New Posts Coming Soon
I have things to say again
Well, I haven’t posted in over a year. I’ve been logging into Substack and thinking, “I really miss writing stuff here!” For a while, I was in the final semesters of my English degree, and then upon graduating, my freed-up brain immediately entered that state of all-consuming madness that is, for me, drafting a novel. But I now have an English degree and a fantasy novel draft, and I feel I’ve organized my thoughts enough to have things to say again.
I’m going to start sending out essays again, but I don’t have a planned posting schedule. I’ll just be posting things as I write them, in part because I’m really here because I like having an outlet for my writing and in part because I’m working on another novel and can never tell when the all-consuming madness will strike again and I’ll disappear into obsessive book-writing mode. One of the things I’ve reflected on over the last year is that writing and art should be enjoyable, and I don’t really want to write stuff (whether essays or fiction) unless I have something to say and I’m excited to say it.
All that to say, my posting frequency will vary for now.
As far what I’ll be writing about, I’d say it’s roughly the same as before: literature and pop culture from a Christian theological perspective. Sometimes my interest skews more toward classic literature, and sometimes more toward pop culture. Here are some topics I’m planning to write about (in no particular order and in a non-parallel list).
Protestant theology in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
A review of Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, season 2
Reflections on the videogame as an art form after playing Hollow Knight
The Christian framework of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
Theological questions in twentieth century modernist literature, which I’ve developed an unexpected interest in
How personal taste and objective aesthetic quality relate and why I think communication breaks down in the classics vs. pop culture conversation
I keep thinking a lot about Fullmetal Alchemist, Steins;Gate, Star Wars: Andor, Shin Godzilla, and Chrono Trigger (for pop culture) and Brideshead Revisited, Othello, The Remains of the Day, and William Cowper’s poetry (for literature.) Essays about these may make an appearance, or they may not.
These are the kinds of things I’m planning on writing about, but I can’t say when I’ll finish the essays or in what order they’ll appear or if I’ll find other things to write about before I get to some of them. But that’s an indication of what readers can expect from me in terms of subject matter.
Anyway, I appreciate everyone for reading and I’m excited to get back into writing here after some time away.
-Ashley Tegart