Our Summer 2025 series, Beside Still Waters, focuses on the places where creativity brings life into a world fatigued by brokenness and division. From jazz to Jane Austen and in between, this season we’ll focus on the ways literature and the arts can refresh and challenge our inner lives—and connect us with the Creator of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Today’s guide is the author and professor Diana Glyer. She’ll be talking about the lives and work of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their beloved community known as the Inklings.
In this episode drawn from an online conversation held in February of 2021, Diana focuses on how creativity thrives within small clusters of like-hearted people. We hope you enjoy reflecting on the potential of your own friendships and communities to be culture-shaping.
Authors and books mentioned in the conversation:
The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, by Diana Glyer
Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, by Diana Glyer
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Williams
Shakespeare
Hugo Dyson
Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis
The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis
Related Trinity Forum Readings:
On Friendship, by Cicero
The Golden Key, by George MacDonald
The Oracle of the Dog, by G.K. Chesterton
The Lost Tools of Learning, by Dorothy Sayers
Related Conversations:
Suffering, Friendship, and Courage: What Lewis & Tolkien Teach Us About Resilience & Imagination, an Online Conversation with Joe Loconte