[N.B. This is the offical press release. Farrell O'Gorman is the Idylls Press author of Awaiting Orders.]

Grove City College will host “Pilgrims in Place,” the 2010 Mideast Regional Conference on Christianity and Literature, on March 11-13. The conference seeks to explore interactions between Christianity, literature and notions of pilgrimage and place.

The conference will feature lectures by speakers Dr. Steven Bouma-Prediger of Hope College in Holland, Mich., and Dr. Farrell O’Gorman, a novelist and associate professor of Catholic studies at Depaul University in Chicago, Ill. The lectures, held in Sticht Lecture Hall in the Hall of Arts and Letters on campus, are open to the public.

Bouma-Prediger, co-author of “Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement,” will give a lecture on “Sojourners in a Time of Homelessness” at 7 p.m. on March 11. He will also give a chapel address at 9:30 a.m. on “The Homemaking Father.”

O’Gorman, author of “Awaiting Orders,” and a highly acclaimed study on Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor, will speak at 1:30 p.m. on March 12. His lecture is titled “Seeking Our ‘True Country’ in American Literature.”

The presentations by Bouma-Prediger and O’Gorman are free; no tickets or registration are required.

Tags: christianity and literature, conference, farrell o'gorman, grove ctiy college

Join Idylls Press author and publisher Debra Murphy February 26 through March 5, 2010, for the Catholic Writers Conference Online, organized by the Catholic Writers Guild. Debra will be leading a five-day workshop, “Ten Commandments for Catholic Fiction Writers”, in which she will share some of the insights and resources she’s gleaned from several decades of reading, writing, editing, and publishing Catholic fiction.

There will be a number of workshops and pitch sessions—opportunities to pitch your work, fiction and non-fiction, to editors. Everything is conducted online, so you never have to leave the comfort of your home. Best of all, registration is FREE.

Here are our special deals for 2009:

SPECIAL #1: “New Fiction Two-fer”

Get the paperback versions of both The Mystery of Things by Debra Murphy and Awaiting Orders by Farrell O’Gorman for the single low price of $29. (You save nearly $7, and we pay shipping!)

SPECIAL #2: “Classics Two-fer”

Get both The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, both illustrated by John Murphy, for the single low price of $25. (You save nearly $5, and we pay shipping!)

SPECIAL #3: “Harland Two-fer”

Get both of Henry Harland’s classic Catholic romances, The Cardinal’s Snuff-Box and The Lady Paramount, for the single low price of $25. (You save nearly $6, and we pay shipping!)

We here at Idylls Press are both sad and thrilled that Maureen McQuerry’s Wolfproof books will soon be moving to a new publishing home, Abrams/Amulet. We are sad, of course, that they will no longer be published in Idylls Press editions, but thrilled that they will find a new audience and wider distribution through Amulet. Part of our mission here at Idylls Press is to encourage the growth of Catholic fiction generally, and in this case, that includes seeing some of our own beloved projects going out into the wider world.

No new copies of Wolfproof and Travelers Market will be printed by Idylls Press, but there are a few new and used copies out there, available online through private vendors on such sites as Amazon. (We wouldn’t be surprised if they became collectors’ items, since the new Amulet editions will have new titles and will not contain John Murphy’s unique illsutrations.) We will continue to provide links to the Amazon pages for the books, where copies may still be availalbe, and keep our readers informed of when the new Amulet editions come out.

Maureen McQuerry’s Travelers Market, the second book in her Wolfproof trilogy, has been chosen by Lisa Hendey of the CatholicMom.com’s Book Club as the March fiction selection.

Congratulations, Maureen!

Tags: catholicmom.com, Maureen McQuerry, Travelers Market

SITE NEWS: Idylls Press - Catholic Fiction -Catholic Film Reviews - Bardolatry

Our apologies that January has seen a few days of wonky-looking Idylls Press-family websites as we moved our sites to a new server. There’s still a bit left to do, but the worst is over!

Along with the webdust, however, have come several lovely new features, including aFeedBurner widget (in the upper right corner of all our sites), which allows readers to sign up to be notified by e-mail or RSS whenever a new post or review appears. (Note that the sign-up only applies to the specific site, not to all Idylls Press sites together.)

In the next few weeks we hope to add several more new features, including a discussion forum on Catholic Fiction and a new Idylls Press shopping cart that should make online ordering of Idylls Press books a more pleasant experience.

A new name: “Catholic Movies Online” is now “Catholic Film Reviews”–we thought the new name and domain better fit the site’s purpose. Either way, clicking on the old link will take you to the new site location.

OUR LATEST TITLE:

Though it is not common to hear the words “Catholic fiction” and “Oscar Wilde” in the same breath, the fact is that Wilde not only died a Catholic, he also wrote an iconic horror story which, perhaps in spite of his initial intentions, turned out to be a classic morality fable in the Catholic tradition: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Idylls Press is very proud to announce the publication of a new edition of Wilde’s classic, beautifully illustrated by John Murphy in a neo-Symbolist style inspired by another Catholic convert of the same era, Aubrey Beardsley.

Click here for more info on Dorian Gray and to see samples of John’s illustrations.

TRAVELERS MARKET on CRI:

Maureen McQuerry’s sequel toWolfproof, Travelers Market, is the featured audiobook on Catholic Radio Internation’s Cover-to-Cover program, read by Sylvia Dorham. Tune in and listen for free as new chapters are uploaded every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!

IDYLLS PRESS AUTHOR NEWS:

Farrell O’Gorman, author of Awaiting Orders, has just published a short story (“Shibboleth”) in the latest (XXth anniversary) issue of Image Journal.

Debra Murphy, publisher of Idylls Press and author of The Mystery of Things has published an essay on the fiction of Ian McEwan in the latest issue (number TEN) of Second Spring Journal.

REVIEWERS NEEDED:

We’re looking for more reviewers for Catholic Fiction and Catholic Film Reviews. Click on the “Catholic Fiction” link for reviewing guidelines which (more or less) apply to both sites. We will soon be putting up an “our reviewers” page on Catholic Film Reviews and would love to add more names to the list!

If you are an avid reader or moviegoer, and a good writer, contact us:

from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

illustrated by John Murphy

The new Idylls Press edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray contains thirteen new B/W illustrations by John Murphy. Here is a sampling (click on the picture to see a larger version):

Return to The Picture of Dorian Gray main page, or to order.

John and I will once again be participating in the Southern Oregon Book and Author Fair, Saturday, November 15, 2008, selling (at a very nice Fair discount!) and signing copies of our Idylls Press books. No doubt I will also be buying/trading books books from/with other authors as well—I am always impressed by the quality and variety of books being published by our regional writers here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Admission is free to the public!

Here are the event details:

Title: 2008 SOUTHERN OREGON BOOK & AUTHOR FAIR

Location: Ashland Springs Hotel ballroom (2nd floor), 212 E Main St., Ashland OR 97520

Description:
Free admission to meet Northwest regional authors who will personally autograph the books you purchase from them. This annual event has become a favorite for book lovers and early holiday shoppers. Everyone enjoys books, b-o-o-ks, and more BOOKS as gifts. Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Memoir, Children’s books and much, much more!
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008

Tags: Ashland, southern oregon book and author fair

Pauline Cooperator and Idylls’ friend Rae Stabosz has a lovely blog on the new “Storytelling in the Catholic Imagination” sections of five major Pauline Books and Media Centers. (For store locations, see our previous post.)

Above all, how exciting to see Rae’s pictures from the Philadelphia store, with two of our books sitting on the shelf right next to Bl. Flannery, surrounded by Lewis and Tolkien and Hansen and Waugh…be still, my heart! (Click on the pictures for close-ups.)

As many of you are aware, one of our biggest challenges here at Idylls Press has been to get our books (and Catholic fiction in general) into Catholic bookstores. Catholic bookstore shelves, as you know, have traditionally been stocked with Bibles, devotionals, religious gifts, and nonfiction books on apologetics, theology, and Church history.

Indeed, though there is little to compare in Protestant circles with the rich tradition of Catholic literature, our Christian/Evangelical brethren have been streets ahead of us in marketing fiction with spiritual themes to their co-religionists.

But here’s some great news: five major Pauline Books and Media Centers, operated by the Daughters of St. Paul, have launched a new section in their stores devoted to the “Catholic imagination.” Included in this section will be DVDs of great movies with Christian themes, classic fiction by Catholic novelists…and three Idylls Press books: Awaiting Orders by Farrell O’Gorman, Wolfproof by Maureen McQuerry, and The Mystery of Things by Debra Murphy.

We are thrilled with this development, and hope our readers within shouting distance of the Pauline media centers will support this terrific initiative.

Here are the five stores that feature the new Catholic Imagination sections:

• Los Angeles, CA area store
• Manhattan, NYC store
• Alexandria, VA area store
• Philadelphia, PA area store
• New Orleans, LA area store