Tag: reading

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

There’s an almost thirty-year gap in the story of my friendship with Dave Burns. I have clear (ish) memories of our time together as undergrads at Saint Joe’s: arguing in honors seminars, collaborating on SEARCH retreats, that sort of thing. When the Challenger exploded, Dave and his girlfriend (now wife) Kate and I watched the coverage together in Xavier Hall. There’s a fun cap-and-gown picture of us in front of the student center in 1987, and then . . . I was forty-nine, walking into church for my father’s funeral, trying to figure out who that vaguely familiar middle-aged man was, smiling at me kindly from a back pew.

Since I reconnected with Dave ten years ago, our shared passion for writing has helped us make up for lost time.  He sent me an unpublished draft of a fun romp in which his protagonist was a fast-talking, wise-cracking, self-deprecating Gorgon (yup—snakes for hair, paralyzing death-gaze). Then he confessed to having also written a six volume post-apocalyptic series with some surprisingly Biblical turns. I asked for the manuscripts one at a time, and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

Dave’s writing chops garnered some attention in 2019 when his excellent short story “Night Surf” won a Writer’s Digest grand prize. (You can read the story and an interview about it here.) And in 2022, he entered a Pitch Week competition at When Words Count—the writers’ retreat in Vermont that opened the door to my first published book—and swept all the categories, winning the top prize with that little Gorgon tale, now out in the world as Heart of Stone: Book One of The Medusa Chronicles. (Keep writing, Dave; we want to know what’s next for Kyra!)

Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is a New Jersey trial attorney. What do world-building in a fantasy novel and making a persuasive case to a jury have in common? They both rely on his gift for storytelling. In the Writer’s Digest interview, he says that’s the aspect of trial work he enjoys most: “having the opportunity to tell what I hope is a true story to a jury and then letting them weigh in on what they think of it.”

I haven’t seen Dave in the courtroom, but as a fan of his fiction, I believe that the truth at the core of each of his stories is what makes them so good. His characters wrestle with eternal, relatable themes of meaning and purpose, even when they’re battling mythological assassins or defending a citadel from vampire attacks.

His characters wrestle with eternal, relatable themes of meaning and purpose, even when they’re battling mythological assassins or defending a citadel from vampire attacks.”

Dave was one of the early readers for Finding God Along the Way, and I can picture exactly where I was when he called to tell me he had finished reading it.  I was giving a retreat in Hampton Bays NY, out for a long walk after dinner when my cell phone rang. “I remember finishing the last Lord of the Rings book as a kid,” Dave said, “and bursting into tears because I knew it was over and there wouldn’t be any more. Not since then have I been so sorry to reach the end of a book!”

Here’s what he had to say in writing: “Do you want to go for a walk with me?” With this deceptively simple question, author Christine M. Eberle launches us on a journey that is both physical and spiritual as she recounts her month-long, 300-mile trek through northern Spain with a group of fellow pilgrims to visit the key sites in the life of Ignatius of Loyola. In Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home, Eberle shares the perils and pitfalls of each stage of her travels, as well as the moments of sublime grace and beauty she encountered, while recreating each wild and wide vista of the Ignatian Camino trail—from the formidable heights of its mountains to the fragrant vineyards and arid deserts of its lowlands.

With her trademark tongue-in-cheek wit and relentless honesty, Eberle crafts both an entertaining and accessible memoir and a guidebook for meditating life’s most important questions. At turns harrowing and joyous, this is a book that lets the reader inhabit each step of an uplifting and transformative odyssey few will get to experience firsthand. By the time the author reaches the pinnacle of her journey and arrives at the monastery at Montserrat, the reader will feel an undeniable sense of accomplishment and triumph.

For new iterations of old friendships, I am truly grateful.