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Theistic literature is full of references and allusions to a self-concealing deity. The psalm writer whose poems are included in the Hebrew Bible regularly calls out, in alternating notes of perplexity, impatience and despair, to a God whose felt presence apparently seemed frustratingly inconstant. But he or she still assumes that God is there.

The post Does ‘divine hiddenness’ belong to theists or to atheists? appeared first on OUPblog.

This month’s Very Short Introduction column comes from Dr. ‘Ben’ Pink Dandelion, an Honorary Reader in Quaker Studies at the University of Birmingham. We have recently published his book The Quakers: A Very Short Introduction, and he has kindly answered a few questions on the subject for OUPblog.

OUP: Has the Quakers’ anti-war stance meant that the movement has seen an increase in interest and/or membership since the beginning of the Iraq War?

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What will web videos by writers look like in ten years?

I hope they won't look like Hollywood movies or trailers for Hollywood movies. It's so silly to have this new lo-fi, do-it-yourself medium of web video and pretend like we need to imitate Hollywood movies.

If you are a writer interested in web video, just do it. Don't wait until you can cut together the next Citizen Kane. There are plenty of real movie directors who will do that. Web video is supposed to be playful and short.

If you don't believe me, check out these creative and loopy videos from writers:

Brandon Scott Gorrell made a web short about his glamorous life of a young writer. Ellen Kennedy made a hypnotic video about a vegetarian meal for Ass Hi Books. Finally, Chris Killen created a flash love story about a computer and a bag of potato chips.

Thanks to Tao Lin for linking to all these writers. Look for some of my video work next week as Rachel Kramer Bussel stops to discuss The Best Sex Writing of 2008. It will be the steamiest Five Easy Questions feature, ever.

Most of the readers on this site--myself included--live in that treacherous region called The Land Before Your First Book. We all dream of finishing novels, screenplays or non-fiction books, struggling without the reassurance of a steady writing paycheck.

Today Tao Lin wrote a sort of kindness manifesto about what motivated him during that rough time in his life: "many writers probably continue writing (or are able to produce new stories and eventually books) only because every couple of weeks or months they read some little thing on the internet, some evidence that their writing has had an actual effect on a human being that they do not know."

Ed Champion responded with an equally important observation about the unfriendly state of media culture: "the world is often a casually inconsiderate place, particularly here in New York, where I am still negotiating the way in which people — even supposed acquaintances — snub each other when more “important” people are present."

What's the point? We've only got each other people, so support your fellow fledgling writer and drop somebody a friendly line on their blog. You could be the person who saves some wonderful novel or movie or poem from the trash bin.  

I would even take that a step further and urge you to actively seek out writing friends, to prevent yourself from falling into the Depression Tar Pits that fill the Land Before Your First Book. LWOT (Lies with Occasional Truth) has a program to help you find your writing buddy  have a nifty feature called Write Match--a way to be artificially hooked up with your writerly soul-mate.

What happens when your non-fiction subject turns out to be a much different person than you expected?

The NY Times City Room blog has an essay about Joseph Mitchell's awe-inspiring book of literary journalism, Joe Gould's Secret. Read the book. You will thank me. That's all I have to say.

If that's not enough kooky literary characters for you, read about this Cape Cod novelist who wrote an entire fake transcript of his hoax visit to Oprah's book club. The transcript is one of the craziest pieces of fiction I read all week. (Thanks, GalleyCat)

Finally, the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online delivers an insightful essay about Tao Lin, featuring some interesting thoughts about the first generation of novelists weaned on the Internet.

Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.

A great twist, jolt, or symphonic scene at the climax of a novel will always leave your readers begging for more. But how do you know when your book has gone too far?

Tao Lin is exploring whiz-bang endings (among many other open-ended questions he's posting about his second novel), and this quote in particular got me thinking. Check it out:

"it can start in one place and end in a different place that is unexpected and makes you forget where it began (i think this has happened with short stories, but not really entire books, for me), for example maybe 'graveyard day' by bobbie ann mason, that story where they smoke crack, i think, by a.m. homes, and that story by murakami where they rob a mcdonald's"

You can learn a lot by reading all three of those writers, especially A.M. Homes. She can turn the dullest suburb into a fairytale forest, complete with witches that eat little children.

Still, these twisty endings also run a big risk--you can lose your readers in a heartbeat when you resort to fantasy or major plot shifts. My question for you is this: Can you think of novels that crashed and burned because of a slam-bam ending? How much is too much?