Becoming Saints in a Brave New World

Clergy Keynote – Fr. Anthony Cook

We believe in the power of speculative fiction to orient us toward what is highest and noblest, but that power is a two-edged sword, and can be turned to orient us toward what is twisted and destructive. Fr. Anthony Cook, the new host of the Amon Sul Podcast, will discuss how J.R.R. Tolkien shows us the way to navigate these treacherous waters, so that we can choose and create stories that make us more human and draw us toward the holiness to which we are called by our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Fr. Anthony Cook is the parish priest at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Dayton, Ohio. He is a graduate of Hillsdale College (B.A. in Classical Studies) and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology (M.Div.), and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Germanic Philology from Signum University. He has been a priest in the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Detroit since 2007, and is married with three children.

Lay Keynote – Christopher Ruocchio: Baptising the Imagination: A Letter to the Nerds

What role has speculative fiction to play in building—not a parallel Christian culture—but a Christian place in THE culture? Tolkien instilled the Christian ethos in many non-Christian readers. How might we, his intellectual and fannish descendants, continue this accidental apostolate, not by rote evangelism or naked preachments, but by living the Gospels in the world we are called to witness to? By tracing Tolkien’s impact on the broader culture (and in his own life), Christopher hopes to show how we, as Christian nerds, might be a light in dark places…when all other lights go out.

Christopher Ruocchio is the internationally best-selling author of more than 7 books, including the Sun Eater science fantasy series and the upcoming Doomsong Saga, as well as more than 25 works of short fiction. Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, Christopher received his Bachelor’s Degree in English Rhetoric from North Carolina State University in 2015, with a minor in the Classics. He sold his first novel—Empire of Silence—at 22, and his work has appeared in 14 languages. In his time at Baen Books, he edited 8 anthologies, including Sword & Planet. His work has also appeared in Marvel Comics.

Christopher lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife and children.

Sam Cook: “Apathy is Death: The Role of Community in Saving Lost People”

A common recurring element of games made by Obsidian Entertainment is that lost people may influence each other onto better paths by traveling together. In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II and Fallout: New Vegas, this is most prominently demonstrated by the player characters’ relationships with their traveling companions. Several of these, such as Atton Rand and Craig Boone, are war veterans whose trauma fills them with hatred or despair, who say that they are fated to misfortune. The player characters have the opportunity to help these companions move past this trauma and reject this fate (or continue down this path and embrace hatred and revenge, a path specifically identified with the Dark Side of the Force in KotOR II). In addition to these characters, the player character in KotOR II is another traumatized veteran, who begins the game cut off from the Force (spiritually dead in the setting’s understanding) and develops a new type of connection to the Force through her relationships with other people over the course of the game, while FO:NV has the character of Joshua Graham, formerly a brutal warlord who received a second chance at life when he sought refuge by returning to his family.

Sam Cook is not a soul singer from the 1960s. He is a northern Virginia native who will soon be graduating from Old Dominion University with a Master of Library and Information Studies degree on top of his undergraduate degree in medieval history. He has been reading science fiction for as long as he has been reading, an early mainstay being the Young Jedi Knights series by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. He has been gaming for almost as long.

Josiah DeGraaf – Creed Before Self-Expression: Analyzing Virtue Formation in the Stormlight Archive 

Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive depicts a vision of morality that cuts against contemporary trends. Rather than portraying moral growth as self-expression or inward discovery, the series roots transformation in faithfulness to long-standing, unchanging oaths that bind characters to transcendent ideals. In this presentation, Josiah DeGraaf will explore where The Stormlight Archive succeeds and falls short, arguing that true sanctification cannot be divorced from a relationship with Christ.

Josiah DeGraaf is the program director of the Young Writer’s Workshop and the author of A Study of Shattered Spells. He loves crafting fantastical stories about characters who face the same dilemmas we do when we try to do the right thing. Outside of work and writing, he enjoys engaging in lively intellectual discussions, playing board games, and hiking to gorgeous overlooks.

David Dill – Becoming a Saint in Disruptive Times

Artificial intelligence dominates our news, culture, papal encyclicals, and both the dreams and the worries many have for the future. Regardless of whether you’re a doomer, zoomer or boomer, it’s clear that disruption will continue. This talk will frame possible near-term scenarios through the lens of Brave New World, The Machine Stops, and Dune – the Totally Passion-seeking, Totally Terrible, and Totally Weird futures that we may all face in some form or another. Each has dystopic elements that mirror possible AI-dominated futures. As Christians, we are called to become saints, no matter what algorithms, machine conditioning, or Minds may be in our way. We will discuss how a flawed human-on-his-way-to-sainthood could continue the path to theosis in each of these speculative worlds.

David Dill hopes to spend his post-singularity retirement catching up on books, hiking with his wife, and forcing his three daughters to learn Japanese with him. He is a member of St. Mary Orthodox Church in Falls Church, VA. His nerdier interests include Civilization 2-6 (but not 7), board games, obscure histories, and staying active while being terrible at most active hobbies.

Timothy Dwyer – Unreliable Narrators: The Effect of Technique in Wolfe’s Solar Cycle

Who is Patera Silk? The question of the identity of the main characters and/or narrators remains one of the most mysterious and sometimes controversial matters throughout all of Gene Wolfe’s Solar Cycle. Wolfe’s unreliable narrator technique forces a careful read and brings the reader closer to the character to let their light shine forth. Whoever or whatever Silk actually is in the Urth universe is almost secondhand, because the narrator of The Book of the Long Sun presents him as an admirable and relatable man, and his journey is crafted to be a beacon of hope of what’s come before and what can lie ahead. It is through Patera Silk that we have an example of how to navigate and live through a crumbling society that is overcome by demonic forces.

Timothy Dwyer is an experience and graphic designer, artist, and avid reader of speculative fiction. Since completing his MFA in Studio Art from the University of Kansas in 2011, life has taken him from touring the country playing experimental electronic noise music to finding Orthodoxy. An endless pursuit of Truth and authenticity through obscure sub cultures, music, and film eventually led him to the Orthodox Church. This journey left a deep appreciation for pop and sub cultures and an understanding that God’s light can shine through even through the darkest places. He currently serves as the Executive Producer of The Bored No More Network, a production studio and record label aimed at infusing the Orthodox phronema into cultural and artistic creations. He lives outside of Chicago with his wife and two kids, but often travels to Urth, Narnia, Arrakis, and Middle Earth for extended periods of time.

Cheryl Floyd – Mockingjay as Martyr: Katniss Everdeen’s Journey to Sanctity

This presentation will explore Suzanne Collins’s dystopian trilogy, The Hunger Games, examining how the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, embodies a profound journey toward secular saintliness. In a narrative landscape defined by Panem—an anthropocentric anti-fairy land where human life is commodified for entertainment—Katniss provides a powerful illustration of sanctity emerging from the darkness of a pro-death society.

While the Gospel is not explicit in Collins’s work, Katniss’s character arc directly reflects the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love, demonstrating what sanctification looks like in speculative fiction. Her journey begins not with a desire for glory, but with a radical act of self-surrender: volunteering to take her sister’s place in the Arena. This initial act of sacrificial love sets the stage for her transformation. Throughout the trilogy, Katniss suffers deeply, yet she allows her suffering to transform her rather than corrupt her. 

Cheryl Floyd, a recent graduate of Belmont Abbey’s MACLE program for classical educators has been a life-long lover of sci-fi, dystopian, and happily-ever-after. Homeschooling her seven children, now 16-35, afforded her many years of research and enjoyment of these genres and the privilege of passing them on to her children and students. Her greatest accomplishment, besides her newly minted grandson, is being chrismated Orthodox with her whole household in 2017. At her home parish, St. Nicholas in Shreveport, she has contributed to the choir and lady’s ministry and still enjoys offering the bread for prosphora. When she needs a comfort book she turns to the original Hunger Games series or Lord of the Rings because she knows even though she will journey with selfish characters to dangerous places where good people are slain, she will end up with selfless people, in good places where love is praised.

Anna Hallahan – Why Western Anime Fans Love the Fullmetal Alchemist Story

If there was a US Billboard hits chart for anime, Fullmetal Alchemist would be on it for a decade and at #1 for several of those years. Even though it is a Japanese story with a steampunk, European-based setting, the attraction of western anime fans toward it runs deeper, because it tells a fundamentally Christian story of salvation, not through overpowering your opponents, but through following the words of Jesus that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 16:25)

Anna Hallahan has been parish secretary of Queen of Apostles Church in Alexandria VA for 5 years and has been a volunteer catechist of Religious Education since 2014. She is a lifelong Catholic native of Northern Virginia and has dabbled in Sci-Fi, Asian media, Thomism, and Chesterton fandoms.

Kenneth Hite – Sanctifying Supernature: Algernon Blackwood and the Expansion of Humanity

Algernon Blackwood drew both horror and wonder from his conception of mankind as both part of, and tragically separated from, a supernatural para-Nature. Blackwood’s Wendigo and Willows give us his terrifying angels, but what do pantheist saints look like?

Kenneth Hite has written or designed 100+ tabletop roleplaying games and supplements, including GURPS Horror, Trail of Cthulhu, The Fall of DELTA GREEN, The Dracula Dossier, Night’s Black Agents, Bubblegumshoe, and Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. His other works include the two-volume Tour de Lovecraft, Cthulhu 101, The Thrill of Dracula, the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, an annotated edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and four Lovecraftian children’s books. His essays and criticism have appeared in National Review, Amazing Stories, University Bookman, and in encyclopedias and anthologies from Ashcroft, Ben Bella, Dagan Books, Greenwood, and MIT Press. An Artistic Associate and dramaturg at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, and half of the award-winning podcast Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.

Dn. Nicholas Kotar – The Spiritual Life of the Writer 

Too often we writers focus exclusively on the craft or business of writing. Both of which are important, of course. But we are not just craftsmen, we are also sub-creators, made in the image of a Creator and called to work on our likeness to Him. Our writing practice can become part of that becoming, which can become the greatest quest of all.  

Dn. Nicholas Kotar, author of the Ravenson series of books and host of the Fantasy for Our Time podcast, is a writer of epic fantasy inspired by Russian fairy tales, a writing instructor and traveling speaker, a freelance translator from Russian to English, the resident conductor of a men’s choir at a Russian monastery in the middle of cow country, and a Grammy-nominated vocalist. His only regret in life is that he wasn’t born in 19th century St. Petersburg, but he’s doing everything he possibly can to remedy that error. If anyone knows where he can find a blue police box that’s bigger on the inside, please let him know.

Dr. Edmund Lazzari – Incorrectly Political: How Moral Compromise Doomed the Jedi Order

What do religious people do when government becomes captured by worldly interests? How much of a compromise with worldly powers can a virtuous person take, even in the name of choosing a pragmatic alliance that might make things less bad? Can bad government corrupt good action and even lead souls to ruin? These are the questions at the heart of the fall of the Jedi Order in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and subsequent spinoff media. This presentation will show the Jedi in parallel to both the monastic traditions of Christianity which eschewed worldly influence and the political teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas More to show a proper Christian approach to the virtue of apatheia in the spiritual life and the dangers of Christian Churches being too attached to political authorities. It will chart the virtues of community and monasticism in contrast to an attempt to compromise the faith with governments captured by worldly interests, showing that a devotion to the light of Christ requires a rejection of moral compromise. It will gesture to other series, including the television show Obi-Wan as parables and real examples of how Christians can operate under regimes hostile to it, quietly building communities of hope amidst darkness.

Dr. Edmund Lazzari is Assistant Professor of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University and Adjunct Professor of Theology at Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Whether it’s Latin, Greek, English, or Quenya, he appreciates a good turn of phrase, educated as he has been by his wife, editor extraordinaire, and fellow Doxacon presenter Erin Lazzari. While his lightsaber skills are rusty, his kids keep him strong in the (lifting) force. He is the author of Why Nature Matters: Unlocking Catholic Doctrine through Commonsense Philosophy, editor of an upcoming volume on the thought of Fulton Sheen, author of several articles on the salvation of aliens, and of an article in the Journal of Tolkien Research.

Erin Lazzari – Roy and Riza Repenting: Spiritual Friendship and Saintly Parallels in Fullmetal Alchemist

The Christian tradition contains many examples of saints in pairs striving for holiness together: Gregory and Basil, Felicity and Perpetua, Francis and Claire, and so forth. The critically-acclaimed manga Fullmetal Alchemist also contains many pairs striving towards shared goals, but one in particular is the focus of this discussion: Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye, in their mutually-repentant drivenness for a better world, reflect the spiritual friendship seen in many real-life sainted partnerships. With Aelred of Rievaulx as an interlocutor, this talk examines the relationship between Roy and Riza in light of Christian historical examples.

Erin Lazzari is a wearer of many hats, both real and metaphorical. By day, she is a professional proofreader and copyeditor whose clients include Baen Books and Word On Fire Press; by night, she quibbles about church architecture on Mars while working on her latest sewing project.

Jacqueline Lucca – title forthcoming

Jacqueline Lucca has worked for over a decade teaching students to hone their writing skills; she believes that we should not just read and write good stories but live an absolutely amazing tale. Her first novel is a YA, post-apocalyptic zombie book called Heart.  

Benjamin Stapleton – A Hopeful Horror

This talk will explore Hildred’s relationships to Mr Wilde and Louis from the short story “The Repairer of Reputation” in The King in Yellow and Rust and Marty’s relationship from season 1 of True Detective, and how those relationships help sanctify or fail to sanctify the characters presented. While Hildred refuses Louis’ call to a better life and instead indulges his worst impulses at Mr Wilde’s behest, Rust and Marty initially fail at sanctifying each other due to their own respective flaws of arrogance and impulsivity. They find a way forward after finally admitting their flaws to themselves. Meanwhile, the romances found towards the end of The King in Yellow present characters who allow themselves to be properly sanctified, as is seen in the characters of Valentine from “The Street of Our Lady of the Fields” and Phillip from “The Demoiselle D’ys”, who both allow the love of others and their love for others to sanctify themselves. 

Benjamin R Stapleton was born, raised, and resides in southeastern Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn State with bachelor degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. Since then he has worked full time as an electrical engineer. Despite his background in STEM fields, his heart has a soft spot for literature, especially of the science fiction and fantasy persuasions. While he daylights as an engineer, he also spends much free time writing, pursuing various novels and short stories. His work can be found in Inkwells & Anvils’ short story collections. He has also served as an editor for Inkwells and Anvils’ short story collections. 

Panel Discussion – Laurus

Join Dn. Nicholas Kotar, Dr. Edmund Lazzari, and more for a panel discussion on Eugene Vodolazkin’s novel, Laurus – a fictional hagiography set in 15th century Russia. One of the unique aspects of this piece of historical fiction is its exploration of the nature of time, the perfect topic for a sci-fi and fantasy convention. In addition to exploring time and place and their roles in sanctification, our panelists will discuss a range of topics explored in the novel, including holy fools, the end of the world, and how love and self-sacrifice transform an average man into a saint.