Thursday, Febuary 21, 2008
Cheryl Denise Miller -- poet
In I Saw God Dancing, the narrative poetry of Cheryl Denise gathers together her Canadian Mennonite roots, rural life, and her attachment to the people and mountains of West Virginia. Her poetry is rich in concrete detail, and many poems contain a storytelling quality. Subjects range from sheep farming to lusts and longings, biblical women, legs, old lovers and laundromats. Often humorous, she penetrates to the deep current of human relationship. Many people who don't read poetry find themselves drawn to Cheryl's truthful, clear style. (From a review on MennoLink Books and Music)
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Vigen Guroian -- scholar and writer
Vigen Guroian is presently Professor of Theology at Loyola College in Baltimore, Md. Dr. Guroian's many notable titles include Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University, Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, and an ongoing Fellow of the Wilberforce Forum under the Prison Fellowship Ministries founded by the honorable Chuck Colson. He has published more than one hundred and fifty articles in books, journals, and encyclopedias on a range of subjects including Orthodox theology, marriage and family, children's literature, education, politics, ecology, genocide, liturgy, and medical ethics. Dr. Guroian is the author of nine books in all, including Rallying the Really Human Thing: The Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life and How Shall We Remember?: Reflections on the Armenian Genocide and Church Faith. His most recent book, The Fragrance of God, chronicles not merely the changing seasons but the course of his own life as he and his family move from Maryland to a new home near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Read more on Dr. Guroian on his web site: http://www.guroian.com/
Sept. 25, 2007
Peggy Payne -- novelist, journalist, and editorial consultant
Peggy Payne's research for her travel writing and novels has taken her to more than 25 countries.
Her most recent novel, Sister India, is a New York Times Notable Book. She is author of the novel Revelation (screen rights sold to Synergy Films) and co-author, with Allan Luks of The Healing Power of Doing Good. She also wrote a book on a clothing firm, Doncaster: A Legacy of Personal Style.
Her articles, reviews, or essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Ms. Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Family Circle, Travel+Leisure, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and many others. Read more on Peggy Payne on her official web site: http://peggypayne.com/
Nov. 29, 2007
Wayne Johnston -- distinguished chair in creative writing at Hollins College
Wayne Johnston's award-winning fiction includes The Story of Bobby O'Malley, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and The Navigator of New York. He wrote both the novel and the screenplay for The Divine Ryans and won Canada's most prestigious prize for creative non-fiction for Baltimore's Mansion. A native of Newfoundland, Johnston now holds the Distinguished Chair in Creative Writing at Hollins College. Read more on Mr. Johnson on his web site: http://waynejohnston.ca/authorbio.html.
Jan. 25, 2007
Frederica Mathewes-Green, NPR commentator and essayist
Frederica Mathewes-Green is a wide-ranging author whose work has appeared in such diverse publications as the Washington Post, Christianity Today, Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, First Things, Books & Culture, Sojourners, Touchstone, and the Wall Street Journal. She is a regular columnist for the multi-faith web magazine Beliefnet.com, and she writes movie reviews for the National Review Online. Her commentaries have aired on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Her essays were selected for Best Christian Writing in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006. She has published seven books, most recently Facing East: A Pilgrim’s Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy and First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey through the Canon of St. Andrew, and over six hundred articles.
Feb. 15, 2007
Jane Kurtz, fiction writer
Award-winning children’s book author Jane Kurtz now lives in Hesston, Kansas, but she has lived and traveled all over the world. Many of her stories take place in East Africa, where she spent most of her childhood, but she has also written about surviving a flood in North Dakota, seatbelts, grouchy days, the Oregon Trail, and several real-life heroes, including Frances Willard, Johnny Appleseed, and Barnum Brown. As a long-time teacher of writing at the elementary, secondary, and university levels, Kurtz has recently offered presentations for fellow-writers, teachers, librarians, and children in all but thirteen of the U.S. states, in several African and European countries, and in the Persian Gulf. She also teaches in the Vermont MFA program in children’s literature.
Special Lecture—Free Admission (8 p.m.)
Sept. 7, 2006-
Norman Wirzba, philosopher
Norman Wirzba is professor and chair of the philosophy department at Georgetown College (Ky.). He teaches courses in the history of philosophy, environmental ethics, and theology and is the author of The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age and Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight and editor of The Essential Agrarian Reader, The Art of the Commonplace, and The Phenomenology of Prayer.
Sept. 21, 2006-
Jean Janzen, poet
Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and reared in the midwestern United States, Jean Janzen has lived in Freso, Calif., since 1961, where she teaches poetry-writing at Fresno Pacific University. Her published collections of poetry are Words for the Silence, Three Mennonite Poets, The Upside-down Tree, and Snake in the Parsonage. She received an NEA grant in 1995, and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies.
Oct. 19, 2006-
Michael McFee, poet
Michael McFee has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Shinemaster (Carnegie Melon, 2005). His collection of essays, The Napkin Manuscripts: Selected Essays and an Interview, is forthcoming. He has also edited This is Where We Live: Short Stories by Twenty-five Contemporary North Carolina Writers (UNC Press, 2000), a companion anthology to his The Language They Speak is Things to Eat: Poems by Fifteen Contemporary North Carolina Poets (UNC Press, 1994).
Special Lecture—Free Admission (7:30 p.m.)
Nov. 2, 2006-
Yorifumi Yaguchi, poet
Yorifumi Yaguchi is a leading Mennonite poet, writing in both English and Japanese. He is best known in the West for his thirty poems in Three Mennonite Poets (Good Books, 1986), but his published work in English includes nearly 300 poems in five volumes. Yaguchi’s poetry bears witness to the evils of militarism from Shinto nationalism to Hiroshima and then extends to Vietnam and the aftermath of September 11, 2001. He is an international peace activist whose poetic and prophetic voice extends to his roles as professor, poetry editor and Mennonite pastor in Japan.
Special Lecture—Free Admission (8 p.m.)
Nov. 17, 2006-
Gilbert Meilaender, philosopher
Gilbert Meilaender teaches at Valparaiso University (Ind.), where he holds the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics. Meilaender has published eleven books and numerous articles, including Friendship: A Study in Theological Ethics; Faith and Faithfulness: Basic Themes in Christian Ethics; Bioethics: A Primer for Christians; Body, Soul and Bioethics; The Way that Leads There: Augustinian Reflections on the Christian Life; and Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits. He is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics and has served on the board of directors of the Society of Christian Ethics, as an associate editor of Religious Studies Review, and as an associate editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics. Dr. Meilaender is also a Fellow of the Hastings Center and has been a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics since it was established in January 2002.
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