Recap: Festival of Faith & Writing
Every other year in Grand Rapids the Festival of Faith and Writing comes to Calvin College. (That's Calvin as in John, not Klein or the cartoon character.) I’ve wanted to attend for more than a decade, and this year it finally happened. My writer friends Diane McDougall (roommate) and Heather Goodman, with whom I took a press junket to Israel, are here, as well as my former teaching assistant, Kelli Sallman.
Because I teach 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 going to the Calvin Campus, I had arranged to visit my publisher at Kregel headquarters 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 the system, 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 get a better deal. When I finally left the airport, I had five minutes to make a 25-minute drive. Clearly, I’d be late, but at least I’d get 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 returned the car. When we finally got all the paperwork handled a second time, I had completely missed my appointment. Did I mention it was raining?
After finding Calvin’s campus and registering, I wandered around looking for my first workshop and discovered the place has
two structures bearing the name Spoelhof. I parked outside the wrong one, 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 told fantastic stories. Stork won the 2010 National Book Award for young people’s literature, and as we say 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 noted how much music has been linked to justice movements—spirituals and Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Rise up, lyric writers! And we discussed the importance of speaking out on behalf of “others.” That is, the able-bodied on behalf 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 on behalf 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-cultures tories in a talk that was about as linear as his book. A bunch of us went out that night, and I finally got to meet Ed Cyzewski, who has featured me on his blog. (He devotes every Friday to a women-in-ministry series—an example of someone speaking out on behalf of others.) We brought the 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 just Thursday. Yesterday I had a longer conversation with Ed over box lunches, and dinner at a Persian restaurant with Diane and Heather. Though it poured most of the day 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 over the past two days:
Casting Out Fear - keynote
MarilynneRobinson (Gilead)
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 days ahead 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’s words 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 without being dismissed.” Like her, I am grateful to make a living doing what I love.