Writing

Tracks of a Theological Chimera, 2024

Tracks of a Theological Chimera is an anthology, a textual stained-glass window, a bricolage that derives its message from the coordinated diversity of its parts. Just as a chimera—the mythological beast composed of portions of a lion, a goat, and a serpent—does not fall into any one family of animals, this theological work arises from the entanglement of various Christian experiences and academic pursuits.

The book’s contents come in four parts.

• Pieces in A Path in the Wilderness: Poems respond to the blowing of the Holy Spirit;
• An Oblate’s Life: Journals speaks of a journey in search of humility and groundedness;
• the writings in A Search for Understanding: Essays probe how Scripture, Tradition, and human life talk to one another;
• and the texts in A Voice in the Public Square: Posts address contemporary Christian life and its contextual challenges for both individuals and institutions.

Available on Amazon.com on November 1, 2024.

Contact Sheet: Poems, 2012

The roots of the word “photography” mean to “write with light.” In Contact Sheet, David M. Frye uses words as the lights and shadows that describe the fine-grain details of the ordinary world. This work, his first collection of poetry, reflects his posture as a poet and photographer, a Pennsylvania native who lives in Nebraska, and a lifelong traveler of the pathways between the analytical and creative realms.

“David Frye’s Contact Sheet brings a much-needed heart to contemporary poetry. It’s a relief and revelation to read a poet so open to the teachings found in the quietest of moments. These poems brighten this planet like ‘a pair of … steely eyes shining in the dark.’”

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of Lucky Fish

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Bridging Physics and Communications: Experimental Detection and Analysis of Web Site Users’ Paths in an Environment of Free Choice, 2000

A rôle for professional communicators to play in a postmodern context is to work as an experimentalist, designing a system that supports users’ free engagement with the content of the system, inviting people to interact with that system, observing the ways in which those engagements proceed, and from those observations, learning how to refine the system to support more fruitful future engagements. The rôle serves to cultivate an environment in which users’ conversations with one another and their interaction with the system’s content may thrive. This thesis proposes that the experimentalist is a useful and practical rôle for a communicator in the current cultural context, demonstrates through the design and experimental implementation of a detector of users’ behaviors in a system that the rôle can be played effectively, analyzes the results of an experimental test, and suggests refinements to the experimental method.

Design

Make My Heart a Pomegranate: poems, John Hopkins, author

“Make My Heart a Pomegranate is a collection of poems that explores the intersection of the secular and the spiritual, poems that find the holiness in our daily lives, poems meant to delight, to disturb, and to delve into the mysteries of time and space.” —Author’s description, Amazon.com

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Celtic Nan: poems, John Hopkins, author

“This collection of poems finds the thin places that connect the everyday details of modern life with the deep truths that divine nudges move us to discover for ourselves.” —Author’s description, Amazon.com

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Stanley Stays Awake, Lora Rivers, author

This read-aloud adventure for young children ages 4-8, features a curious star named Stanley who stays up past his bedtime and falls to the earth. Determined to return to his family in the sky, he appeals to the kindness of Jasmine, a firefly, and her rocket friend, Rex, to help him get back home. Brimming with bright colors, playful illustrations, and catchy rhymes, the book also features subtle humor and gentle messages about kindness, persistence, and the benefits of sleep. Appropriate for early readers at 2nd-3rd grade level.” —Author’s description, Amazon.com

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