UU Authors

Let's talk specifically about authors who are Unitarian Universalists, or who were Unitarians, or Universalists, or associated with Unitarians to a strong degree, such as the Transcendentalists.

OK. I'll start. I recommend Rabindranath Tagore, an amazing Nobel-prize-winning (1913) poet and playwright from the Indian subcontinent. His works are lavish with spirituality and with a reverence for the sublime in day-to-day life.

Here's a brief and I'm sure, incomplete list, in case anyone wants to take up the conversation (and it's also a way for people to find our group who are interested in certain authors!):

Ray Bradbury
Louisa May Alcott
Ben Bagdikian
Ambrose Bierce
Robert Burns
Alice Cary
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Norman Cousins
E.E. Cummings
Charles Dickens
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Fulghum
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Amy Lowell
James Russell Lowell
Herman Melville
Sylvia Plath
Beatrix Potter
Carl Sandberg
May Sarton
Mary Shelley
Henry David Thoreau
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Dan Wakefield
William Carlos Williams

The new issue of the UU World magazine features several UU authors, both as contributors and as reviewed authors.

Articles:
"Hungry for Democracy" by Frances Moore Lappe (a member of the First Church in Belmont, Massachusetts)
"Writing a New World" from Writing to Change the World, by Mary Pipher (a member of the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, Nebraska)

Reviews:
A Guest of the World by Jeffrey Lockwood (a member of the UU Fellowship of Laramie)
Christian Voices in Unitarian Universalism: Contemporary Essays ed. by Kathleen Rolenz (editor of the newsletter of the UU Christian Fellowship)
We Pledge Our Hearts: A Treasury of Poems, Quotations, and Readings to Celebrate Love and Marriage ed. by Edward Searl
Club Meds by Katherine Hall Page (a member of King's Chapel in Boston)
May This Light Shine: A Songbook for Children and Youth ed. by Wendy Bartel, published by the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network.

Some current UU writers (defined as raised as a UU or having been active members
Will Shetterly
Emma Bull
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Sarah Zettel
Sherry Tepper

A fun article in the online version of the UU World identifies an author who may at least have UU influences....

"A writer's interfaith inspiration
In an interview with sci-fi novelist Mark London Williams discussing the influence of his interfaith upbringing he notes that growing up they attended a Unitarian church and his mother enrolled in Unitarian ministerial school at Starr King. (Interfaith Family.com)"

I don`y know much about the matter in hand, but I have come across a UU publisher - Beacon books of (I think) Boston - they publish books from a range of viewpoints, including Paul robeson`s marvellous Here I Stand

Adding to your list of UU authors given in Message No. 3, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Also Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife and Four Spirits. Both of these novels have strong UU themes of freedom and equality. See http://www.uua.org/world/0500feat2.html
for more.

Another contemporary author is Rosemary Bray McNatt . Although her one book, Unafraid of the Dark, is now out of print and is a memoir of her life before she became a UU minister, she is in the process of writing a second book. I am certain her UU ministry will play a large role in this book. Personally, I can't wait for it to be published. If it's anything like her preaching, it will be amazing, powerful and sweet.

Let's all take a few moments, or heck, a whole day, week, month, year--and mourn the passing and celebrate the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who died yesterday at the age of 84.

He was my first literary hero, and has always occupied a place in my pantheon of favorite authors.

Hearing him quoted at a UU service was one of the major things that drew me to Unitarian Universalism: a faith that could see Vonnegut as a prophet.

i am a recovering UU and have published four books. i'm neither known, but am appreciated by those who read me. I tend to be called "satanic" however by the christians. oh well. my web site is:

www.andyray.net

I've found the book reviews in UU World to be very well written and a great way to find out more background information. March by Geraldine Brooks had been on my to be read pile for some time, but I had no idea of the Alcott family's affiliation with Unitarian Universalism until I read the review. I'll have to move it closer to the top of the pile.

Someone in my UU church just emailed me this press release about an upcoming book by a UU author. I've no financial interest in this and haven't read the book, so I've deleted the pre-order info lest I get flagged.

NOBEL LAUREATES PRAISE BOLD NEW BOOK BY UU EVANGELISTS:
HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY FOR UU CHURCHES/SOCIETIES

http://www.ThankGodforEvolution.com

Rev. Michael Dowd and his science writer wife, Connie Barlow, both members
of the UU Church of the Larger Fellowship, are America's UU evolutionary
evangelists. They have spoken in more than 250 UU churches and fellowships
over the past 5 years and were recently featured on the cover of the UU
World: http://thankgodforevolution.com/blog/p,36

Rev. Dowd's forthcoming book, "Thank God for Evolution!", has been ENDORSED
BY 5 NOBEL LAUREATES AND 120 OTHER LUMINARIES, including prominent UU
ministers: http://thankgodforevolution.com/nobel It was mentioned in the
September 17th issue of NEWSWEEK magazine, even though media coverage will
not begin in earnest until November. Dowd's publicist is scheduling him for
radio talk shows nearly every day for the next year as he and Connie tour
America's major cities: http://www.thegreatstory.org/itinerary.html

MILLIONS WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD ABOUT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM WILL SOON HEAR
ABOUT US FOR THE FIRST TIME, as Dowd includes dozens of stories from his and
his wife's experiences in UU contexts. He and Connie are donating 100% of
book royalties toward furthering the epic of evolution movement in and
beyond the UUA. LET'S BE PREPARED FOR THIS AS A CONGREGATION!

"Thank God for Evolution!" will be available in bookstores November 1st.
However, Dowd's publisher, Council Oak Books, will be sending out
pre-ordered copies the first week of October.

ADVANCE ACCLAIM FOR "THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION!"

"The universe took 13.7 billion years to produce this amazing book. I
heartily recommend it." -- JOHN MATHER, NASA CHIEF SCIENTIST, 2006 NOBEL
PRIZE IN PHYSICS

"The science vs. religion debate is over! Must reading for all, including
scientists." -- CRAIG MELLO, 2006 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY/MEDICINE

"This is a book I would gladly (and securely) recommend, not only to members
of my own humanist-inclined congregation but to my evangelical relatives as
well!" -- REV. MICHAEL SCHULER, SENIOR MINISTER, FIRST UNITARIAN SOCIETY OF
MADISON

"Michael Dowd's marvelous use of scientific information, religious metaphor,
humor, and sheer delight in his subject(s) carries us to new places where
evolution and the deep stories of religion converge. His book is a gift for
our time." -- REV. LAUREL HALLMAN, SENIOR MINISTER, FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
OF DALLAS

"Dowd has given us a bridge across one of the major chasms of our times:
religion and evolution. His passion for both science and religion is
contagious. Reading his book, one can see that the discourse itself has
just evolved to a whole new level!" -- REV. MARLIN LAVAHNAR, SENIOR
MINISTER, ALL SOULS UNITARIAN CHURCH, TULSA

All 125 endorsements here: http://www.ThankGodforEvolution.com/praise

I just finished a memoir by a UU minister Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup

Getting great reviews, and I really enjoyed it. She is a widow, a mother and the chaplain for the Maine Forestry Service. The memoir is about those three things.

It occurs to me somewhat belatedly that I am a UU author! I have three books:
The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics
The Grateful Dead Reader
The Grateful Dead and the Deadheads: An Annotated Bibliography
Not exactly UU topics, but anyway...there you go.
--David Dodd

Interesting, now that you mention it, I have noticed a fair number of those dancing bear stickers on the backs of cars parked in my UU parking lot. ;-)

In the Fall edition of UU World, an early reviewer book First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, was given a blurb in their "Bookshelf" section. It seems that Eve Brown-Waite is a UU.

You can add my name as a UU author. I belong to All Souls, Tulsa. My book is entitled Secret of the Savior: The Myth of the Messiah in Mark.