E. Carson Brisson

Earning Innocence

Fiction

“This book is a quiet wonder, a memoir of the soul. As bespeaks its title, it lures you in and earns your respect. Taylor-Troutman builds no case. Rather, he honors, to cite him, the mystery that 'it is the story that carries the light.' Characters are narrative worlds orbiting the arc of Taylor-Troutman's universe, promising us that in their gift of being alive we will be invited to recognize our own gift of life. Taylor-Troutman keeps that promise. Take. Read. Savor.”

Roots Matter

Counseling, Grief & Mental Health

“In Roots Matter, Paula Owens Parker deftly uses the tool of genogram to explore the deep wounds and profound hopes systemic and chronic trauma bestow upon individuals and communities. She writes that she will focus on the historical horror of chattel slavery during a specific period of time (1619-1865) in Virginia. She does this, but much more. By careful research and with meticulous clarity, Parker creates a study that has relevance beyond the important trauma upon which she focuses. She then introduces, drawing upon the riches of cultural research and the resources of Christian faith, a practical program ('course') whereby the burden of generational and unspeakable loss is taken up toward the possibility of restored dignity, healing, reconciliation, and hope. Parker is wrestling, eloquently and profoundly so, with nothing less than transcendence.”

This IS the Day

Christian Living

“With a minister’s heart and a writer’s eye, Taylor-Troutman here chronicles revelation in a thousand everyday turns and relationships during the course of a year’s unofficial holidays. He invites his readers into nothing less than ‘entangled joy,’ joy not contingent on the absence of suffering and loss, but joy that ‘emerges from how we care for each other through those things . . .’ His invitation is timely, courageous, convincing, and beautiful.”