Community & Culture

Thought you would be interested to know that Mary Dodson Wade, author of C.S. LEWIS: THE CHRONICLER OF NARNIA, will be speaking to the Inklings Roundtable of Houston next Thursday evening, May 11.

Douglas Gresham, co-producer of The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, spoke a few days ago of how much he was looking forward to returning Down Under for the upcoming C.S. Lewis Today Conference (named after his stepfather) in Sydney next month.

In a move calculated to put the triennial C.S. Lewis Foundation Summer Institute within easy reach of the bulk of its constituency, the foundation will hold its upcoming week-long Summer Institute at Williams College in Williamston, Mass., from July 7 – 16, 2006. More than 2,000 alumni have participated in one or several of the previous six triennial “Oxbridge” summer institutes held by the foundation in Oxford and Cambridge, England, over the past 18 years. But never before has the foundation offered this weeklong feast for spirit, imagination and intellect in North America.

On Saturday 6 May, Douglas Gresham, Co-Producer of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, local members of the crew, film and TV industry, and writers are taking part in the first ever Australian national C.S. Lewis Conference in Sydney.

Peter Kreeft, William Lane Craig and Frederica Mathewes Green will lead the journey as we explore the heart and depth of the Christian faith. These internationally known speakers will give us a rich day of thought provoking insight. Artistic performances scattered like shimmering islands throughout the day will give us time to enjoy the God-given creativity of the Body of Christ. We will also enjoy meals outdoors under tents with live music and a play in the evening on the life of C.S. Lewis created and performed by the author, David Payne, An Evening with C.S. Lewis.

Author CS Lewis may have ended up writing the evergreen Narnia series of books at Oxford, he was born and bred in Belfast, and the city is set to celebrate its most famous novelist with a 10-day festival.

He may have the image of a dour, cloistered Oxford don with little knowledge of ordinary struggles. But C.S. Lewis, who wrote of epic struggles between good and evil in the imaginary land of Narnia, actually had a humorous side, his stepson says.

Narnia goes back to its roots at the inaugural C.S. Lewis Festival, set for Belfast from Dec. 2 to 11 to tie in with the Irish premiere of the film ”The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”