Christmas shopping this year was made a little easier. Along with the gifts bought for family and friends, I included for each person a copy of ‘The Singing Silence’ by Anne Hamilton. Earlier this year I felt privileged to have been asked to edit this book. It’s only a little book but it packs a great wallop. It is filled with interesting detail and information. I was blown away by what I read. You can read a review of it up on my ‘Write and Read with Dale’ blog or under non fiction at Aussie Reviews-a great site that reviews Australian books and promotes Aussie authors.
‘The Singing Silence’ would be a good book to give to your non-Christian friends as it raises many questions and highlights fascinating facts and details of creation, using aspects from poetry, math, art, literature and science to back up the points made. A sequel to ‘The Singing Silence’ is planned and I, for one, can’t wait.
I met Anne for the first time last year at the inaugural Alpha 2 Omega conference. Along with Lyn Hurry she was one of the instigators of that convention which brought together around 150 Christian writers from around Australia and New Zealand. After receiving such a good reception from those who attended last time, they’re hoping to run it again in June 2008. At the moment it is still doubtful whether it will go ahead, due to increased costs and venue problems.
From my point of view this year’s Alpha 2 Omega convention was a great opportunity to meet up with people I knew from online like Anne Hamilton, Lyn Hurry, Mary Hawkins, and Janet Camilleri – editor of Footprints as well as meet writers whose work I admire, like Rosanne Hawke and Elizabeth Fensham. A special treat for me was meeting Andrew Lansdown, who has long been my favorite poet. I have almost all of his poetry books. He is also a children’s author.
It was also good to be able to encourage young writers who came along to the talks and workshops and the critique sessions. Christian writers in Australia will be the poorer if this convention does not go ahead. Maybe a concentrated prayer effort could change the hearts of and minds of those who are currently putting obstacles in the way of this going ahead.
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