What kind of religious works

[Jeff Benner]

What kind of works do any of you publish, attempt to publish, self-publish, etc.? I guess my works can be classified as religious and have been writing books in this genre for almost 10 years. I have been able to work this into a part-time (soon to be full-time) occupation and really enjoy it.

[Micheal Woodruff]

What kind of works do any of you publish, attempt to publish, self-publish, etc.? I guess my works can be classified as religious and have been writing books in this genre for almost 10 years. I have been able to work this into a part-time (soon to be full-time) occupation and really enjoy it.

Hmm, what kind of categories do you mean? Ex. I've self published two devotional books. "Passages and Prayers" and "Challenge". I've cowritten a Christian romance book that is still a work in progress.

[Gary Kessler]

I have a Bible study out, written with my minister sister. ((Re)Tell Me the Stories).

This was a special-purpose book, more important in the development than the publishing, although it's been used by several Sunday School classes and both my sister and I have taken it to senior centers for program use. In the last year of my mother's life, she was bringing up fundamental questions on religion and the meaning of parables--many of which disturbed her. My sister had discussions with her on these issues, where we thought up different approaches to the messages in parables and other familiar Bible stories (Like the prodigal son--what if he came back and found his father dead, with the message that you can't just wait forever to mend fences. Or what would a meeting of the mothers of Jesus and Judas be like?). I write short stories, so I wrote contemporary short stories to illustrate the theme we had chosen, my sister wrote the prayers and study questions, and all three of us put ideas into the commentaries, which I then wrote. This gave us quality time with our slowly dying mother and helped take her mind off of the approaching inevitability--and gave her a project to do to the last. My sister and I were just loosely collecting these and using them in our church programs. My mother left money to publish them into a book, though--which is what we did, dedicating the study to her.

I have enough material from these discussions to put out another Bible study, "Major Thoughts from Minor Books," but I've yet to get around to get it set up for publishing.

[John Oberon]

I have a Bible study out, written with my minister sister. ((Re)Tell Me the Stories).

This was a special-purpose book, more important in the development than the publishing, although it's been used by several Sunday School classes and both my sister and I have taken it to senior centers for program use. In the last year of my mother's life, she was bringing up fundamental questions on religion and the meaning of parables--many of which disturbed her. My sister had discussions with her on these issues, where we thought up different approaches to the messages in parables and other familiar Bible stories (Like the prodigal son--what if he came back and found his father dead, with the message that you can't just wait forever to mend fences. Or what would a meeting of the mothers of Jesus and Judas be like?). I write short stories, so I wrote contemporary short stories to illustrate the theme we had chosen, my sister wrote the prayers and study questions, and all three of us put ideas into the commentaries, which I then wrote. This gave us quality time with our slowly dying mother and helped take her mind off of the approaching inevitability--and gave her a project to do to the last. My sister and I were just loosely collecting these and using them in our church programs. My mother left money to publish them into a book, though--which is what we did, dedicating the study to her.

I have enough material from these discussions to put out another Bible study, "Major Thoughts from Minor Books," but I've yet to get around to get it set up for publishing.

That doesn't sound like a Bible study. It sounds like you altered Bible stories, or made up new ones to suit whatever message you wanted to convey. That's well and good, but it's certainly not a Bible study.

[leslee]

I've only written fiction so far, for the YA market. But my present WIP is non-fiction about missionary work in Third World countries. It is semi-biographical as I draw heavily on my experiences as a child. Both my parents were missionaries, and we lived under some very poor conditions. We also had some hair-raising experiences, some of which were quite hilarious, at least in retrospect.

This sounds very interesting, Anya.

[John Oberon]

I think Anya is a lovely name.