Recap: Festival of Faith & Writing
Every otheryear in Grand Rapids the Festival of Faith and Writing comes to Calvin College. (That's Calvin as in John, not Klein or the cartooncharacter.) I’ve wanted to attend for more than a decade, and this year itfinally happened. My writerfriends Diane McDougall (roommate) and Heather Goodman, with whom I took a press junket toIsrael, are here, as well as my former teaching assistant, Kelli Sallman.
Because Iteach a class on Wednesday nights, I missed the Thursday morning events,which included a keynote by Gary Schmidt. But when I went to board my flight Thursday,I found I was on the same plane with my friend Mary DeMuth. So she's here too.
Before goingto the Calvin Campus, I had arranged to visit my publisher at Kregelheadquarters here. Since they've sold 200,000+ copies of Glahn/Cutrerbooks, I figured it was high time I stopped in. But alas, that never happened.Budget lost my car reservation, and when they eventually did find me in thesystem, they had me down for March 30–31. I objected to the “new price” to get a car for the dates I'm actually here, so I stepped outside and called headquarters to geta better deal. WhenI finally left the airport, I hadfive minutes to make a 25-minute drive. Clearly, I’d be late, but at least I’dget there. Or so I thought. The vehicle was stuck in overdrive, and by the time I made it to the highway, I could smell the engine. Though sorely tempted to take it drag-racing, I returnedthe car. When we finally got all the paperwork handled a second time, I had completely missed my appointment. Did I mention itwas raining?
After findingCalvin’s campus and registering, I wandered around looking for my firstworkshop and discovered the place has twostructures bearing the name Spoelhof. I parked outside the wrongone, so I trudged through the rain till I found the building where Hugh Cook was talking aboutfiction. Sadly, because I slid into the back of the room and the acoustics were bad where I sat, I heard almost nothing.
Just about the time I was ready to adopt for myself the name "Eeyore," I attended a packed-out workshop with Francisco X. Stork (Marcello in the Real World)called “Teaching without Teaching.” He was brilliant and witty and toldfantastic stories. Stork won the 2010 National Book Award for young people’s literature, and as wesay in Texas, Boy, howdy! Could he ever win awards for being an engaging speaker.
Next,I met with a small group to talk about “Writing for Social Justice.” Someone there notedhow much music has been linked to justice movements—spirituals and Bob Dylanand Peter, Paul, and Mary. Rise up, lyric writers! And we discussed theimportance of speaking out on behalf of “others.” That is, the able-bodied onbehalf of those with physical limitations; the free on behalf of the enslaved;the empowered sex in any context on behalf of the “other”; the majority race onbehalf of minorities.
Thursdaynight’s keynote was “ReadingBetween the Lines” with Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He told lots of great Jewish-culturestories in a talk that was about as linear as his book.
A bunch of uswent out that night, and I finally got to meet Ed Cyzewski, who hasfeatured me on his blog. (He devotes every Friday to a women-in-ministryseries—an example of someone speaking out on behalf of others.) We broughtthe gang back to our hotel lobby and continued till after midnight, fellow bloggers of all ages finally getting to meet e-friends face-to-face.
That was justThursday. Yesterday I had a longer conversation with Ed over box lunches, and dinnerat a Persian restaurant with Diane and Heather. Though it poured most of theday yesterday, we had gorgeous weather today, and I enjoyed all the tulips in bloom. Okay, enough about friends, weather, and food. Here’s a list of the additional workshops/keynotes—fabulous mind-stretching, soul-feeding stuff—I attended overthe past two days:
The Word Needs Flesh: Sex and Faith inContemporary Writing
John Estes (Kingdom Come), Amy Frykholm (See Me Naked)
The Theory and Practice of Trust: Writingas Prayer
Luis AlbertoUrrea (Devil’s Highway)
Divine Madness: Debra Dean (Madonnasof Leningrad) and Luis Alberto Urrea (TheDevil’s Highway) in Conversation
The Art of the Story
David Diaz,Daniel Nayeri, Gary Schmidt
(Artist, editor,and author of a forthcoming Clarion picture book)
Casting Out Fear - keynote
MarilynneRobinson (Gilead)
Why Read Classics?
Elda Rotor(Penguin classics editor)
Truth Finds a Way
River Jordan (Praying for Strangers)
An Interview with Shane Claiborne (IrresistibleRevolution)
An Interview with Clare Vanderpool (2011 Newberry medal for first novel, Moon Over Manifest)
The Magic and Craft of Fiction - keynote
ChimamandaNgozi Adichie (Purple Hibiscus)
In the daysahead I may tell you more about the conversations I had with some of these people. For example, Ms. Adichie seemed quite interested that my friends at DTS are reading Purple Hibiscus; Mr. Claiborne gave me his email address so I can tell him more about how one of his books changed my nephew's life; and Ms. Vanderpool answered a question for me about how to make fiction characters lovable.
I also hope to share nuggets from the pages of great notes I took—such as Claiborne's tongue-in-cheek statement about singleness: "Just think of what Mother Teresa could have become if only she could have married."
But for now I'll say this: Ms. Adichie’swords tonight in her keynote sum up well my own thoughts about the conference: “It’s nice to be in a place where faith is talked about withoutbeing dismissed.” Like her, I am grateful to make a living doing what Ilove.