On April 14 to 16, the Houghton Department of English and Writing will sponsor a trip to the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This bi-annual festival, a self-described “exploration of the communities made and served by religious writing,” has been a popular event in the faith-based writing community for over twenty-five years.
This year, professor Lori Huth will lead a cohort of Houghton faculty and students, which includes professor Linda Mills Woolsey, professor Stephen Woolsey, and professor Laurie Dashnau, as well as eight students from the English and Writing Department. This gathering provides a way for young authors to receive expert feedback regarding their work, as well as a way for faculty to hone their own composition skills while further developing their philosophy of writing instruction.
Over the years, the festival has featured such celebrated plenary speakers as Maya Angelou, Elie Wiesel, and Madeleine L’Engle. In a continuation of this tradition of excellence, this year’s featured speakers include celebrated author Zadie Smith; Lutheran pastor and faith author, Nadia Bolz-Weber; John Darnielle, the frontman of the Mountain Goats; and over seventy other professionals currently working in the writing and publishing industries.
Students expressed excitement about learning from authors they know and love, as well as being exposed to new voices. “I especially read a lot of Andrew Clements when I was younger,” shared Rachel Zimmerman ’18. “The chance to come full circle in college and see him as a speaker is really wonderful. I’m also looking forward to hearing from people I haven’t heard of before.”
“I always find it encouraging, and inspiring, and empowering,” said Woolsey, who has attended Calvin Festivals in the past. “Part of it is sheer numbers. You can see up to two thousand people who share a passion for words, for ideas, for the imagination, and everyone’s there to celebrate that.”
Aside from its impressive selection of speakers, the true heart of the festival is in smaller gatherings, where writers can receive valuable advice and encouragement from successful authors and teachers. At these sessions, writers of all experience levels can receive advice on such diverse topics as developing and adapting stories for the screen, successfully pitching their manuscript to an editor, and crafting dynamic characters. Visitors can also submit their work to a variety of fiction workshops, in which published authors and professors can provide individual feedback to aspiring writers.
In addition, the festival will feature a selection of informative sessions with industry veterans, which address the more practical and economical side of the writing business. In these sessions, attendees will learn how to communicate effectively with online audiences, gracefully deal with the realities of rejection and writer’s block, and tactfully explore some of the ethical issues surrounding literary creation.
As part of engagement efforts with the community, the festival also sponsors a number of events—such as lectures, concerts, and gallery showings—that are open to the public. This year, these events will include a reading from young adult author Andrew Clements and artist discussions with John Donnelly and Makoto Fujimura, as well as film screenings and concerts.
Gatherings like the Calvin Faith and Writing Festival are indispensable, not only for their practical service to the writing community, but also for the valuable camaraderie and support they invite between creators. “You see people making themselves vulnerable as they share their own creative struggles, triumphs, and disasters,” Woolsey shared. “So it’s definitely not just for students—it’s something for every thinking person who understands why stories and ideas matter.” He paused for a moment, smiling fondly, before adding, “There’s no other gathering I know of that’s quite like this.”