Dear Reader,
The literature of every age should respond to the manifestations of that moment’s particular disorders and diseases—and should have eyes to see the distinct potencies and promise of any given time. Because of the Fall, we human beings suffer from perennial disorders—pride and anger, sloth and envy and lust, greed and gluttony; we break all the commandments; we sin.
The way these diseases and disorders appear in our age, versus 500 or 50 years ago, seems to be tied up with distraction, or maybe wound up and magnified by and through distraction. It’s no secret that we’re all bombarded by images that overwhelm us, our ears are assaulted by words sharpened for outrage, and even as the ever-present news strafing across our screens wears down our souls we try to break away, but we return again and again, like addicts, for another hit. A cacophony of sounds and pixelated sights rattle us constantly. There are now refrigerators and gas pumps with “advanced features,” public spaces are pumped with hysterical sound bites so that you never, ever, ever have to have one undistracted moment of silence, no scanning the horizon or recollecting your soul while you fill the car, wait for the bus, or get a midnight snack.
Do we really need to be told that this is bad for us? That allowing, even paying for, the “advanced features” is a form of self-enslavement? The chaos raises our cortisol levels, causing us to live in a constant state of “fight or flight”—“evolving,” in our progress, into perpetual survival mode. We are pushed and prodded like farm animals to stare without truly seeing at the next thing—not even the next big thing, just the next thing, and the next and the next; we are yanked away from the present, urged onward (downward) into an infinite scroll. Distraction is not just noise; it’s an erosion of our interior life, our ability to notice, an enslavement of our senses so that we become disassociated from the world, ourselves, the cosmos, God, and each other. We become too hyped for hope, too incapacitated for love, too wired-up and arm-chair wicked for wisdom.
While numerous avenues exist to navigate this world’s difficulties—faith, family, and friends can offer pure medicine, nature and good art are antidotes, prayer and recollection are the surest remedies because they dissolve the mediations of creation and allow us to stare straight into the One who made us—serious literature has a unique capacity to offer us a reflection of and on reality.
Literature at its best mirrors back to us a distilled version of human experience, challenging and showing us how to be attentive to reality, how to resist despair in favor of the true (difficult or marvelous) and the good (hidden or on a hilltop), it prompts us to slow down long enough to experience the beautiful. The best books look unblinkingly at the world in all its sorrow, honoring its hardships and griefs instead of “solving” them with short-circuited pious trash or self-help slop or sentimental supreme fictions—while at the same time remaining attentive to the glory of God that is evident almost everywhere. Good books offer us hard-won wisdom.
Great literature reminds us that the deepest truths are rarely comfortable, and that, on this side of Paradise, beauty and suffering are mysteriously entwined. They encourage us to reclaim our eyes and ears, our minds and hearts. They remind us that we are not just bodies, but also souls, and that what we do with those bodies and those souls matters, for us and for our cities, our country, and the mystical body—right now and next week and into eternity.
At Wiseblood Books, we publish work that does not flinch before reality because our authors know that to look clearly at the world is, in a way, to love it rightly. Our books are worth wrestling with—strange, luminous, and alive with spiritual gravity.
What book has offered you hard-won wisdom? What line, what image, what scene? What moment of recognition or disquiet or grace? If you’ve found that kind of hard-won wisdom in a Wiseblood book, if a single page helped you stay in the room a little longer with grief, or hope, or prayer, we invite you to help us bring more of those books into the world.
Today marks the beginning of Wiseblood’s 2025 Fundraiser, and we humbly invite you to be part of this work with us. Our goal is to raise $20,000 by December 31st. These funds—your donations— will help us to continue bringing serious, sacramental literature into the world.
Your gift helps Wiseblood Books to…
Design and print luminous books with meticulous editing and beautiful covers
Support writers of faith, including new and overlooked voices
Share books with students, schools, and international readers
Rediscover forgotten literary masters whose work still speaks to the soul
Shape a literary culture that sees clearly and loves rightly
On the surface, our books may show surprising variation, a sort of eclectic taste. But they all wrestle us from the ruse of distraction, find redemption in uncanny places and people, articulate faith and doubt in their incarnate complexity, and render well this world’s sufferings without forfeiting hope—all with an unflinching gaze, wide-eyed.
If a Wiseblood book has ever helped you see the world more clearly or compassionately, if a Wiseblood book has ever challenged you or prompted you to change, please consider helping us bring more of that vision into being.
Wiseblood Books is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. All donations are tax-deductible. Gifts of $100 or more will be entered to win a Wiseblood book bundle.
Every book we make is a labor of immense love—and hard material cost. As a nonprofit press, we offer our authors higher royalties than most publishers, and we price our books moderately so they can find more homes. In everything we do, we are aiming to shape a literary culture rooted in mystery, truth, and grace—in common goods that transcend the bottom line.
Our mission endures because wise and generous readers like you believe such books still matter. Though we are surrounded and bombarded by distraction, we can cultivate a literature of reflection, rumination, and contemplation—together.
Thank you for your support.
And as always, thank you for reading,
The Editors at Wiseblood Books
P.S. What hard-won wisdom have you found in a Wiseblood Book? Please reply to this email with a quick note. Tell us the line, the turn, the image that changed something for you.
