Faith in Literature
Festival Features Conversations for On Being
Two sold-out conversations with Krista Tippett, host of the public radio program On Being, headlined UNC Asheville’s first Faith in Literature Festival, jointly convened with the Wake Forest University School of Divinity with radio productions thanks to WCQS—Western North Carolina Public Radio. The two-day event from Oct. 21-22 brought together 14 writers of the spirit, whose work deeply engages—by embracing, complicating, or wrestling with—a faith tradition or spiritual practice.
Rick Chess in conversation with Alicia Jo Rabins, Laurie Patton and Amy Gottlieb in the Laurel Forum.
Among those authors, poets and playwrights reading and discussing their work were poet Marilyn Nelson, a chancellor in The Academy of American Poets, and Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson, who received the 2015 National Humanities Medal from President Obama just a month before the event.
“For many years, I’ve been dreaming of organizing an event that would bring together a group of first-rate writers who deal seriously and honestly with the spiritual and religious life,” said Rick Chess, a poet and writer who is the Roy Carroll Professor of Honors Arts and Sciences, director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UNC Asheville, and author of Third Temple. “I don’t know what it’s like for other folks who take their spiritual and religious lives seriously, but I’ve always turned to the work of poets, fiction and nonfiction writers as part of my own spiritual and artistic life. I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to feature the life of the spirit and literature in this festival.”
Conference co-organizers were Chess and Evan Gurney of UNC Asheville’s faculty, and Fred Bahnson from the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, with many partners and supporters.