protector) while supplies last. He’s so soft and sweet (bringing him to life was another very fun project).
The book is also available on Amazon (without “Grigio”), but it appears that they’re restocking their warehouses so the delivery date is later than if you order through WOF.
Links
I did an interview with WOF Senior Publishing Director, Brandon Vogt all about this new title and about our vision for Spark! If you’d like to know what’s ahead for us, this is a good place to start.
I also did an interview with Darnell Miller of UST-Houston’s MAXStudios about children’s literature and forming the imagination. I LOVED this conversation.
And in this interview you get to hear from the author:
Alexi Sargeant inspires young readers with heroism on Evangelization & Culture Online
When you look at the world of young adult fiction, there are pervasive themes of dystopia, cynicism, a suspicion of or contempt for parents and other authority figures, and some of this trickles down to books for younger readers. I think writing books for children in that mode is dangerous. Children need to be stirred by beauty and heroism, to develop an understanding of goodness and the ability to look at the world with gratitude. Stories can reflect the darkness they may encounter (certainly many saint stories also give us a clear look at sin!), but young readers need that baseline of what is good and what is whole.
All Creation Waits: A Review of Saintly Creatures for the National Catholic Register
A new children’s picture book, Saintly Creatures: 14 Tales of Animals and their Holy Companions, by Alexi Sargeant, demonstrates beautifully this concept of the redemption of all creation, especially at the hands of humans living lives of heroic virtue. Sargeant gives simple, but engaging, hagiographies of saints from around the globe and throughout history — each of whom had a particularly special relationship with animals. Each story is accompanied by beautiful full-colored illustrations designed by Anita Barghigiani in a collage style with vining-border illustrations of various plants showing the beauty of nature.
Reading
I finished Works of Mercy by Sally Thomas—loved it!
Just now beginning Katy Carl’s As Earth Without Water.
The Year of Jane
The final reflection for Sense & Sensibility drops this weekend! Keep an eye out for the weekly reflection and discussion question email.
Coming Soon!
-More excerpts from my recent talk on G.K. Chesterton’s detective fiction (find the first part here)
-Mini book reviews (for paid subscribers)
2024 Pilgrimage
Our pilgrimage to Belgium and Germany in 2024 is already half full! We’re keeping it small (we just love the experience of a smaller group of pilgrims). Considering how many sign ups we already have, I would advise interested parties to register immediately:
REGISTRATION NOW LIVE: Heavenly Hops Pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre to Belgium and Germany.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions at all about the trip. Let’s go to Belgium!
And that’s all folks! Thank you so much for letting me gush about this project I’ve been working on for so long. I am now sitting on my porch eagerly awaiting advanced copies of our next release which I haven’t seen in person yet but should be arriving to my mailbox any minute! #bookmidwifelife
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. And a huge thank you to Miranda, Kristen, Jill, Stefanie, and Maria for upgrading to a paid subscription. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you enjoy getting these emails, please consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription (at 20% off for the rest of September!) with the button below.
Thanks for reading!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
Those illustrations look gorgeous!
That is so true about young adult fiction. Every book recommended for my daughter at 13 seemed to be a terrible future in which bad things happen and then young people are blamed for their general cynicism and pessimism.