Literature
"Beauty will save the world." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
Literature – beautiful writing – depends not just on plot and structure and not just on the author’s mastery of technique, though these are certainly important. Instead, the beauty of the written word springs from the author’s ability to communicate Truth in a way that clings to the reader’s perception.
Richard Rohlin
The Corners of the World: Writing Fiction as an Orthodox Christian​Richard W. Rohlin is a software developer, Germanic philologist, and Orthodox Christian living in Texas with his wife and children. His published works on Germanic poetry, the Inklings, and the Sacramental Imagination include The Digital Hervararkviða and a chapter in the recent anthology Amid Weeping There is Joy: Orthodox Perspectives on Tolkien’s Fantastic Realm. He is the co-host of the Amon Sul Podcast from Ancient Faith Radio, which examines the works of J.R.R. Tolkien from an Orthodox Christian perspective. He is also a regular contributor to The Symbolic World YouTube channel and blog, where he discusses and writes about medieval universal history and hagiography.​Richard’s latest project, Finding the Golden Key: Essays Towards a Recovery of the Sacramental Imagination, is being published in collaboration with Eighth Day Press.
Joshua Sturgill
The Art of Imitating Heaven: How Ancient Thinkers Envisioned the Soul's Perfection
The Gospel of Matthew uniquely uses the phrase "The Kingdom of the Heavens" to describe the imminent presence of God. Plato describes the human soul as being a reflection of Heaven's perfect movements. Ptolemy claimed that the way to achieve virtue is to study the planets. Are these ancient writers speaking metaphorically, or is there a connection between the stars and our selves which contemporary humanity has lost? Christians today speak of Heaven as a future event or as some "other place" disconnected from their life in the world. But if the old philosophers are taken at face value, then our spiritual health depends on our attention to the physical skies. Generations before us found artistic, poetic and devotional inspiration from looking up. What did they see that we cannot?
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Joshua Alan Sturgill's long association with Eighth Day Books and love of travel have led to speaking and teaching engagements across the globe. He is the author of two books of poetry, As Far As I Can Tell (2018) and Now a Major Motion Picture (2022), as well as numerous short stories, articles and essays. He currently teaches classics in Geometry and Astronomy at Mary Seat of Wisdom Academy in Wichita, Kansas. Outside the classroom, Mr. Sturgill plays bodhran, crafts fine homebrews, studies origami, and tends his garden.
Justin Marler with Intro by Bishop Gerasim
Justin is an American musician. He is known for being a founding member of the stoner rock band Sleep and for leaving a burgeoning career in music to become a monk in an Eastern Orthodox monastery.​In 1990, Marler joined the members of a little-known band called Asbestosdeath (with Al Cisneros, Chris Hakius, and Matt Pike), which the members later renamed Sleep. Soon after recording Sleep's first full-length record, Volume One, Marler vanished, while the band became a metal icon. Marler turned up at Saint Herman of Alaska Monastery in northern California and was later transferred to a monastery on a nearly deserted island in Alaska. During his seven-year stint as a monk, he founded the widely distributed zine titled Death to the World. The zine had a considerable impact on youth counterculture during the mid-to late-1990s, which caught the attention of the mainstream press and quickly led to the release of Marler's first book, Youth of the Apocalypse, which he co-authored with a fellow monastic.
In 1999, Marler left his reclusive life in the monastery and returned to California, where he restarted his music career with former Sleep bandmate Chris Hakius as the lead singer for an alternative band called The Sabians. Marler then moved to Austin, Texas, in 2005, where he remained a musician and publishing author, active in the Austin music scene with his current band, Shiny Empire. 2015 Marler started a Christian punk band called Quick And The Dead. On 25th November 2015, the band released its first album, Hymns for the Apocalypse. Album sales went to Christian communities of Syria aggravated by IS persecution—new books in 2025: The Art of Unseen Warfare and New Edition of Youth of the Apocalypse.
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