A Story on Story

Welcome to the Keela Dee Sub-creations-stack

Hello, I’m redoing my website again. When you’ve been writing and blogging for (can you believe it?) 10 years, it’s bound to happen. If you’ve been around for a while, thanks for sticking with me as my writing evolves. If you’re new here, feel free to learn more about me and my work at the “About” page. You can also find a link to my old website with my blog archives, if you’re interested.

For starters I wanted to talk about “subcreations.” It’s a term I got from J.R.R. Tolkien, the brilliant mind behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy. In a poem Mythopoeia written for then-atheist C.S. Lewis, Tolkien describes man as a sub-creator, refracting God’s perfect White light into many colors for others to experience and enjoy. Basically, he’s saying that God created this world and everything in it. We as Christians are therefore called to reflect God’s goodness and beauty and power by making our own creations inspired by His. We do this in many ways, but Tolkien (and I) likes to focus on the creations of stories.

Why are stories so important? I believe they are imperative to build connections. We make friends by sharing anecdotes until we find common ground. We share our faith by describing specific instances in which God moved in our lives. We fall in love as two separate stories weave together into one. We escape the humdrum of reality by reading, watching, and/or playing through stories.

So I will be using this blog/newsletter thing to share stories with you. As a writer, I will be flexing my chops. As a professor, I will be keying into techniques discussed in classes I’ve taken and taught. As a nerd, I will be fangirling over various stories I’m experiencing through books, movies, television, and games. As a Christian, I will be sharing parts of my life where I saw God’s handiwork, reflecting and refracting His light into various colors for you to enjoy. 

I am an English professor teaching multiple classes each week, plus I’m an admin assistant for one of my favorite authors (who I will no doubt name drop, sorry not sorry), plus I am mother to the most adorable little boy on the planet. So I’m not going to promise this newsletter will come out with any kind of regularity. What I will promise is that when I have a story on my heart, I will share it with you. I plan to do some kind of subcreation work at least once a week, whether that’s a podcast episode, a social media post, a newsletter, or work on one of my larger projects. You can find links to all my socials on the “About” page, and, if you upgrade your subscription to paid, you can get all the news, updates, and potentially free downloads of my larger projects (which I have several brewing). 

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’m so excited to share stories with you!