Supernatural Sundays – Contest Winner!

We had some phenomenal contributions to the contest last week, and a lot of fun reading all the entries. It wasn’t easy to come up with a winner either! But after hours of deliberation, here is the winner:

Welcome Christine Hughes to New Stories, Old Book!

So, remember the super-awesome author Nola interviewed a while back? (You can find the interview HERE). Well, Jamie, Nola, and I are pleased to announce that she will be joining us as a contributor for a regular Thursday spot.

Her first post will be this Thursday, January 3rd. We are very excited to see what she’ll bring to the table.

And stay tuned –

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone

The Harry Potter series has been a source of both fan accolades and at the same time Christian rejection. Christian apologists have been wary of fully accepting Rowling’s works due to the use of spells, Wiccan practices, and humanist undertones that they believe are contrary to Christian principles. This begs the question, starting with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, can there be a New Stories, Old Book theme in fiction literature that may run counter to Christian beliefs?

Some Christmas Fun – Videos!

I grew up listening to Mannheim Steamroller every Christmas Eve with my brother and my parents, hanging out by the tree enjoying the music and sipping hot apple cider before heading to Christmas Eve Mass. For this Christmas post, I thought I’d share a few videos. The first is a cool light show with music by Mannheim Steamroller.

The second is an awesome lights show I found on YouTube while looking for the Mannheim Steamroller one. Enjoy!

And finally, for those of us who like the darker side of things from time to time, please enjoy Awake Ye Scary Great Old Ones, which Michelle Johnson showed me a while back and I thought was totally cool!

Merry Christmas, Blessed Be and enjoy the holiday season with your loved ones and friends! Thank you so much for your support of our blog and we can’t wait to enjoy 2013 with all of you and the new friends we’ll make in the new year!

Supernatural Sundays – Christmas Contest

Since we are all busy doing our various holiday shuffling, I thought we should have some fun with this Sunday’s post and let you all do the writing. So how about a just-for-fun Supernatural-themed flash fiction contest?

Here are the rules:

Time to Make a Positive Difference

There are several reasons why this Christmas Season may not be as “Merry” as past holiday seasons. In the recent months societies foundation has been shaken by a series of tragic events. The culmination of man-made travesties, natural disasters, and financial crisis may cause one to wonder if civilization is in a state of decline. Pondering whether or not humanity is “salvageable” may beg the second question of whether people can actually change to make a positive difference.

Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” is a wonderful novel to help answer these questions during this holiday season. The two major themes that relate to “New Stories/Old Book” revolve around Scrooges own transformation and the need for mankind to be generous and kind to one another.

Has Fiction Lost its Faith? – Article via the New York Times

I stumbled across an article in the New York Times today titled “Has Fiction Lost its Faith?” by Paul Elie. It is an opinion piece that addresses the apparent fading of stories about the quandaries of Christian belief.

Orson Scott Card’s A War Of Gifts: Peaceful Expression at Holiday Time

I am an enormous fan of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game series. I love his portrayal of vivid characters and I admire his use of religious themes in much of his work. When I picked up his novella, A War of Gifts: An Ender Story, I had no idea that I would truly be reading a Christmas story.

Guest Post by Daniele Lanzarotta

This week we are joined by author Daniele Lanzarotta, who shares with us her feelings about writing Biblical Fanfic – something she didn’t really consider that she was doing from the looks of her post. Daniele just released the third in her Academy of the Fallen series, “Sins of the Fallen.”

 

Supernatural Sundays – God’s Will

Once Supernatural brought in the angels in season four, the writers spent a lot of time playing around with the concept of God’s Will. It was God’s Will that the boys would be the vessels for Michael and Lucifer, and had been God’s plan all along. In one episode, Dean was sent back in time to try to stop the yellow-eyed demon from interfering with their family and eventually killing their mother. No matter what Dean tried to do, he found that he couldn’t alter the course, and when brought back to the present was told that some things are unchangeable. They were God’s Will.