Like a dinosaur, Scheske tried to learn how to be an internet writer, as all writers nowadays are. Luckily, I found his fossil.
Eric Scheske
Who is Eric Scheske?
He’s the former editor of Gilbert Magazine and columnist for National Catholic Register. Father of seven, lawyer, avid gardener, and podcast host, Scheske has done and does it all.
Eric, on the left, in a viral YouTube video
I stumbled upon him when I first started the CFTMW publication on Medium. I am indebted now since he was one of the first writers to join me. From a glance at his brilliant work, which blends Catholic values and intellectualism with engagement and humor, a mix rarely seen, I believed he was quite well off. His website looked great, I listened to his podcast a few times in my car, and it was great. He had the credentials and he had the talent.
However, after a long phone call with him, I surprisingly discovered he was doing terrible.
No, he didn’t have a terminal disease. He wasn’t on a government watch list, which I was also surprised to find out. His problem was one of unpopularity.
Like a ghost, he ventured through the internet, trying to promote his work and gain traction. He told me that he felt like one of those old, unknown Russian authors who could write masterpieces, oeuvres that do no one any good since they are just papers that sit in a drawer somewhere and are never read. Perhaps the story and his particular situation is best understood if we start at the beginning.
Eric speaking at a Theology on Tap event
It was the 1990s. The internet was not yet established and the writing business was a hustle with physical newspapers, magazines, and other antiques like these. To make it as a writer in these days, you had to know how to write, something most of us writers nowadays lack.
Despite the odds, for better or for worse, Scheske’s drafts caught the eyes of editors. He himself became an editor for Gilbert! Mag, the pinnacle of Chestertons legacy. He was a columnist for NCR, now owned by EWTN News. This is the top of Catholic writing. In the business, Scheske knew many writers and built many connections, which allowed him to casually mention an author (Mike Aquilina) of a book I was reading at the time.
He made his way up to the top and prospered. Then the internet became established.
After taking a hiatus in the early 2000s, due to busyness at his law firm and the birth of a new child, Scheske, an experience writing professional, was now set to return to the writing business.
With lots of effort and little luck, he (as I also) realized that a random Joe on the street can type up a mess in ten minutes and publish it online. The modern writing atmosphere is cramped, crowded, and clogged. There is so much junk, cheap tricks, allures, and overly exaggerated clickbait, that truly good writing can’t stand out because it doesn’t have the room to move around within such a tight crowd.
Like a dinosaur, Scheske tried to learn how to be an internet writer, as all writers nowadays are. Luckily, I found his fossil.
It is now my mission, and hopefully your mission, to help me dust off what I have found and present it to the world. I imagine that someone half my age in 20 years, someone not even born yet, though maybe just recently conceived, will come along to help me once I’m an old man and an old writer in a writing world which will no doubt be much different than it is now.
Uncovering Scheske
The start of your journey should begin here.
The Daily Eudemon, eudemon being a Greek term meaning “good spirit” or “genius”, is Eric Scheske’s website.
“The Daily Eudemon is the sort of thing that Chesterton or Mencken would be doing, if they were alive today. It’s what, in saner times, was called journalism. In the writing and in the reading, it’s exactly the sort of leisure we should want at the basis of culture.” Mike Aquilina, Author of The Fathers of the Church and TV Talk Show Host.
“Literate Catholicism-urbane, witty, engaged-is alive and well! If you can read, you should be reading The Daily Eudemon!” David Scott, author of A Revolution of Love: The Meaning of Mother Teresa
“If you like your blogs pithy, nimble, pointed, high-spirited, and waggish, then bookmmark The Daily Eudemon. Ooops! You want prolixity, density, meandering, dull, and sober? Then run (do not walk!) to the blogs of the major news outlets. They have just what you want. Honestly they do.” John Peterson, Editor, G.K. Chesterton: Collected Works, Volumes 12 and 13.
“TDE is full of information and insight. Always worth a read.” James V. Schall, Author of Another Sort of Learning.
“TDE is one of the few indispensable sites in an overcrowded blogosphere.” Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Ph.D., New York Times Bestselling Author and Author of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.
On TDE, religion, philosophy, history, drinking, gardening, culture, politics, and sundry other things, are mixed together with informative, entertaining, and engaging writing.
Topics that seldom other writers have touched on are explored in fascinating ways.
The website itself is great and appealing to the eyes. It makes for easy reading, whether the topic be dense philosophy or light matter. With each article, you’ll either learn or laugh, guaranteed.
Next, it is your duty to listen to his podcast.
From personal opinion, I describe it as one of the best if not the best Catholic podcast. Every time I get in my car, and embark on one of my common long drives, instead of choosing to listen to boredom, I throw on The Weekly Eudemon.
It has the feel of a one-man radio show with its deep-voiced opening announcer and interspersed guitar bits. The content itself can be deep at times, and leisurely at others. The split is hard to notice though as Scheske’s witty presentation is constant.
It is hard not to learn something from the topics discussed. Rarely is learning also interesting. However, that is the case with this podcast. Even rarer is learning also engaging and entertaining, but that is exactly what this podcast offers you, whether you are driving to work in the morning, mowing the lawn, or walking around your suburban sidewalks.
Find TWE on all your podcast platforms here.
Discover, follow, and then share Eric with your friends and family. Or share his work with them instead. The story of Scheske is not yet over as he is still breathing and producing work. Support him as if it is now your obligation. It is Catholics like him that we need to be at the top of our Catholic culture. People like Scheske, like Chesterton, like Belloc, like Pieper, like Tolkien, make the rest of us Catholics look good.
Appendix: