AN ANNUAL COLLOQUIUM

October 21-22, 2005

For both of our featured speakers this year, writing has been a way to reconcile, and perhaps integrate, disparate elements of life and faith.

For Diane Glancy, who was raised by a Cherokee father and a mother of German-English descent, writing has been a way of listening to the different voices that inhabit her being. “We carry more than we realize . . . . We carry our ancestors, not in the sense of ghosts, but in the sense of the past being with us. We carry the burden or the weight of glory…of everything that has come before.”

Glancy carries the stories and voices of her Christian faith as well as the rich Cherokee heritage that came to her through her father. In her novels, plays, essays, and poems, Glancy has worked on recovering and empowering those voices that have been marginalized. In her novels, plays, essays, and poems, she celebrates the stories of Biblical women, of Native Americans, and of the land itself. If writing has been, for Glancy, a listening way, a gathering of voices, it has also been a way of living into a strong and gathered voice. As she puts it, “I think that’s the work we do all our lives: bringing together the fragments and trying to make some cohesive wholeness out of them.”

Lauren Winner grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her father was a secular Jew, her mother a lapsed southern Baptist. While in high school she began attending a reform Jewish synagogue. In her freshman year at Columbia University, after years of serious study and consideration, she immersed herself in the Orthodox Jewish community. Later, after a low ebb in her spiritual life, she was studying at Cambridge University in England when her faith journey took a different turn—this time to Christianity and more specifically the Anglican Church.

As one interviewer put it, Lauren Winner, in her first twenty-six years, “traveled enough spiritually, intellectually, and geographically to fill several lifetimes.” Although Winner saw nothing especially remarkable about her own journey, she did feel a need to write. “It is a somewhat complicated thing to do—to try, after a religious conversion, to put the pieces of one’s life and self back together,” Winner said. “Like many people, I find that writing helps me make sense of my own thoughts. So I began scribbling things down.” Those scribblings eventually led to her first book— Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life— which established her as a vital new voice in contemporary dialogues concerning religion and spirituality.

Both of this year’s featured speakers come with a long list of accomplishments. Lauren Winner has already followed her memoir with two more well-received books: Mudhouse Sabbath and Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity. She has appeared on PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and Christianity Today. Diane Glancy, has published eight novels, four short story collections, three books of essays, and ten volumes of poetry. Her many accolades include two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her most recent books include In Between Places (essays), Primer of the Obsolete (poems), and Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea.

Writing, Faith, and Biblical Voices
Led by Diane Glancy

This workshop is about building faith through writing in or for the voices of Biblical characters. We’ll look at the voice of Dorcas, the New Testament seamstress, the four daughters of Phillip in Acts 21:8-9, and the voice of Joseph when he was in prison in Egypt. We’ll find a character who has appealed to us or puzzled us and explore his/her voice through creative writing.

Diane Glancy is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she teaches Native American Literature and Creative Writing. Among her novels are Pushing the Bear: the 1838 Cherokee Trail of Tears ; Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea; The Closets of Heaven: The Story of the New Testament Seamstress, Dorcas; Designs of the Night Sky; and The Dance Partner: a Novel of the 19th Century Ghost Dance.

The Delights and Dangers of Writing About People You Know
Led by Lauren Winner

In this workshop, Lauren Winner will give you the skinny on writing about people you know, address the mores and ethics of memoir writing, and lead a few exercises in creative disguise (that is, changing Great- Aunt Hilda’s name and “identifying details” without turning her into a cardboard cutout).

Lauren F. Winner, is the author of Girl Meets God, Mudhouse Sabbath, and Real Sex: The Truth About Chastity. She has also written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Book World, Publishers Weekly, and Christianity Today. Winner has degrees from Columbia and Cambridge universities and is currently at work on her doctorate in the history of American religion.

Book Basics: The Start-Up Kit for Your Book
Led by Lil Copan (morning only)

This workshop will cover basic questions most beginning writers have about getting a book published: from developing an idea, researching the market, and submitting a book proposal to working with agents, editors, publishers, and publicists. Please bring your questions and a one-paragraph summary of a book idea that you would like to pursue (or are currently pursuing).

Lil Copan is acquisitions editor with Paraclete Press. Previously she worked as literary series editor with Shaw Publishers, followed by a short time with the small literary/arts press, David R. Godine.

Where Words Come From
Led by Brent Bill (morning only )

Asked once about silent worship, a Delaware Indian leader named Papunehank remarked: “I love to feel where the words come from.” Those are the kinds of words that matter—the ones that come from our souls. This workshop will look at the power of words that come from deep inside.

Brent Bill is the author of 15 books, including Holy Silence: the Gift of Quaker Spirituality (Paraclete: 2005) and Imagination and Spirit: A Contemporary Quaker Reader (Friends United Press: 2003). He has written more than 100 fiction and non-fiction articles and is a writing instructor and coach.

An Author-Editor Conversation
Lil Copan and Brent Bill (afternoon only )

Two years ago at the Ministry of Writing Colloquium, author Brent Bill and editor Lil Copan had a conversation about landscape, Quaker faith, silence, and the Red Sox. Through this conversation a book idea was born. In May 2005 the book was published with Paraclete Press. Please join them in an informal conversation, as they meet again, two years later to talk about the book, the development of an idea, and the steps and stages of writing and editing and publishing that resulted in the book Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality.

Writing About Belief: What’s the Story?
Led by Ray Waddle

This workshop will focus on writing about belief—that is, the wider world of faith, or one’s own—with publication in mind. The workshop will consider various questions related to writing articles, columns, and books for a real audience. Topics will include: religion writing as an act of translation (describing sectarian or esoteric or devotional ideas in general terms) for the reader and writing as a way to sharpen our own thinking (and unearth our prejudices) about matters of faith.

Ray Waddle has been a religion writer and columnist for 20 years. He was religion editor at The Tennessean in Nashville from 1984- 2001. He is also the author of A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time (Upper Room Books, 2004). His next book, Against the Grain: Unconventional Wisdom from Ecclesiastes, was released in August 2005 (Upper Room Books). Waddle has degrees from the University of Oklahoma (BA, journalism) and Vanderbilt University (MA, religious studies), and lives in Nashville.

Occasional Ministry: Poems for a Time
Led by Mary Brown

This workshop will focus on occasional poems—pieces written as gift or by request for specific events. Writing excellent occasional poetry is a challenge for the poet devoted to both art and ministry. It allows the poet to think specifically about audience, to explore fully the effects of sound and tone, to consider how poetry moves simultaneously within and outside of time. It also serves people who are hungry for lines that speak to them in the moment.

Mary Brown teaches literature and creative writing at Indiana Wesleyan University. She publishes poetry in Christian and secular magazines and journals from Christian Century to Artful Dodge. She has poetry and an essay in a book forthcoming from Haworth Press, entitled Still Going Strong: Memoirs, Stories, and Poems About Great Older Women.

The Ministry of Writing Colloquium

Previous keynote speakers for the Colloquium have been: