The Inklings Variety Hour

An Inklings Christmas Carol (Part 1 of 3)

At last!  Here is the first part of a (Zoom) table reading of my "play" (loosely defined), "An Inklings Christmas Carol."  

Two more (longer) parts are to come!  Gee, it's a good thing Christmas begins on December 25, or I'd be out of time. Twelve Tide, etc., etc.!

Special thanks to Anika Smith, Sørina Higgins, and Joe Hoffman for reading this episode.  Thanks in general to Sørina's Author's Circle, which you can find out more about (and even join) here. 

Hope you enjoy it--keep in mind this is a first draft, none of us are professional actors, and I'm not making a cent off this episode! As with any holiday movie or play, if you keep your expectations low, you'll have a pretty good time!

Feel free to send me feedback at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  And please rate the show if you like it!

Twelve Tide (Pipkin Book)

O.G. Host Anika Smith rejoins the podcast to interview Chris and his beautiful and omnicompetent wife, Glencora, about their new Christmas resource book, Twelve Tide. 

Part of what we're trying to do with this book is make Christmas less a single-morning present binge preceded by anxiety and followed by anticlimax--and more a season of twelve days of giving, feasting, and learning to celebrate better.

Want an idea of what's in the book? Check out our website, 12tide.com.

We are all Niatirbians now (and Lewis was dismayed by godless Christmas cards).  We want to reconcile sacred and "secular" aspects of Christmas and equip people with some old ways to celebrate this season. 

Music from this episode includes:

• George Winston's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"
• Loreena McKennitt's "The Holly and the Ivy"
• Choir of Christchurch's "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
• Loreena McKennitt's "Gloucestershire Wassail"
• The Chieftains' "Boar's Head Carol"
• Maddy Prior's "Coventry Carol"
• Medieval Baebes' "Adam Lay Ybounden"
• Maddy Prior's "Wassail!"

Also, if you're interested in the Twelve Tide Spotify list Anika suggested on the show, here it is.

Stay tuned...I'm done with grading and I'm turning my attention to an Inklings Christmas Carol.  Won't be easy to finish in time, but I'll do my level best.  If you are interested in reading a part for it, feel free to email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com

God bless and keep you this Advent Season. See you at Christmas!

C.S. Lewis Has a Reading Day? (Crossover with All About Jack!)

Happy November 29, or as it's newly-known in Jack-conscious circles, C.S. Lewis Reading Day!

Join William O'Flaherty and Chris as we play Schroeder to C.S. Lewis' Beethoven in a "Crossover Extravaganza" that is sure to have you schlepping down to your local library to crack open some of our favorite works by Lewis!

(Ah! Still fresh! And intoxicating!)

William and Chris will both be attending a Livestream event today (11/29/23) marking this first annual C.S. Lewis Reading Day. Feel free to come along, at 7:00 EST. You should be able to find it on the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel or Facebook Page.

In the meantime, read some C.S. Lewis. (I assume that's what one does on a C.S. Lewis Reading Day when one isn't creating and listening to podcasts.)  If you're not sure where to start, listen to a bit of the present episode to get some ideas.

We had the first (and longer) part of this conversation on William's fine podcast, "All About Jack." It's already up, so check it out if you want to know about some of the works by Lewis that have influenced Chris the most.  You can also find it on William's Youtube channel.

You can find the essays and books William discusses here:

The Screwtape Letters (Annotated)

The Weight of Glory

The Four Loves

The Business of Heaven

Additionally, here is William's Amazon page, where you can buy his books on C.S. Lewis, The Misquotable Lewis and C.S. Lewis Goes To Hell.

And you can find Twelve Tide, the Christmas Resource book by Chris and Glencora Pipkin on Amazon as well. More on that next week!

Finally, Chris is creating a Christmas Special starring the Inklings. If you have any interest in reading the part of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Warnie Lewis, or Edith Tolkien, please contact him at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Coming soon...

Just a quick announcement about some bonus content coming your way in the next few weeks:

If you want to hear the first part of my conversation with William O'Flaherty, check out his podcast, All About Jack.  The second part will arrive on C.S. Lewis Reading Day, right here on The Inklings Variety Hour.

If you want to watch the Livestream conversation between myself and a whole bunch of other C.S. Lewis podcast hosts, go to the Pints with Jack Youtube Channel at 7:00 PM EST on Wednesday, November 29.

If you'd like to check out the book I've written with my wife (Twelve Tide), here it is. We'll be talking with original cohost Anika about it next week.

If you would like to be a part of the Christmas special I'm working on for later in December (or would like to suggest ideas for Season Four), email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  I'd love to hear from you for any reason, really.

New Charles Williams Poems!

In this special edition of The Inklings Variety Hour, Sørina Higgins joins me to discuss an exciting discovery she made while perusing Charles Williams' manuscripts at the Marion E. Wade Center.

Come to hear about the new Charles Williams poetry and manuscripts; stay to hear a brief discussion about whether Williams should be "canceled." 

Follow Sørina's work at https://theoddestinkling.wordpress.com/, and feel free to support her work at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina. 

And let me know your thoughts! Email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

The Inklings Variety Hour will be back in March (or so) for a fourth season! In the meantime, enjoy occasional bonus episodes like this. Next up, we'll be having a crossover episode with William O'Flaherty's "All About Jack" podcast for the new, official C.S. Lewis Reading Day (November 29). 

I'll also be promoting a Christmas book my wife and I have written. We'll see you then!

Barfield, Tolkien, and ”Splintered Light,” with Verlyn Flieger

Verlyn Flieger rejoins me to talk about her first important work--and really the first very important work on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion--Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World.

I was really excited to have this conversation, as I read this book just under two decades ago and it not only introduced me to Barfield's ideas, but also made The Silmarillion far more interesting and meaningful to me than it had been. 

So, enjoy, and thanks so much to Verlyn for coming on the show again.  It's been such an honor and a treat to be able to talk with her.  

I'm about out of podcasts!  With the semester starting up, this may well be the final podcast of the season--but I intend to return for Season 4, probably sometime in March.  You'll probably have a few scattered podcasts from me before then, so watch this space!

I've pretty much run out of regular co-contributors, and I worry that the nature of this podcast suffers if it's mostly interviews with published experts (fun as those are), book promotions, or me just talking on my own.  This should be primarily friends talking about good books (and many, many thanks to all the friends who have joined me here)!

If any listeners would like to join me to discuss a book (say, The Silver Chair or The Man Who Was Thursday, or something else), just say the word.  I'd love to have you chime in for an episode or two at the very least.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com or give the podcast a rating on iTunes.  

Thanks for listening!

Dawn Treader: Retreaded, with Children

Sorry for the late post!  Sorry also that this is mostly (but not entirely) old material.  Despite that, it took a long, long time to edit!

I wasn't happy with the way the audio turned out in Part 2 of Voyage of the Dawn Treader earlier this season, so this is my attempt to rectify that!  It should be much easier to hear us talk--with a lot less deafening music and waves.  Also, if you have a long drive ahead of you, stick us on--we'll cover all of Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

You can listen to Part 1 (with David Bates and Eric Geddes), Part 2 (with Eric Geddes), as well as all new bonus material featuring the three Pipkin kids, whose patience I test with attempts at Socratic seminar on VODT--as well as attempts to get them to sit still.  I'd say they give about as well as they get.

The material with my kids is pretty heavily edited.  You're welcome.

As always, email me at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  

Thanks again to David Bates and Eric Geddes, and thanks to Logan Huggins for mixing the first episode.

Next time: Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger joins me to at last talk about Owen Barfield--and his influence on Tolkien.  We'll discuss her landmark study, Splintered Light.

Shall These Bones Breathe? by Sørina Higgins

Chris speaks with Dr. Sørina Higgins about her developing short story collection, Shall These Bones Breathe?

We also talk a bit about writing and the creative process. 

If you'd like to read Sørina's stories--and even help shape them--just go to www.buymeacoffee.com/higginssorina

For more on her scholarly work, check out her blog, The Oddest Inkling.

If you enjoy The Inklings Variety Hour, please do leave us a review or send me note at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Next week: I'm not entirely sure. Hey, it's like you're in a real Inklings meeting, where anything might happen. Perhaps Charles Williams or his ghost will show up--or a big ham from America. Or maybe we'll finally talk about ancient semantic unity and/or "more $%#@ing elves." Man, now I'm intrigued--as well as anxious to live up to all this hype. Stay tuned!

Promo: ”Ghost Food” by Chris Pipkin

Just a quick ad for a story I've published in Flash Fiction Magazine.  You can find it here.

Enjoy! If you like it and want to support a collection of similar stories I'm developing, just go here.

The Shire

Sophie Burkhardt joins me to talk about the nature of Tolkien's Shire and its role in his work.

(No long episode description this time--I am on vacation.  Enjoy, though!)

If you have additional thoughts about the Shire, or ideas about other places we should explore, drop us a line at inklingsvarietyhour@gmail.com.  We would love to hear from you.  I think it would be half worth it to do a second episode somewhere down the line on the Shire, as there is so much else to talk about.  Let me know your thoughts.

Give us a rating on iTunes if you can spare a minute. A kind review would mean a great deal to us.

Sophie's podcast, Beneath the Willow Tree, can be found here.

Next time, we'll be talking about Sørina Higgins' developing short story collection, Shall These Bones Breathe?  Check it out and support her work here.