canticle (n): a song, poem, or hymn, especially of praise; from Latin, meaning “little song”
culture canticle is a newsletter about everyday enchantment, pop culture, and creative living through the lens of the Christian imagination. My writing seeks to uncover the sacramental beauty all around us, picked up in the strains of the “little songs” we hear our culture singing.
Stories are important. To me, stories are everything. The stories we love—told in whatever medium—bring us together, reveal the posture of our hearts, and offer us a glimpse of divine beauty and a portal to everyday enchantment: a place for us to go when we feel alone, or just when we want to feel a little bit of magic.
In this newsletter, I examine pop culture in light of this notion, with three guiding principles:
Art as window: how can stories give us a glimpse elsewhere: into something else, or into something new, or even into the world as we wish it was?
Art as bridge: how can stories bring us together, or bring us to another place entirely?
Art as lens: how can stories can layer over our own understanding or experience to help us discover something we didn’t consider before?
Here, you’ll also find ruminations on creativity and what it means to identify as a writer and creative, and occasional snippets of my life in a coastal corner of Scotland.
about me: I’m Julia, or Jules, but I tag my writing with the initials J.E. because isn’t J.E. Bartel just a writerly name?
I’m a Canadian, a knitter, an INFJ, and a Zillenial. I studied English Literature at the University of Toronto and hold an MLitt in Theology and the Arts from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. By day, I work an admin role in academia, but stories are my first and truest love.
As a kid, I won blue ribbons in reading contests and filled notebooks with stories and illustrations about dogs, dragons, gryphons, elves, and occasionally real people. While I do all kinds of writing, fiction is my favourite.
A friend once told me that she loves how deeply I feel and respond to stories. At the time I was sat on her living room floor, tearfully ranting about how much I love Éowyn and Faramir in Return of the King. I was taken aback. “Doesn’t everyone feel stories this way?” I said.
If you feel stories that way, too, I hope you’ll find a friend in this newsletter.
