It seems an age since I last posted anything on this site, and it has, indeed, been more than two weeks. Too long! I’ll try to do better in the future. In the interim, I am grateful for Kevin O’Brien for keeping the site warm with his entertaining visits. Clearly I owe him an ale or two next time we meet, whenever that may be.

This particular visit is not going to be an effort to follow a sustained train of thought, not least because I don’t seem to be able to sustain such a train at present! Instead I’d like to offer a few random musings about this and that, give some of the latest news, and generally wander and perambulate until I’ve said what I want to say.

In the two weeks since I last made an appearance, I’ve received my supplies of the latest issue of StAR, the first under the watchful eye and guidance of our new publisher, the St. Augustine’s Press. The issue is a tour de force with articles by some of the finest minds and writers: Thomas Howard, Michael Waldstein, Louis Markos to name but three. I’ve spent much time discussing ways of streamlining the publishing and fulfillment aspects of StAR’s operation to maximise impact while minimising costs. Part of the longer term strategy will be to build a Constellation of Patrons who will finance the increased marketing effort. StAR is too good to be a secret known only to a happy few. We need to make it known far and wide. If you are able to offer financial support to StAR’s marketing plan, please be in touch. I’ll be overjoyed to hear from you!

On January 13 I was interviewed by someone from the English Catholic Herald about my conversion story. This interview followed an hour on Catholic Answers Live on January 4, and preceded an interview with American Catholic Radio that I gave yesterday. The interest in my conversion seems to have been sparked by my essay on the subject in Chosen, a collection of testimonies edited by Donna Steichen for Ignatius Press.

Tolkien continues to occupy my time, most recently in the giving of a talk on “Unlocking The Lord of the Rings” at Belmont Abbey College in NC last Friday and at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville, SC, this past Wednesday.

Yesterday I received, hot off the press and straight from the printer, my new book, Through Shakespeare’s Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays. I hope and pray that it may follow in the successful footsteps of its predecessor, The Quest for Shakespeare: The Bard of Avon and the Church of Rome.

Other good news received yesterday was confirmation that a Spanish publisher is going to publish a Spanish-language edition of my biography of Roy Campbell. Campbell was living in Spain at the outbreak of that nation’s civil war in 1936, having converted to Catholicism two years earlier, shortly after he had moved to Spain from Provence. He was a controversial supporter of Franco’s Nationalist forces during the war, having seen his friends, the Carmelite monks of Toledo, murdered in cold blood by the communists. Campbell loved Spain, so much so that he claimed that Spain had saved his soul, and it has long been my hope that my book might lead the people of Spain to love Campbell. Certainly Spain has had few more indefatigable defenders than this most irrrepressible of poets.

Apart from the aforementioned, I’ve been walking with Romeo and Juliet through the grounds of Mansfield Park with great expectations about the future success of the Ignatius Critical Editions. My editing work on this series is taking a lot of time but the rewards are great. Superb editions of Macbeth and Gulliver’s Travels are due to be published this spring, and editions of the Canterbury Tales, Mansfield Park and Romeo and Juliet are hot on their heels.

And yesterday and today I’ve been reading through the numerous articles submitted for the March/April issue of StAR, which will be on the theme of “G. K. Chesterton: Fidei Defensor”. What a great issue it promises to be! Watch this space for a sneak preview of the contents of this issue. Coming soon …