Festival of Faith and Writing!

By: Stephanie Duncan, Publicity Asisstant at Moody Publishers

You have to understand one thing upront: for a reader, for a writer, for anyone who loves the written word, Calvin College's biennial Festival is magical.

This is a place crawling with ideas, where you might just bump into a literary luminary any second while taking a coffee break in between sessions. It is a place where Luci Shaw (dear friend of A Wrinkle in Time's Madaleine L'engle) reads poetry and after the last line, the whole room ripples with gasps of awe. This is a place where opening lines of greeting are not, "Hi! How are you?" but "You know, you look just like the washer woman in a Dutch 18th century painting." (True story--two years ago I was just sitting under a tree eating lunch when author Nikki Grimes hit me with this one). It is the place where authors are constantly making the my-writing-process-is-just-like-birthing-a-baby metaphor, which either deeply resonates with you (like it does me) or makes you never want to read again (like it does my fiance)!

The festival is held at Calvin College's campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the purpose of "provid[ing] a vibrant community where people come together to discuss, celebrate, and explore the ways in which faith is represented in literature and how it plays out in our world today. Check out the website here at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engl/festival/ and make sure you find their recommended reading list!

So while I am in the midst of all these brilliant minds for four days (this year features Mary Karr, Avi, Kate DiCamillo, Tim Stafford, Eugene Peterson, and many, many more) I will be blogging each day about what goes on here. Check back for stories, updates, happenings and more and I hope you enjoy! :)