Our indie house is looking for committed nonfiction writers of essay collections, subject matter experts, contemplative thinkers who can appeal to the growing faith deconstruction movement. Must see the marketing of your work as an integral part of what you do. See next for how to submit. #MSWL

On this episode, Mick and I get into our own faith journeys. Between who we are as publishing people and our authors and their books, we are each influencing the other, and not pretending there’s neutrality. publishingdisrupted.substack.com/p/where-were...

So glad to have Jeff Elkins on Publishing Disrupted! We're joined by novelist, writing coach, and Dialogue Doctor founder @jeffelkins.bsky.social for an honest conversation about vocation, disruption, and creative reinvention. Listen wherever you get podcasts or publishingdisrupted.substack.com.

Catch this @religiondispatches.org interview of LDB author Nia Chiaramonte by the intrepid Chrissy Stroop, @thebugbeardispatch.bsky.social. Such a good conversation. Lessons for us all. You’ll definitely want to check out her book “I Hardly Knew Me”. religiondispatches.org/the-trees-do...

Authors, publishing & exvangelical friends: we covered a lot in this recent Publishing Disrupted podcast with author @marlataviano.bsky.social. You can get the summary and video on our Substack post but listen wherever you get podcasts. open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

I took a strong stance on this podcast about how, if authors want to start advocating for themselves, they should take a stronger stance on the issue of royalty percentages and focus less on advances. The argument for it is there. 1/ open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

“You can have self-worth WITHOUT relying on anyone else to give it to you?!” New on the Lake Drive Substack: a powerful guest post from Nia Chiaramonte, author of "I Hardly Knew Me: Following Love, Faith, and Skittles to a Transgender Awakening." lakedrivebooks.substack.com/p/reclaiming...

I don’t often write about my day job, but this week on Substack I did. It's about the amazing new people who joined together at @hyponymousliterary: Audrey Farley, Ivy Zeller, and lenny duncan. open.substack.com/pub/dvdmorri...

Don't be one of those people who stick their fingers in their ears and go "na na na na na na na . . . "

Our latest on the Publishing Disrupted podcast. It’s the Christians vs. the Coastal Elites! open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

"With liberalism, with so much historical mixing of cultures, with the way one religion in particular was and is used as a cudgel for supremacy, it’s not hard to agree that we lack robust, colorful, textured, rich-tasting traditions in the US." open.substack.com/pub/dvdmorri...

The podcast in which I talk about how if you didn't go to church in the 1600s colonies, you would get fined 50 pounds of tobacco. (from reading Everyday Life in Early America by David Hawke). @brchastain.social @rsokamoto.bsky.social @micksilva.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/70UE...

What happens when publishing becomes less about chasing platforms and more about building genuine communities? That’s the question at the heart of this week’s episode of Publishing Disrupted, with our guest, Rohadi Nagassar. publishingdisrupted.substack.com/p/ink-root-a... @rohadi.com

“'It was the joy of watching people discovering books,' David said. No algorithms. No targeted ads. No social media campaigns. Just the simple, powerful attraction a reader feels to encountering something unique or offbeat that speaks to them." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

We’re only one week into our Holy Disobedience Kickstarter and we're already one third funded! Join us! Your participation counts. See link in bio. Or head over to: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lak... @theglorywhole.bsky.social @davidrmorris.bsky.social

Watch this on YouTube and the link is in the notes. This is a blow your socks off story and so well expressed. It shows that faith deconstruction is like going through an exorcism. With the big release on the other side. But then what.

Please consider joining. You have no idea how much your help tips the scales. Our publishing model breaks molds in more ways than just the financial model. But that counts very much so.

"We read a lot, maybe too much. And that probably makes us both very sexy and terrible judges of this old publishing trope that men don’t read books." open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

This is it exactly. Prioritizing “the great commission” makes Christianity and especially its American evangelical form supremacist. We must deal with this. If we do, then that’s good spirituality, however defined. There’s so much to this.

“The Department of Homeland Security isn’t writing a new chapter in the White supremacist playbook but highlighting the familiar practice of White-washing our history.” -Sara Moslener religiondispatches.org/dhss-homelan... @religiondispatches.org

Here’s part two of my essay on healthy and unhealthy approaches to spirituality, with Marianne Williamson serving as a prime illustration of the latter www.bugbeardispatch.com/p/what-const...

The latest from our publishing podcast. This is one of my favorite podcast titles ever. open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

"Perhaps it was the Puritans who helped us develop a deeply ingrained, sacred narrative and all its expressions and built-in associations. They formed the American mindset of religious fanaticism and separatism into our very cultural DNA." dvdmorris.substack.com/p/deconstruc...

Senseless gridlock and soulless orthodoxy just appeared in my mind at the same time. This is what I’m dealing with.

Just two publishing friends trying to work it all out. Join in, and if you do, would you please offer an honest rating? So grateful. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

A little work update that I'm super stoked about! We’re delighted to welcome Audrey Clare Farley to Hyponymous Literary as a literary agent! Audrey is a writer, editor, scholar, and the author of the critically acclaimed books The Unfit Heiress and Girls and Their Monsters.

From "Lost Faith and Wandering Souls" by @davidrmorris.bsky.social

If you don’t think Christian privilege is real or a pervasive problem, just mildly criticize one of the many problematic things Jesus said or did in the gospels. Then step back and brace yourself for the 87 people who will immediately pop up to shout you down in defense of his honor

Is Vance Boelter an evangelical outlier? Sort of. Was he enabled by the rhetoric, fantasies and culture of mainstream evangelicalism of so many varieties in the US? nymag.com/intelligence... The Spiritual Warfare of Vance Boelter

Always enjoy my podcast time with friend and publishing colleague @Mick Silva. We do this convo in a laid back style, taking some of the presumptuousness out of publishing and writing. Join in. God knows there's plenty of other experts out there. open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

Let this be a mantra. Find your own good interpretation of it.

"It's a huge denomination that is losing members at a rate that we have never experienced in modern American Christianity." - @ryanburge.bsky.social Hallelujah. May the Southern Baptist Convention's membership losses continue. baptistnews.com/article/sbcs...

It’s giving dystopian.

Do Big Profit-Driven Publishers Produce a Positive Predicament? Here’s more in this new podcast with my industry friend and colleague, Mick Silva. open.substack.com/pub/publishi...

Here’s the alt you’ve been looking for.

Much goodness. Congrats @laurencibene.bsky.social

“Not only are evangelicals raised in ways that condition them to cede moral authority to an “anointed” one, but from toddlerhood on, they’re raised with a priority on obedience over intellectual autonomy.” Christa Brown @christabrown.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/christab...

So many horrible books selling well right now that are Christian nationalist, crusades against “anti Christian” bias (yeah books have already been out on that), diatribes about “toxic empathy.” So much doublespeak. I’m both incredibly discouraged and saddened but also ready to get back to work.

Reza Aslan said my book "is a book that every American must read, regardless of religious affiliation,” so that means you should read it too. Here it is: bookshop.org/a/11130/9780...

"The broken symbols of our American Christianity are forever broken. There’s no recovery of certain symbols, ideas, or tropes. They are lost forever. If we admit that, then we’re on our way. We’re moving forward." - @davidrmorris.bsky.social

"With regard to a religion, a spiritual worldview, or a long-held sense of belonging, the loss becomes harder to articulate and harder still to resolve. The work of mourning is that much more difficult, and the presence of melancholia that much more likely." open.substack.com/pub/dvdmorri...

Pretty tone deaf NYT article. It admits secularization will continue but spends all the real estate saying it’s not. Wiffs on the deconstruction movement. And happy secular Europeans. Moralistic undertones too, in a time when Christianity is so complicit w/ power. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/s...

Growing up evangelical, did you have such hallowed meaning placed on the Israelites journey through the desert to the land of “milk and honey”? That right there is part of the political DNA we are dealing with. It’s deeply archetypal.

It’s increasingly difficult to escape the conclusion that what we’re watching play out is the failure of humanity to pass through the Great Barrier

Do we really need another book on the historical Jesus? I know people are buying it, I know it will spur discussion. But we’ve done this dance so many times, quite a lot of it. So many of us need to read other things.

Trump will never not insist his policies are working. But we all know this already.

"I marvel at all the ways people can connect around books today, which they couldn’t years ago. And how people who share a similar interest can congregate and befriend others." @danblank.bsky.social And don't miss the end of this article. open.substack.com/pub/danblank...

“Politics is magic. He who knows how to summon the forces from the deep, him they will follow.” Carl Schorske, Fin de Sieclè Vienna

America is a country reliant and even addicted to a form of religion. If we let go of it, even put ourselves into rehab, maybe we’ll find what we’ve been looking for. No guarantees tho.