Update on the Books I’m Writing Now

Last updated on: November 24, 2016 at 2:23 pm by Melinda Selmys

Update on the Books I’m Writing Now 2016-11-24T14:23:28-04:00 Melinda Selmys

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Winter has come to Canada and we’re having a run of snow-days. My older kids are home from school and that means I have more time to write.
Currently I’m working on two book projects: a book on gender minorities, and a book on NFP.
With the first project, I have an absolutely killer proposal that I’ve shopped around to lots of different Catholic publishers. They are all unanimous about it: this is a tremendously important book… that someone else should publish. So if anyone out there knows of either a) someone in Catholic publishing who might be willing to take a risk with this, or b) an agent who be interested in pitching it to a larger, secular house, let me know in the combox or drop me a line through my contact button.
The NFP book I know nobody is going to touch with a ten foot pole, so I’m going to publish it myself. My (admittedly ambitious) goal is to get it ready in time for people to buy it with their Amazon money at Christmas. If I really get on a roll, and the buses continue to be canceled half the time, then I might even have it ready before the holiday.
Some of you might remember that I collected questions for this project way back in the summer. You may even be wondering what happened to your questions. The answer to that is that they’ve been roughly organized into three categories:

1. Questions for which there are good (but not necessarily easily accessible) answers.
2. Questions for which there are answers – but they’re not necessarily sufficient.
3.Questions which simply do not have any good answers at all.

I’m continuing to dig through the available literature. My husband has a huge collection of studies on NFP and assorted other documents that he’s been combing through. I’m hoping to be able to provide a really well documented, realistic portrait of how effective NFP is, and what NFP use actually looks like on the ground.
We’ve also been looking into the history of the development of the Church’s teaching on birth control and sex within marriage. I’ve recently blogged about the problem of reading Vatican documents the way that Bible Protestants read scripture – as if they were simply a transparent window into the mind of God, perfect down to the last word, and fully comprehensible without reference to their historical or social context. One of the issues that I will definitely be tackling is the historical context for Humanae Vitae, and for subsequent Vatican writings on sex and the family.
We have been thorough, but my experience with research is that no matter what, there are invariably things you miss, so if anyone has suggestions for research sources that they think we might have missed those would be helpful.
Anyway, I don’t want to tip my hand any more than that. Pray for me to have good opportunities to write, and for the Holy Spirit to help me with the work. And I will keep all of you fondly in my prayers.

Cheers!

Image credit: pixabay
Stay in touch! Like Catholic Authenticity on Facebook:

Catholic Authenticity

Previous Post

November 23, 2016

Dear Rich People: Please Keep Giving Us Your Junk

Next Post

November 26, 2016 The Other “N” Word

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Abuse Beauty Charity Chastity Current Events Faith Family Feminism Fiction Humility Humour Identity Justice Perseverence Philosophy Poverty Sexuality trauma Uncategorized Virtues Wombats

Select a Month February 2020 November 2019 October 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz