An Unexpected Journal: The Imaginative Harvest of Holly Ordway: Celebrating the Difference a Teacher Can Make

Jesse W. Baker is a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School and is (much too slowly) taking classes at Houston Baptist University, pursuing a Master of Arts in Apologetics (cultural track). Traveling with family, reading C.S. Lewis, preaching, and teaching are among his greatest joys in life.

Donald W. Catchings, Jr. is Founder and Board Chair of Street Light Inc. and Pastor of The True Light Church in Conroe, Texas since 2009. Donald regularly contributes to An Unexpected Journal and has published various titles including his most recent release, Strength in Weakness — a Young Adult reimagining of the Theseus Myth.

Annie Crawford lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three teenage daughters. She currently homeschools, teaches humanities courses, and serves on the Faith & Culture team at Christ Church Anglican. Annie recently completed a Masters of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Virginia de la Lastra is a physician, illustrator, and apologist. In 2015, while studying a Master’s degree in Apologetics at HBU, she discovered a love for drawing and has been doing it ever since. She has illustrated several books, and she regularly illustrates for The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, An Unexpected Journal, Teen STAR, and of course, for her medical students, nieces, nephews and little neighbors.

Ryan Grube is a design consultant, media theorist, and occasional photographer who frequents the intersection between theology and the arts. He studies rhetorical environments and is currently investigating the boundaries between modern, post-modern, and meta-modern paradigms for insight with an eye toward practical theological applications.

Seth Myers completed his MA in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University in 2017. As a power systems engineer, he has been involved with transformer diagnostics and rural electrification projects by partnering with NGOs in West Africa. A volunteer with international students through local churches, he enjoys conversations with friends from all cultures. He considers himself rich in friendships across time and space, including but not limited to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Bede the Venerable, Augustine, Ravi Zacharias & friends, and many student friends (chess-playing when possible, but not required) typically from throughout Asia. He has recently begun taking online courses in Faulkner University’s Doctor of Humanities program.

Annie Nardone is a two-year C.S. Lewis Institute Fellow with a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. She has homeschooled her three kids for twenty-five years and taught art and humanities at her local co-op. Her heart is for Rohan, Narnia, and Hogwarts, far fairer lands than this. Annie contributes and edits for An Unexpected Journal at www.anunexpectedjournal.com. She publishes online at www.literarylife.org, www.theperennialgen.com, and most recently began writing for the online magazine Cultivating at www.thecultivatingproject.com. She also wrote an historical cookbook for Bright Ideas Press. 

Holly Ordway is Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and is the author of Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith. She is also a Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, a Subject Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies, and a published poet. Her academic work focuses on imaginative apologetics, and on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Her latest book is Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Word on Fire Academic, 2021). 

A native of England, Joseph Pearce is the internationally acclaimed author. He has hosted two 13-part television series about Shakespeare on EWTN, and has also written and presented documentaries on EWTN on the Catholicism of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. His verse drama, Death Comes for the War Poets, was performed off-Broadway to critical acclaim. He is the director of Book Publishing at the Augustine Institute, and editor of the St. Austin Review, series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions, senior instructor with Homeschool Connections, and senior contributor at the Imaginative Conservative.

Josiah lives with his wife and two kids in Mesa, AZ and teaches Humane Letters at Chandler Preparatory Academy. He completed his MA in Apologetics through Houston Baptist University, writing his thesis on the rhetorical strategies of C. S. Lewis under the advisement of Holly Ordway and Michael Ward. He is active in the New York and Arizona C.S. Lewis Societies and writes and speaks frequently on C.S. Lewis.

Theresa Pihl holds a BA and MA in history, teaches at Blue Mountain Community College, farms with her husband and homeschools their children in rural eastern Oregon. She is a member of the Word on Fire Institute and Our Lady of Angels Parish.

Jamie Danielle graduated magna cum laude from the Barrett's Honors College at Arizona State University with a BA in English Linguistics in a year too long ago now to mention. She has been published in Houstonia magazine and The Anthology of Young American Poets. Jamie works as the programming director for Writespace, a grassroots literary arts organization in Houston, Texas where she lives with her three fur-babies and spends her spare time reading, writing, and avoiding all arithmetic.

Zachary D. Schmoll earned his Ph.D. in Humanities at Faulkner University and his M.A. in Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. He serves as the Managing Editor of An Unexpected Journal, a quarterly publication of cultural and imaginative apologetics. He is the author of Disability and the Problem of Evil (2021) and his academic work has been published in Christianity & Literature, Mythlore, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Faith and the Academy, and Fourth World Journal. His essays have also been featured at Public Discourse, Front Porch Republic, and The Federalist.

Jason Smith serves on the board of An Unexpected Journal and as senior editor for acquisitions and development at Wootton Major Publishing. In his spare time, he works a day job as a technical writer and marketing strategist for a medical device engineering firm, where he writes about fun things like FDA regulations and embedded cybersecurity. He is the pseudonymous author of the much-loved young adult fantasy series Fayborn and reviews every book he reads at www.goodreads.com/mrwootton.

Michael Ward is a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford, and Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Clark Weidner earned a Masters degree in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University and has published several analytic essays as well as short form fiction. He holds a blue belt in jiu jitsu and plenty of scars from years of skateboarding. He met his wife Amber in a Lord of the Rings book club and now they have a dog named Thanos (due to their love of comics).

Donald T. Williams, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. A border dweller, he stays permanently camped out on the borders between theology and literature, serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, Narnia and Middle Earth. He is the author of thirteen books, most recently Deeper Magic: The Theology behind the Writings of C. S. Lewis (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2016), “An Encouraging Thought”: The Christian Worldview in the Writings of J. R. R. Tolkien (Cambridge, OH: Christian Publishing House, 2018), The Young Christian’s Survival Guide: Common Questions Young Christians are Asked about God, the Bible, and the Christian Faith Answered (Cambridge, OH: Christian Publishing House, 2019), Stars through the Clouds: The Collected Poetry of Donald T. Williams (Lantern Hollow Press, 2020), and Ninety-Five Theses for a New Reformation: A Road Map for Post-Evangelical Christianity (Semper Reformanda Publications, 2021).

Jared Zimmerer is the Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute. He holds a Master’s Degree in Theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary and is currently a doctoral candidate in Humanities from Faulkner University. He and his wife Jessica live in North Texas with their six children.