Paraclete Press is launching the festschrift Phyllis Tickle--Evangelist of the Future: Reflections on the Impact She's Had on Publishing, Religion, and the Church in America (Jan. 2014) at the Christianity21 conference in Denver next month. Tickle, an author, speaker, and prominent commentator on religion in America, also was the founding editor of Publishers Weekly’s Religion Department in the 1990s; the book honors her contributions to the field in the year of her 80th birthday. Tickle, along with Tony Jones, editor of the festschrift, will speak at a reception at the conference on January 11. Three other launch events will take place in New York City February 8-9. A West Coast launch event will be held at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., on March 6.
Christianity Today magazine has announced its 2014 Book Awards recognizing “books most likely to shape evangelical life, thought, and culture.” The big winner was InterVarsity Press, which took five awards; other winners of multiple awards include Baker Academic, Oxford University Press, Crossway, Eerdmans, Thomas Nelson, and Zondervan.
Beyond Words Publishing has released Conversations Beyond Proof of Heaven, a film featuring Eben Alexander, author of Proof of Heaven (Simon & Schuster, 2012), and Raymond Moody, author of Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife (HarperOne, Jan.). Produced and directed by David Hinshaw and distributed by Beyond Words, the film includes interviews with Alexander and Moody and is available on DVD. Both French and German-language versions have been licensed.
Family Christian Stores, the Christian specialty retail chain, raised nearly $280,000 over Thanksgiving weekend to help build a neonatal orphanage in Haiti through its Family Christian Stores Haiti Challenge campaign. Profits from sales during the Thanksgiving weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) were donated for construction of the God's Littlest Angels neonatal orphanage in Haiti; Family Christian also matched customers’ direct donations dollar for dollar. The company is partnering with God’s Littlest Angels, a ministry to children in Haiti since 1994; ground will be broken for the orphanage in February. Family Christian’s goal is to provide the entire $500,000 cost of the building by continuing to invite customers to donate directly and through future campaigns. Housing more than 75 babies at a time, the orphanage will transition the children back to their birth families or into adoptive homes. To date, 100 percent of the orphans in this program have been placed.
Barbour Publishing’s Spanish-language line under its Casa Promesa imprint will be now be distributed both domestically and internationally by Editorial Portavoz, the Spanish-language unit of Kregel Publications, effective December 1. Casa Promesa’s catalog includes 45 products in categories such as devotionals, titles for women and for children, Bible study materials, and Christian living books. Barbour plans one or two new Casa Promesa titles per month.
The Christian Manifesto, a Web site that reviews Christian books, has announced the winners of its 2013 Lime Award Winners for Excellence in both the fiction and nonfiction categories. Winners of multiple awards included Revell (three in fiction, one in nonfiction), Tyndale House (two in fiction), and Zonderkidz (one each in fiction and nonfiction). Books that receive five-star reviews on the site are automatically nominated for the award. This is the first year that The Christian Manifesto has issued Lime Awards for nonfiction.
