The Lost Genre Theater of the Mind

It's fitting that the Lost Genre return to fiction's Lost Medium: radio. In the the 1930s-1950s, radio was king. Shows like Dragnet, Dick Tracy, Superman, and Dimension X dominated the airways. Television killed the radio star, in some cases literally. When shows made the leap to TV, their radio players were left in the dust because they were too unglamourous for visual media.

In the years since, the radio drama has been done rarely. Some of the most prominent radio drama has been from Christians' children programming with Adventures in Odyssey with its mix of fantasy and small-town drama and Radio Theater both from Focus on Family, along with Insight for Living's Paws and Tales.

It's a natural tool then to help promote Light at the Edge of Darkness, our anthology of Christian Fiction. as in the next few weeks as this Sunday, we'll debut a reader's theater mini-series, with each episode featuring a dramatic reading of a story from the anthology. Afterwards, those who are on live will have a chance to quiz the author and other guests. The first episode will be live on Sunday at 6 PM ET. After that it will be available for download by clicking on the button below.



If you want to ask questions, you can Join Talkshoe (free) and download the talkshoe software. With Talkshoe you can either call in your questions or ask them in the chat room.

We're trying it out, experimenting. The key to our success is people willing to come on board and help. There are only so many stories in our anthology that two or three people can read. If you've got a phone line or Skype, and a love of fiction we'd love to have your help, e-mail me if you're interested.

UPDATE: The first episode is posted, click below to listen:

May CFRBlog Presents . . .

Mary Connealy's Petticoat Ranch

Book Summary:
Sophie Edwards is doing just fine, until a strange-yet oddly familiar-man rides into her life, insisting on rescuing her and her four daughters. Can she find a way to love a headstrong mountain man? When Clay McClellan discovers his brother has been murdered, he's bent on finding the killers and seeing them properly hung. But first his Christian duty demands that he marry his sister-in-law. After all, Sophie needs someone to protect her - right? Faith and love help unruly wed newlyweds find common ground and a chance at love on the Texas frontier.

Watch the Book Trailer for Petticoat Ranch on YouTube

About the Author:

Mary Connealy has three books in bookstores now or coming soon from Barbour Publishing. Mary, is married to Ivan a farmer, and she is the mother of four beautiful daughters, Joslyn, Wendy, Shelly and Katy. You can find Mary on the internet like a middle-aged, female Where's Waldo at www.maryconnealy.com! Mary is a GED Instructor by day and an author by night. And so she can remember what she's doing, she likes to wear a little crown and a Wonder Woman cape while she types.

Read an interview with Mary at TitleTrakk

If you are a MySpace member, check out Mary's Petticoat Ranch page; and if you ever wanted to be a MySpace member but had mucho trouble becoming one or became one and experienced some distress at some things you encountered, then you will appreciate Mary's blog post on this very subject! I did unexpectedly guffaw (and sprayed tea across my monitor) — read Techno-Genius Strikes Again !!!!! (October 23, 2006) — but do it sans beverage. Don't you just love someone who can laugh at themselves.

I didn't want to duplicate posts on the CFRBlog book tour of Petticoat Ranch, so I've posted my review of this delightful novel at A Frank Review, so please go and read it.

Book Details:

Petticoat Ranch
Mary Connealy
Barbour Books, February 2007
ISBN: 978-1-597896-47-4
Paperback; 320 pages; $12.95

Available at amazon.com

Check out what others are saying about Petticoat Ranch on the CFRBlog Book Tour:
A Frank Review
Virtual Book Tour de 'Net
Caprice Hokstad on Shoutlife
Grace Bridges
Edgy Inspirational Author

Germans Talking about UFO's

THE PROBLEM

Reprint from The Christian Writer's Notebook

Finding Christian speculative fiction (sci-fi and fantasy and horror), in my youth was impossible. C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and Space Trilogy graced the lonely shelf. Every modern genre author credits Lewis as their inspiration for good reason: he's all that genre fans could find.

In the seventies and eighties of my childhood, Mom would take me into the local Christian bookstores, and I'd straight-edge for the fiction shelves. After years of only finding Lewis' titles, I stopped looking in Christian stores. My favorite fiction came from secular stores.

I'd given up in the early eighties—about a year before Steven Lawhead's Empyrion was published. After Peretti's Darkness books came out, I hopefully scanned Christian shelves again for a couple more years before abandoning hope. Obviously this was a once per decade event.

A year ago the only Christian spec-fic authors of which I'd ever heard were Lewis, Peretti, Dekker, and arguably, Jenkins. Since then, I've discovered dozens of Christian spec-fic authors on the Web. I formed the Lost Genre Guild in September of 2006, and we've erected a respectable Web infrastructure for the promotion of our favorite fiction. Genre fans, read on for a killer link with more traditionally published titles than you'd ever dreamed existed.

Some spec-fic sub-genres have recently broken the CBA publishing dam.

• Doors opened for Christian fantasy after the Lord of the Rings films scored at the Box-Office.
• Genre purists and book-retailers don't lump horror into the genre, but the definition of setting and characters does. The race we call "angels" are supernatural extra-dimensional beings. At some point when nobody was looking, some creative librarian tacked up a "spiritual thrillers" label on the shelf that ought to have read "horror." "Spiritual thrillers" sounds more like Hannibal Lechter sitting across a confessional from Clarisse Starling than fallen angels under the bed, but at least the belief system that inspired The Exorcist is also moving forward. I wonder if The Prophecy series of films, featuring Christopher Walken, didn't also have an effect. And Anne Rice accepting Christ surely looked good to the CBA world.

That leaves one of spec-fic's three main sub-genres still floundering behind the dam: science fiction. I believe there are several reasons for this. There have been no sci-fi cross-over films or popular culture fiction to shoehorn publishers into risking bets on new authors. Many view Christianity and science to be a contradiction in terms. Sci-fi's been such an anti-Christian world-view genre it's no real surprise that mothers dodge children around the aisle.

You've just read introduction to a four part series that will explore the concept of Christian science fiction. Because you're still reading, you get a cookie! The most complete Biblical spec-fic book store I've ever found belongs to Jeff Gerke, AKA novelist Jefferson Scott. Any genre fan will want to see and bookmark this site of Lost Genre novels:
http://www.wherethemapends.com/Booklist/booklist_intro.htm


Frank Creed
www.frankcreed.com
email: admin@frankcreed.com
http://www.lostgenreguild.com/index.html