Catechizing Sphinxes: LIVE on Kickstarter!

My newest book, Catechizing Sphinxes and Other Stories, is now live on Kickstarter!

At the intersection of mythological creatures and mystagogical practices, these stories explore…

Addressing Hominids
Circumcising Nephilim
Catechizing Sphinxes
Absolving Werewolves
Communing Vampires
Exorcising Zombies
and Baptizing Aliens

This is one of those books where, if you know you know—that is, you know right now if it’s exactly your cup of tea. If so, please shoot on over to Kickstarter and back my campaign! Lots more detail on the book there.

I'm a Lilac, Too: A Poem

Concede the point. I’m not a lilac lilac.
I lack that cope of mauve upon my back.
The tulip calls her plum-cheeked colleague forth
And cries, “Arise, O Lavender-of-the-North,”
While she, in purple plush, will wink and nod,
Incline her curls at me and name me: “Fraud.”
A blot, a blank, a blah—you must concur—
A lump of floral wool without allure.
I’m soapsuds. Chalk. Coquilles Saint-Jacques.
I’m cream, I’m milk, not orchid silk.

She’s cinnamon and eyelashes and lace.
I’m nutmeg. I am freckles on your face.
She’s frankincense, but I am merely beeswax.
She’s luscious adjectives. And me? Just syntax.
She’s garnets glinting from a diadem,
Musetta shrieking woe in La Bohème.
I’m icicles in fractals down a fjord,
The Goldberg Variations’ harpsichord.
I lack her flair. But why compare?
I am just me: a lilac tree.

I'm a Lilac, Too

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

(Words and photo by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.)

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem: An Ekphrastic Poem

What was the point of knowing it all?
What was the good of foreseeing the fall?

Why sermons?
Why warnings?
Why prophetic cant?
Such ire?
Such anguish?
Such heartrending rant?

You gave me the words,
but you gave them no ears.
They quaffed their scoffing,
I ate my fears.

You drove me to drive them to turn and repent
when you knew that regardless you wouldn’t relent
so frankly I tell you how much I resent
the years I have wasted, the life I have spent
for nothing!

Who changes a changeless decree,
or heart made of stone?
You maybe,
not me.
Yet I was the one who carried the word
that you knew all along would never be heard.

Let Jonah complain of his frivolous part
in changing the changeable Ninevite heart
while you scheduled mercy right from the start.
At least he did something!

But I, not a whit,
left to rot in a pit,
while they slander and spit.
This is it —
AND I QUIT!

Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

Sarah Hinlicky Wilson

(Words by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. Painting by Rembrandt.)

Now on Substack!

Since “pick a lane” has never exactly been my forte, I’m now on Substack.

But, for a reason distinct from my other text ventures, as for example Theology & a Recipe, which is the newsletter I send from here.

I’m putting my fiction on Substack, in part because many of you like my theology, and many of you like my fiction, but not all of you like both (or at least not in equal measure). So this way you can sort yourself into your lane of choice—and of course, if you’re a both-laner like me, please subscribe to both! (And now I think I’ll abandon the overtaxed “lane” metaphor.)

First up on Substack is a complete serialization of my novel A-Tumblin’ Down. I actually ran a serial reading of it a couple years ago, before it was published, and it was… SO. MUCH. FUN. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it again, especially now post-publication, and this is it!

Read more about it and, better yet, sign up here. The serial, communal reading begins October 22!