A Preview
“A life generously served on wry with plenty of mustard and no cheese, Emma Lapsansky-Werner’s compilation with Chuck Fager on his eighty years captures his unique synthesis of investigative journalism with religious concern, activist engagement with theological reflection, Quaker identity with wide-ranging, empathetic identifications.
Chuck’s story traces an engaging trajectory through our era, one to evoke both joy and sorrow from fellow travelers. His sixty-five-page bibliography itself is breathtaking, un grand oeuvre….”
— Douglas Gwyn, Quaker author, scholar, minister and songwriter
(Hear Doug’s music online for free here!)
Emma: By that time I had already decided that Chuck was among the most interesting Quakers alive in the twenty-first century. Investigative journalist, essayist, novelist, resolute pursuer-of-history, independent publisher, provocateur, activist, “whistle-blower”; teacher, father, F/friend, community-organizer, theological “seeker” (and self-defined finder)-and more. . . .
Watch this space for more, soon.
Tell It Slant is available now, in paperback and Kindle, here.
I’m not much for singing gospel songs; but Bill Staines, who wrote this one, was more of a folkie, and his tune, “All God’s Critters” is more folk than (Lord help us) “praise” music. But whatever the genre, I’m more interested in its theology, because I agree with it.
Why not? Mostly because of what I wasn’t: I 
wasn’t a girl (& never had been); wasn’t a slave (or even an enslaver, for that matter); wasn’t Black, and (late entry) had no plans to have the tale vetted by an ethnic/cultural sensitivity reader.
While on Nantucket, I managed to draft about sixty pages of my Quaker novel, and several episodes of the quilt story, before cash ran too low for more room rent. Than I had reluctantly taken the ferry back to the twentieth century, presented my carefully stashed return bus ticket, and jiggled and scribbled my sore butt back to Baghdad on the Bay.