Mihee Kim-Kort

Outside the Lines: Cultivating a

Courageous Writing Practice

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feel like research projects. This workshop is open to all types of writers at all levels.

ANGELA JACKSON-BROWN is an award-winning writer, poet, and playwright who teaches creative writing and En-glish at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. She is also the ar-tistic director of Jackson Brown Entertainment, a nonprofit organization that produces original plays and provides edu-cational opportunities to individuals interested in a career in the theatre. She is the author of the novel Drinking From A Bitter Cup and has published in numerous literary journals. In the fall of 2018, she released a poetry collection entitled House Repairs, published by Negative Capability Press. She has written and directed numerous plays including It is Well, Anna’s Wings, and Still Singing Those Weary Blues. Jackson-Brown also co-wrote Dear Bobby: the Musical, which appeared in the 2018 OnyxFest in Indianapolis, and a soon-to-be released play called Voices of Yesteryear, which she is co-directing with her son Justin Bean.

When we write about our lives, we’re often fearful of revealing aspects of ourselves that others might judge. Drawing on her experience of writing Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith, Mihee Kim-Kort will lead a workshop that encourages participants to write about their whole selves – and offer tools to resist the censoring power of fear.

MIHEE KIM-KORT is a Presbyterian minister, agitator, speaker, writer, and slinger of hopeful stories about faith and church. Her writing and commentary can be found at TIME, BBC World Service, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Century, On Being, Sojourners, and Faith and Leadership. She is a PhD student in Religious Studies at Indiana University, where she and her Presbyterian min-ister-spouse live with their three kids in Hoosier country. Her website is www.miheekimkort.org.

The Ministry of Writing Colloquium:

“The Ministry of Writing” colloquium was endowed by individuals in honor of Tom Mullen at the time of his retirement as Dean of Earlham School of Religion in 1990. Tom retired from ESR in 1997. He passed away in June 2009.

His “Writing for the Religious Market” class, first offered over 20 years ago, was the beginning of ESR’s unique emphasis in the ministry of writing. The colloquium will be held in the ESR Center at the northeast corner of the Earlham Campus.

From the work of Walt Whitman onward, the lyric poem has been a mainstay of American poetry, and for good reason: it is a form that lends itself to prioritizing the intimate, the personal, and the spiritual in a manner that eschews dogma and sweeping generalizations. This work-shop will focus on the necessary components that com-prise a good lyric poem, which include a defined sense of place, an original narrative voice, and an embrace of the transcendent beauty to be found in life’s daily experiences.

PAUL KAREEM TAYYAR’S most recent books are the poetry collection Immigrant Songs (WordTech, 2019) and the novel The Prince of Orange County (Pelekinesis, 2018), the latter of which was a finalist for an Independent Book Award. His poetry and fiction has been published in a wide variety of journals, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Ar-kansas Review, Brilliant Corners, The Santa Monica Review, and The Writer’s Almanac. He is a Professor of English at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California, and he holds a Ph.D. in literature from U.C. Riverside. He is a recipient of a 2019 Wurlitzer Poetry Fellowship.

As small communities in the Midwest face economic challenges and simplified national narratives, the arts offer a source of strength, joy, and renewal. The Nowhere Else Festival, hosted by Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist on their farm in rural Ohio, is one example. At a roundta-ble with other presenters, they’ll discuss their vision for the arts in the region they call home.

Dr. Paul Kareem Tayyar

Feet on the Ground, Head in the

Clouds: Writing the Lyric Poem

Love & Revelation:

Songs and Stories from the Heartland

November 1-2, 2019

Richmond, Indiana

ESR

Ministry of Writing Colloquium

Keynote Speakers Over the Rhine andSister Simone Campbell

Friday, November 1

All-day One-on-One sessions with Lil Copan, Senior Acquisitions Editor at Fortress Press (pre-registration required, see below)

6:00 pm Registration

7:00 pm Love & Revelation – An Evening With Over the Rhine

Saturday, November 2

8:00 am Breakfast

8:40 am Optional Open Worship

9:00 am Greeting and Welcome

9:15 am Plenary – Sister Simone Campbell Surprising Truths: Stories of Rural America (and What We Learn if We Listen)

10:45 am Break

11:00 am Workshop Session 1 Sr. Simone & Groves: “Telling Our Stories”

Bill: “Writing from the Heart” Cleaver: “Bridging the Writing Worlds” Copan: “The Inside Scoop”

Jackson-Brown: “Intersection of Fact/Fiction” Kim-Kort: “Outside the Lines”

Tayyar: “Feet on the Ground”

12:30 pm Lunch

1:45pm Workshop Session 2 OTR: “Betting on the Muse”

Bill: “Writing from the Heart” Cleaver: “Bridging the Writing Worlds” Copan: “The Inside Scoop”

Jackson-Brown: “Intersection of Fact/Fiction” Kim-Kort: “Outside the Lines”

Tayyar: “Feet on the Ground”

3:15 pm Break

3:30 pm Closing Panel Roundtable – More than Flyover Country: Arts and Community Renewal in the Midwest

5:00 pm Benediction

5:10 pm Mullen Award Presentation and Closing

6:00 pm Open-Mic (Location TBD)

ONLINE REGISTRATION: esr.earlham.edu/WC2019

Scheduleof Events

Closing PanelMore than Flyover Country: Arts and Community Renewal in the Midwest

Co-Sponsored by:

Angela Jackson-BrownThe Intersection of Fact with Fiction

Steven Cleaver

Bridging the Writing Worlds: Why You Need a Blend of Writing Communities (and How to Build Them)

RegistrationDeadline: October 29, 2019Send to: ESR Writing Colloquium 2019, Kristen Laws, Earlham School of Religion, 228 College Avenue, Richmond, IN 47374.1.800.432.1377, Email: kmlaws14@earlham.eduOnline registration: esr.earlham.edu/WC2019

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Love & Revelation

After 30 years of making music together – and 23 years of marriage – KARIN BERGQUIST and LINFORD DETWEILER have built a fiercely devoted following with music that finds “transcendence in the subtle,” as a recent reviewer put it. Their commitment to their Ohio roots first showed up in their band’s name – borrowed from Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine neighborhood. It continues in the Nowhere Else Festival, an event they host at their farm in Clinton County, Ohio – where they are also trans-forming a historic, 170-year-old barn into a performing arts center. Placed among the top 100 living songwriters by Paste Magazine, Over the Rhine released their 15th studio album, Love & Revelation, earlier this year. At their keynote for the Writing Colloquium, Bergquist and Det-weiler will discuss how their spirituality infuses their music – which, of course, they’ll also play. Keenly aware of the troubles of our time, Over the Rhine also offers hope. “We still believe in love and revelation,” as Detweiler puts it. “We still believe in meaningful work. We keep going, and with the darkness falling, we still find reason to dance.”

AFTERNOON ONLY Workshop:

Betting On The Muse: A Songwriting Workshop with Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine

This workshop experience aims to help you take a few steps forward in your songwriting life, regardless of whether you are just starting out or have been recording for years. Linford and Karin will share lessons from 30 years of songwriting together, using recent songs as examples. With high hopes for camaraderie, laughter, and the occa-sional surprising insight, this workshop should be of help to all writers engaged in the lifelong journey of exploring their craft. And if you just love music and records, the workshop will deepen your ability to listen. So, join us, no musical expertise required: we need good listeners, too!

Since January, Sister Simone Campbell has been on the road. She has convened rural roundtables from New Mexico to New York, learning about the spiritual, economic, and emotional lives of people residing outside major cities. In our Saturday plenary session, she’ll describe what she’s found: stories of resilience, faith, and community that defy urban and media stereotypes. These stories, Sister Simone believes, can seed a more nuanced and community-centered conver-sation about the state of rural life than we’ve had to date.

SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL is the Executive Director of NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice – a federal advocacy organization founded by Catholic Sisters to lobby in Washington, D.C. for policies that mend the gaps in income and wealth in the United States. She has led six cross-country “Nuns on the Bus” trips focused on tax justice, healthcare, economic justice, comprehensive im-migration reform, voter turnout, bridging divides in politics and society, and mending the gaps. Sister Simone Camp-bell wrote the famous “Nuns’ Letter,” considered by many as critically important in convincing Congress to support the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and is the author of A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community, published by HarperCollins. She has received numerous awards, spoken at the 2012 Democratic Nation-al Convention, and appeared on 60 Minutes, The Colbert Report, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She is a reli-gious leader, attorney, and poet with extensive experience in public policy and advocacy for systemic change.

MORNING ONLY Workshop:

Sister Simone Campbell and Dr. Sharon Groves Telling Our Stories – and Why It Matters Politically  

How can our own stories of Midwestern and rural life cut against simplified narratives? How can we make them heard in ways that might remake the national conversation? Along with Sharon Groves, vice president of partner engagement at Auburn Seminary, Sister Simone Campbell will lead a discus-sion exploring the power and potential of our own stories.

 

 

DR. SHARON GROVES is vice president for partner en-gagement at Auburn Seminary – a New York-based orga-nization that equips diverse faith leaders to build commu-nities, bridge divides, pursue justice, and heal the world. Before coming to Auburn, she directed the Religion and Faith Program for the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ+ equality. She holds a Ph.D. in En-glish literature from the University of Maryland. Sharon will assist with Sr. Simone Campbell’s afternoon workshop.

There is a very fine line between fact and fiction, and writ-ers have been crossing it continuously since writing and publishing became “a thing.” This workshop will illustrate the importance of research and its potential to elevate a story to a new level. Participants will learn tools for con-ducting their own research, and they will do exercises that illustrate how to incorporate their discoveries into fictional and nonfictional works without making their literary works

Brent Bill

Writing from the Heart: Soulful Creativity

Workshopsnetwork with other writers; and how to find – or create! – continuing education opportunities. Bring your own ideas for this collaborative workshop.

A graduate of Earlham School of Religion, STEVEN CLEAVER wrote his award-winning book, Saving Eras-mus (Paraclete 2007) with the guidance of Tom Mullen – founder of ESR’s writing program. He is a founding member of The Richmond Writers, creator of WayneWrites (a yearly writing conference), and the coordinator of Music at the Meltdown, a yearly event. He also hosts Leave It to Cleaver, a weekly radio show on WECI 91.5, a forum he uses to give local artists a voice. www.stevecleaver.com.

When publishing houses review nonfiction proposals and manuscripts, they are looking for certain “markers” —things that make a book stand out, certain elements that suggest a book might sell well. This workshop offers the inside scoop on what publishers care about and how to ensure your own proposal pitch combines the right elements to give your project its best chance with a press. 

LIL COPAN serves as senior acquisitions editor for trade books at Fortress Press. She previously worked in acquisitions for several religious publishing houses: Eerdmans, Abingdon Press, Ave Maria Press, and Paraclete Press. Among her areas of expertise are author and platform cultivation, substantive editing, and cross-platform content development. Copan has worked with an array of award-winning authors, includ-ing Madeleine L’Engle, Frederick Buechner, Lauren Winner, Jana Riess, Debbie Blue, Amy Frykholm, and Thomas Lynch. 

Get Here Early, Talk with An Acquisitions Editor

Lil Copan, senior acquisitions editor at Fortress Press, is offering a limited number of one-on-one sessions with conference attendees on Friday, Nov. 1, before the collo-quium starts. To sign up, email Kristen Laws at kmlaws14@earlham.edu or call 765-983-1423.

Do you wish to write in a way that touches readers and yourself? That’s the kind of writing that many readers find appealing. Brent Bill’s own writing has been described by Publishers Weekly as being “like a neighborly conversation across a kitchen table.” Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, you want to write from the heart and not just from the head. This workshop offers tips and techniques for connecting with your writer’s heart, then putting your heart on paper. You will spend time writing, using exercises that will help you uncover the deep themes and concerns that will bring your writing to life.

With more than twenty books and numerous articles and short stories published since the 1980s, BRENT BILL has learned a thing or three about writing. His books include Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker: A Humble Stumble Toward Simplicity and Grace and Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality. His newest book, Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love: Essentials for the Abundant Life, will be released on No-vember 5. He’s a writing coach, editor, photographer, and popular writing retreat leader. His home is Ploughshares Farm – 50 acres of Indiana farmland being returned to native hardwood forests and warm season prairie grasses.

Writers mainly work alone, except for the characters in our heads. At the same time, most of us want to take our work into the world – which means we need supportive communities. It’s not just that we need others to re-spond to our work – though we do – but that we need spaces where we can claim our identities as writers. This workshop will teach you how to create and sustain a sup-portive writing group; how to create spaces to meet and

Dr. Sharon GrovesTelling Our Stories – and Why It Matters Politically

Lil Copan

The Inside Scoop: What Publishers Are Looking For

Surprising Truths: Stories of Rural America (and What We Learn if We Listen)

Sister Simone Campbell

PlenaryOver the Rhine

Keynote

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