This summer, my punk rockstar teen and I were planning to go to an epic concert–perhaps one of the biggest of our lives–in the Northeast US. We just got word that the entire tour is postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19. We have future hopes, but there are so many disappointments. I had four conferences, including six talks, cancelled or postponed this year–as well as a research trip to the Marion E. Wade Inklings archive in Chicagoland. These are hardly the world’s greatest woes at the moment, but it has been a difficult year for me to hang my shingle, to launch my career in scholarship following my PhD last fall.

And I am with so many parents giving their kids sad news.

One of the conferences I will truly miss (which I describe here and here) is the C.S. Lewis and Friends Colloquium at Taylor University in Uplands, IN. I was slated to present a paper where I work with Monika Hilder’s trilogy of books on Lewis and gender, and to chair a panel on archival research discoveries. I was also going to volunteer at the Young Inklings pre-conference day, immediately following two papers at the Canadian Congress for the humanities and social sciences in Ontario.

As a reminder, the Colloquium is postponed to next year. The Colloquium is hosted by Taylor University and its C.S. Lewis and Friends centre, which is headed by Joe Ricke. They usually have a Friday afternoon tea on campus, and during COVID-19 they have popped this online in a Zoom fashion. I have been to three of these Friday afternoon teas, with great enjoyment.

On Friday, May 22nd at 4pm EDT, Joe is opening up the Digital Tea Time for a conversation based on the research and poetry that was published earlier this year in Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal. You can get a peek at this issue here, and a number of the authors and poets will be there on Friday.

I will be presenting with Charlie Starr on our piece, “The Archangel Fragment and C.S. Lewis’s World-building Project.” Charlie and I will reveal an archival discovery that we believe is C.S. Lewis’ attempt to answer The Screwtape Letters by providing the angelic point of you. I think fans and scholars alike will enjoy!

The details are below and I hope I can see you there!

Event Announcement
Join us Friday at 4 p.m. (EDT) for an in-depth look at the remarkable latest issue of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal.

Dr. Joe Ricke, Director of Taylor University’s Center for the Study of C. S. Lewis & Friends will host Bruce Johnson (editor), Crystal Hurd (book review editor), and Charlie Starr, Brenton Dickieson, Joel Heck, and Lauren Spohn (authors) to talk about their new and exciting discoveries in Lewis scholarship. Guests will be invited to join the discussion in the second hour.

If you would like to join in on this future “digital teas,” get on their mailing list by emailing: cslewiscenter@taylor.edu.

Due to the current circumstances, this will be a Zoom session. Arrive early because the group is limited to 100.