The Wisdom of Yakob the Elder

 

In the autumn of 2017, I posted a blog on the More Than Writers blog site on the subject ‘My Favourite Book of the Bible’. That book was the ‘right strawy’ Letter of James. My post barely satisfied ACW’s mandate of blogging only about writing. I mentioned the way in which the Letter’s teaching seemed to contain little narratives (almost the converse of Jesus’s stories containing teaching). Something then inspired me to turn these embedded narratives into actual stories, and I presumed on the hospitality of More Than Writers to present all five of them here, though as this was writing about faith matters, rather than about writing, it probably broke the rules. And, as a timely cherry on top of this naughty cake, there came a challenge from ACW to write a short piece beginning ‘There was complete silence as she entered the room’. What I wrote in response made an ideal epilogue told from the point of view of my main female character. I didn’t submit it to the competition — in any case it was twice as long as they stipulated — but it provided a satisfactory way to round my narrative off.

The idea immediately presented itself of making a small book out of this series of stories. I thought it would be a good way to get the message of James across and to enthuse new readers about this glorious letter. The book wasn’t to be just entertainment, so I added a page of questions for individual reflection or group discussion. On the other hand, I wanted it to have aesthetic appeal. I knew my designer would make a good job of the layout and typography, but I hoped that readers would appreciate a set of truly original illustrations. Fortunately I had recently seen some illustrations whose style I liked by an artist who is an old friend of the family, and a Christian. She willingly took up the commission and produced a set of drawings that, for me, closely capture the essence of the book.

One can never expect everything to run smoothly, of course, and my conscientious designer objected to one of the pictures believing that it might offend some readers. There ensued a quiet impasse between the three of us while I resigned myself to shelving the project. In the end the artist brilliantly modified the problematic picture, and we were ready to go. The designer worked her magic, coming up with an eye-catching cover, and the files went off to IngramSpark for production. That process was almost effortless — there was the small problem of a stray comma in the blurb, requiring a cover correction and a second run-through at Ingrams — but it was not long before I had a batch of brand new paperback booklets in my possession.

I had a lot of fun writing these little stories: the ideas came to me almost unbidden, without undue effort. I’m not flattering myself that I’m going to make money from the book. My designer made me a gift of the design — a quite unexpected act of generosity, but she is lovely! — and the artist and I have agreed to sell copies independently and do what we choose with the proceeds. The actual unit cost of print on demand for a booklet of 40 pages is not great, so the price per book can be quite low.

All this may sound like vanity publishing, but it isn’t. I am very serious about St James’s message. It needs to be heard by Christians and others alike, especially — dare I say — in these very dark times. You won’t find The Wisdom of Yakob the Elder in the bookshops, nor, perish the thought, on that octopoid emporium Amazon. But you can get it from me for a fiver, if you post a request here!

And thank you, ACW, for being the test bed.

Philologus