"Up Until August" is a collection of poetry by Joel Edmund Anderson that covers over twenty-five years of his poetry, dating from 1987 up to 2015. The major themes found throughout his poetry are those of love, faith, prayer, and inner struggle amidst one's spiritual journey. More than anything else, these poems reveal the inner life of someone whose journey has taken him from the Wheaton suburbs outside of Chicago, to college in Maryville, Missouri, to the country of Kazakstan, to the city of Vancouver, Canada, to the San Francisco Bay area, to Little Rock, Arkansas, and finally to the Shoals area in Alabama.
About the Author: Joel Edmund Anderson grew up in the Chicago suburbs, where he attended a large Assemblies of God church and went to Wheaton Christian High School. He received a B.S. Ed. in English from Northwest Missouri State University, and later joined the Peace Corps and spent time in Kazakhstan as a TOFEL teacher. Upon returning from Kazakhstan, Anderson attended Regent College in Vancouver, Canada and earned a M.A. in Theological Studies. He then taught both British Literature and Bible for four years at a Christian School in California. After his time in California, he went back to British Columbia, to Trinity Western University, and earned a M.A. in Old Testament. He then moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and resumed his teaching career for four years at another Christian school, where he taught primarily British Literature and Biblical Worldview. From there, he moved to the Shoals Area in Alabama, and was the Biblical Worldview director at yet another Christian high school. Now, having earned a PhD in Old Testament from the University of Pretoria, he is now beginning a career teaching Religious Studies at the university level. Anderson's primary areas of interest are, quite obviously, British Literature and Biblical Studies. His favorite authors and poets include the likes of Thomas Merton, T.S. Eliot, Kathleen Norris, N.T. Wright, and many others. He also enjoys travelling, and has been to Israel, Greece, Italy, and Turkey. In addition to this, he is a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan, and thus is well-acquainted with sorrow and disappointment in life. Anderson's journey of faith has taken him from his Assemblies of God roots as a child to eventually the Greek Orthodox Church. He and his wife have been married five years and are expecting their first child.