Dear Reader,
On Wednesday, in a rather inane reaction to David Foster Wallace’s impossible book, Infinite Jest, I hit 500 posts. I have talked about blogging here and here, so I won’t completely rehash the delights and difficulties of blogging. For me, blogging:
- Hones my prose skills
- Commits me to editing
- Increases my reading and writing community
- Translates my academic work into real life
- Integrates my heart and mind
- Disseminates my research
- Tests my ideas
- Builds a platform for whenever it is I release a book
I hope, too, that it challenges you, encouraging you the reader to become more fully engaged in the worlds within, behind, and beyond the texts we play with on A Pilgrim in Narnia. Until number 501, best wishes.
Brenton
I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since 2011 I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1,000 posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it.
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About Brenton Dickieson
“A Pilgrim in Narnia” is a blog project in reading and talking about the work of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, the Inklings, L.M. Montgomery, and the worlds they created. As a "Faith, Fantasy, and Fiction" blog, we cover topics like children’s literature, myths and mythology, fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, poetry, theology, cultural criticism, art and writing.
This blog includes my thoughts as I read through my favourite writings and reflect on my own life and culture. In this sense, I am a Pilgrim in Narnia--or Middle Earth, or Fairyland, or Avonlea. I am often peeking inside of wardrobes, looking for magic bricks in urban alleys, or rooting through yard sale boxes for old rings. If something here captures your imagination, leave a comment, “like” a post, share with your friends, or sign up to receive Narnian Pilgrim posts in your email box.
Brenton Dickieson (PhD, Chester) is a father, husband, friend, university lecturer, and freelance writer from Prince Edward Island, Canada. You can follow him:
www.aPilgrimInNarnia.com
Twitter (X) @BrentonDana
Instagram @bdickieson
Facebook @aPilgrimInNarnia
Bravo. Congratulations, my friend. Nice listicle of the benefits you experience from blogging!
[That’s the first time I’ve ever used “listicle” in conversation or print… another potential benefit of blogging–being able to use new words that people with too much time on their hands minted for the blogosphere…]
I didn’t know about the word “listicle,” but a I’ll take it (as long as “icle” is about icicles and not cubicles). I will have to add “new words” to the next list!
Hurrah!
Benefit for the reading and writing community:
Provides a specialized yet flexible and rather instantly interactive little analogue to Notes & Queries!
Thanks!
I love that nod to N&Q–where I first published the Screwtape preface with Ransom in it. I published there because of my historical respect for the queer little queries notebook out of Oxford. Also, they have a quick turnaround.
But, of course, no one knew it existed! One of the reasons I like blogging is that it is open access, free to the world.
So that’s why I try to make it a bit “open source” too–the readers add a lot to the content.
“One of the reasons I like blogging is that it is open access, free to the world.”
Yes, wonderfully! (I could never have imagined anything as good as the good things about internet, and blogs, and blog-commenting!)
I love the fact that Notes & Queries still exists – and that you published something so Noteworthy in it!
I’ve just been reading up on Christmas lore for a paper involving Tolkien’s Father Christmas letters, amomg other Christmasy things – thanks to good Wikipediasts linking, and/or providing publication details, for things in Notes & Queries in the 1850s and 1870s, handily, freely accessible online! Wonderful!