243. What Were Your Favorite 2024 Lorehaven Articles and Podcast Episodes?

Merry Twelve Days of Christmas Season! After last week’s break, we return with our first New Year’s Eve special. Which top ten Fantastical Truth episodes and http://Lorehaven.com articles did readers love most in the last year? We’ll survey all of these, and give fun updates, to close our 2024 season.

Mission update

• Christian-Made Stories Got Even Better in 2024, Jenneth Dyck
• Later this week: new Onscreen articles from Parker J. Cole
• Subscribe free to get updates and join the Lorehaven Guild

Episode sponsors

1. Enclave Publishing: Memoria by J. J. Fischer
2. E. Stephen Burnett: Above the Circle of Earth
3. Lorehaven: share the Fantastical Truth podcast with a friend!

10. The Christian Roots of Fantasy, R. J. Anderson

On one Saturday evening at the women’s Bible conference, I’d just sold my last book. I was heading to the auditorium for my keynote talk when a nervous-looking young woman plucked my sleeve.

“Excuse me,” she stammered. “Could I ask you why you write books”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“like that?”

“You mean fantasy?” I asked, smiling at her.

She nodded, eyes wide with anxiety and fear.

I didn’t have much time to spare, but my heart went out to her. It wasn’t hard to guess what she believed: that fantasy stories glorify witchcraft, paganism, and the occult, and no serious Christian should have anything to do with them. Especially not one of the main speakers at a Bible conference!

Yet I didn’t feel defensive, because I didn’t need to. Instead, I was happy to tell the young woman why I love fantasy, because this genre offers an opportunity to illustrate biblical truths in a fresh way, and speak to people who might never have listened otherwise.

9. What Can First-Time Guests Expect at a Christian Writers’ Conference? | with J. J. Johnson, podcast

We’re partners with Realm Makers, the leading fantastical conference for Christian creatives. Recently organizers shared that over 40 percent of registrations for this July’s event are first-time guests. This brings back memories! So we thought we’d share them with you. What’s it like at a writers’ conference? And what should first-time guests expect at Realm Makers and beyond?

• Listeners love behind-the-scenes episodes about how books are made.
• That’s how we do them, when we do them; we’re not a writers’ podcast.
• Still, many fantastical story fans also love to create their own stories.

8. Duke Leto of ‘Dune’ Shows How Christians Can Live with Nobility in a Hostile World, Josiah DeGraaf

When we’re living in a hostile world, we’re often tempted to adopt our enemies’ methods and do whatever it takes to win. After all, if they’re using vicious tactics that bring victory, don’t we need to adopt similar strategies to survive?

Leto shows the example of a better path.

To some ext