LOST GENRE GUILD - Blog Tour Day 1
Promoting and supporting biblical speculative fiction since 2006

"The Lost Genre Guild's mission is to raise the awareness and respect for Biblical speculative fiction, and to encourage, educate and support the writers of such fiction."

Website: http://www.lostgenreguild.com/


The Lost Genre Guild is a writing group that provides moral support, a ear to listen, and sometimes, when needed, a shoulder to lean on, for biblical speculative writers. Members have found a group of kindred spirits in the Lost Genre Guild. If you enjoy stories a little outside the norm - fantasy, science fiction, horror, or suspense - and told from a biblical perspectibe, the Lost Genre Guild is group for you.


Group founder, Frank Creed, kindly offered to answer a few questions about the Lost Genre Guild and it's purposes:

What is the purpose behind the Lost Genre Guild and when was the group formed?

I'd planned on starting the Lost Genre Guild in early summer, 2006. Then I got wrapped up in what was then called Daniel I Weaver’s anthology project—now known as Light at the Edge of Darkness—an anthology of Christian speculative fiction. All the submitting authors worked together through a series of scheduled critique rounds that extended into September of that year. Great memories and results; the anthology landed a 2007 Top-Ten Predators and Editors Award. After the writers helped improve each other's fiction, we moved the enthusiasm from a critique group to the Lost Genre Guild's private newsgroup.
Light at the Edge of Darkness seventeen contributors all needed to promote the short stories we’d just polished, but the Lost Genre Guild's primary focus has always been raising public awareness of Christian sci-fi, horror, and fantasy.
The literary mark of speculative fiction is complete creativity of settings and characters. Such creativity can be easily utilized to explore social issues and themes. A college textbook titled Thought Probes: Philosophy through Science Fiction literature calls science "fiction the hand-maiden of worldviews". Atheism has dominated science-fiction literature, and L. Ron Hubbard even used it to start his own religion. As a lifelong fan of CS Lewis and speculative fiction, my many hours wasted in Christian bookstores in search of my favorite fiction became a chip I still carry on my shoulder. Why Christian publishers completely ignored such a powerful fiction-ministry baffled me. Those interested in reading more on this topic might enjoy the following essay: http://tinyurl.com/5dygz8

Would you mind mentioning a few of the many benefits a LGG member might enjoy?

The heart of our community is a private newsgroup. We have public group forums at MySpace, and Shoutlife. There have been announcements on http://frankcreed.proboards.com/index.cgi but we now have a brand-new lost genre Guild forum that includes a private critique group. Can ya’ say “busy”? The passion has finally found a public home. Check out http://lostgenreguild.com/phpBB3
We have chat and secondlife.com virtual reality Web shows as well, but a Canadian sport called curling gets more spectators. 8 (


How many writers, readers, and editors of Christian speculative fiction are currently members?

Promoting our genre is a steady and slow effort, but it definitely helps that our membership now includes most of the artists listed at Jeff Gerke’s wherethemapends.com, many writers and editors from Bill Snodgrass’ Double Edged Publishing, and Rebecca Miller’s Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour. I won't violate the Guild's privacy policy by name-dropping, but we are 133 members strong. I had hoped that fans would take the opportunity to hang out with their favorite writers, but we’ve few straight-up fans. Our membership hails from all aspects of Christian publishing.

How might interested readers and writers apply to join its ranks?

Were one to Google Lost Genre Guild and senses that it be a good fit, the home page at http://lostgenreguild.com and our ABOUT sidebar link explore membership. To join, one simply has to send me a message indicating their interest, by using the CONTACT link. There has only been one anti-Christian try to be tricky and infiltrate, but he ran a weak game and got bored quick. This simple method has kept spammers away, and our privacy policy ensures security. We're just one little cell in the Body of Christ, and the only things really needed is passion and enthusiasm with which to encourage others in our community.

Thank you, Mr. Creed.

Day two of the Lost Genre Guild Blog brings more information about the founder and a few books the group helped promote.

*Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Keanan Brand
Kathy Brasby
Grace Bridges
Valerie Comer
Courtney
Frank Creed
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Katie Hart
Timothy Hicks
Joleen Howell
Jason Isbell
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Lost Genre Guild
Mike Lynch
Magma
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
Mirtika
Hanna Sandvig
James Somers
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Timothy Wise