A few members earned notable awards in 2025 for their recent books, including:
There were many other writing projects Chrysostom members saw published in 2025, including:
A few works by members to watch for in 2026:
To see a sampling of books by each of our authors, both past and present, see this list. The ongoing work of the Society can be supported by donating to a general fund or the Luci Shaw fund.
]]>Find your copy here.
]]>A charter member of the Chrysostom Society, Luci contributed decades of wisdom, encouragement, and leadership to the group, beginning with its first meeting in 1986. She is remembered not only for her over two dozen published works of poetry and spiritual reflection (the latest, An Incremental Life, published just months before her death at the age of 96), but her ability to inspire generations of students, writers, and readers to approach the world with her signature curiosity and wonder.
We miss Luci dearly and thank God for her bright presence in our lives and her legacy of, as she writes in the poem “Manna,” “watching for what / the wind may bring [her] next.”
Under Cover
We see God in the shape
he shows us. For some, fire.
For others, holy smoke, oil,
running river, sheep’s crook,
muscular right arm that holds
against the dark, the dread.
It is the oddity of poets
to not see the world straight on
but at some slant, under the skin,
behind the scrim—a scurry
of leaves, clouds. God
speaks his presence in
the wind, in frost.
I sensed him even in the ink
warming inside my pen before
these words arrived.
—Luci Shaw, from Scape (Paraclete Press)
You can find Luci’s body of work online and in various bookstores.
]]>A few 2024 highlights:
Daniel Nayeri’s book won a Newbery Honor award: The Many Assassinations of Samir, The Seller of Dreams (published by Levine Querido). His picture book Drawn Onward was named among the best books of the year by NPR and Kirkus. In 2025, he has two books slated for publication: The Bizarre Bazaar (summer 2025) and A Knot is not a Tangle (fall 2025).
Amy Muia won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her forthcoming title A Desert between Two Seas, expected fall 2025 through University of Georgia Press.
Sarah Arthur was selected as a 2024 Christy Award finalist for her teen and young adult fantasy fiction novel Once a Queen, and the sequel Once a Castle is already scheduled for release next month (Feb. 2025, Penguin Random House).
Christianity Today named Leslie Fields’s book Nearing a Far God: Praying the Psalms with our Whole Selves the winner of the 2024 Bible & Devotional category, and the 2024 Award of Merit for Culture, Poetry & the Arts went to Jessica Hooten Wilson’s Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress.
More fresh titles from 2024 & titles to look for in 2025:
Paul Willis gave us the gift of another collection of his poetry called Losing Streak (Kelsay Books, 2024).
Benjamin Myers’s rounded out 2024 with a new compilation of essays Ambiguity and Belonging: Essays on Place, Education, and Poetry (Belle Point Press).
Marilyn McEntyre’s book Midwinter Light: Meditations for the Long Season (2024 Broadleaf Press) is the perfect read during this winter season.
In February 2025, Diane Glancy will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Christianity and Literature, and in October Turtle Point Press will publish her biography of Lazarus, the Intended Writings, and the Promise of Forever. In 2024, she won the Catherine Case Lubbe Prize from the Poetry Society of Texas for her book, Piece. Quadrille: Christianity and the Early New England Indians was published by Wipf & Stock, also in 2024.
To kick off spring, poet Luci Shaw has yet another poetry collection for your enjoyment: An Incremental Life (spring 2025, Paraclete Press).
Daniel Taylor brings us encouragement with his new book Believing Again: Stories of Leaving and Returning to Faith (April 2025, Wipf & Stock).
Matthew Dickerson’s book Birds in the Sky, Fish in the Sea: Attending to Creation with Delight and Wonder was published by Square Halo Books in 2024, and another is coming on its heels in 2025 titled Aslan’s Breath: Seeing the Holy Spirit in Narnia.
Liturgical Press released an updated version of Paula Huston’s book One Ordinary Sunday: A Meditation on the Mystery of the Mass in 2024. Several years ago this won the General Interest category from the Association of Catholic Publishers Excellence, and first place for Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith category from Catholic Press Association. Her book Rejoice and Be Glad is forthcoming from the same press.
Jill Baumgartner’s forthcoming book, The Shapes Are Real: Poems on the Sculptures of Liviu Mocan, will consist of 33 poems and 33 photos of sculptures.
We invite you to read and review these new titles, and keep an eye out for new releases! Other favorite titles by our members are listed here.
]]>The Chrysostom Society was founded in 1986 and early members included Richard Foster, Calvin Miller, Karen Mains, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, Philip Yancey, and Luci. Its mission was and is to create a supportive community for writers whose work and lives are shaped by the Christian faith.
The aim of the Luci Shaw Writers Fellowship is to support travel expenses to the annual Society meeting for writers invited to join the Society, for guest writers (especially those early in their careers) invited to attend, and for members of the Society who may need financial help in attending a meeting. Funds may also be used to send nonmember writers to writing conferences and workshops, or other activities related to our goal of supporting writers who are active people of faith.
Luci is both a model and inspiration as a friend and as a poet. All interested in supporting faith-informed writing and honoring Luci’s ongoing legacy are invited to contribute.
For more details on donating, visit the Donate page.
Pictured above: Luci with her husband and fellow Chrysostom member, John Hoyte.
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“I don’t love God.”
Little did Gen-Z seminarian Katie Westcott know that when she made that confession to English professor Martin Bonham one fine summer day it would throw the quiet campus of Cupperton University into an uproar. Nothing would be the same again.
Together, this unlikely pair of oddballs poses this question: What if students could major in “loving God”—not religion or theology, but in the daily challenge of loving the Creator with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength? Well, now Ms. Westcott and Dr. Bonham make that possible with the new and innovative Department of Theophily—the department of loving God.
Yet strangely enough, not everyone is happy about the new department—and they will stop at nothing to see it shut down.
Part sitcom, part inspiration, this thoughtful theological comedy is like a Venn diagram in which C. S. Lewis and P. G. Wodehouse intersect.
—
You can find a copy of this book at Robert’s website here.
]]>Chrysostom will host a few different book launch readings across the country, including:
For more about this book, read here.
The Chrysostom wishes you a bright Advent season.
]]>“At the birth of Jesus, an event of cosmic significance by which we humans still mark our calendars, the invisible and visible worlds come together.” ―Philip Yancey
“Help us to realize, as those who love and believe in you that we, too, are pregnant with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that day by day we are being enlarged.” ―Luci Shaw
The first Christmas sermon preserved in church history was preached by St. John Chrysostom in AD 386, in which he declared, “Behold a new and wonderful mystery!” In this volume, the Christian literary writers of the Chrysostom Society reflect on Advent and Christmastide as a bright and meaningful season of anticipation and glory. Through forty-two readings from the first Sunday of Advent through Epiphany, contributors prepare us in watchful waiting for the coming of Jesus. We enter slowly so that the familiar can astonish us and become wondrous once again.
Jesus is born in Bethlehem. But not only there. He is also born in us, that we might bear his presence and impart his goodness to the world.
Join us in celebrating Advent—get your copy of A Radiant Birth here.
]]>“A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee,” Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family’s history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel’s story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother’s vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.
Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.
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