In order to prime and prepare ourselves for this conference, we have put together a pre-reading guide that includes some of our favorite authors who will be at the conference, including their anticipated topics of discussion.
FAITH & CULTURE
RUTH GRAHAM
Ruth Graham is a national correspondent covering religion, faith, and values for The New York Times. Her reporting on religion has found her tagging along on a pre-dawn workout devoted to Christian male bonding in Texas, to a prayer service in small-town Georgia with a Bible miraculously oozing oil, and an outdoor cremation ceremony in the Rocky Mountains. She graduated from Wheaton College and previously worked as a writer and reporter at Slate. She lives in Dallas with her family.
At FFW2024:
Graham will discuss the challenges of reporting on American religion, and the combination of faith and culture.
Recommended FFW Pre-Reading:
READ some of Graham’s work for The New York Times.
JAMES K.A. SMITH
James K. A. Smith is professor of philosophy at Calvin University and serves as editor in chief of Image journal, a quarterly devoted to “art, mystery, and faith.” Trained as a philosopher with a focus on contemporary French thought, Smith has expanded on that scholarly platform to become an engaged public intellectual and cultural critic.
He is the award-winning author of a number of influential books including Desiring the Kingdom (2009), How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019) and, most recently, How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now (2022). He is currently at work on a book about contemplative spirituality and contemporary art.
His essays and criticism have appeared in magazines that include the Christian Century, Christianity Today, America, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, LitHub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His writing has also been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Jamie and his wife, Deanna, are empty-nesters who live in the Heritage Hill neighborhood of Grand Rapids where they tend sprawling flower gardens and an ever-increasing number of bird-feeders.
At FFW2024:
Smith will discuss nostalgia and despair and how to reframe these narratives.
LISTEN to a podcast conversation between James K. A. Smith and Jen Pollock Michel.
Recommended FFW Pre-Reading:
How to Inhabit Time:
Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR
Karen Swallow Prior, Ph.D., is a reader, writer, speaker, and professor. She is the author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023); On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson, 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press, 2012). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. She has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places. She hosted the podcast Jane and Jesus. She is a Contributing Editor for Comment, a founding member of The Pelican Project, and a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum. She and her husband live on a 100-year-old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books.
At FFW2024:
Karen Swallow Prior will discuss social imaginaries and how they can be a part of culture and shape perceptions or assumptions.
READ an interview that we had with Karen Swallow Prior about The Evangelical Imagination.
Recommended FFW Pre-Reading:
The Evangelical Imagination:
How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
SARAH SMARSH
Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has reported for the New York Times, Harper’s, the Guardian, and many other publications. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was an instant New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, the winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize, and a best-books-of-the-year selection by President Barack Obama. Her 2020 book She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Smarsh is a frequent political commentator and speaker on socioeconomic class. A former writing professor, Smarsh has served as a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. She lives in rural Kansas.
Smarsh’s next book, Bone of the Bone: Essays on America from a Daughter of the Working Class, 2012-2024, will be published by Scribner in 2024. She is also at work on a book about the endangered tallgrass prairie ecosystem, which will be published by Scribner in 2026.
At FFW2024:
Sarah Smarsh will discuss the healing potential of creative journalistic forms and our shared civic and spiritual imperative to protect and evolve the free press.
Check our our Featured post of Smarsh’s 2018 memoir, Heartland
Recommended FFW Pre-Reading:
Heartland:
A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
JIM DAHLMAN
Jim Dahlman is the author of A Familiar Wilderness: Searching for Home on Daniel Boone’s Road, which chronicles his 300-mile solo hike from east Tennessee to central Kentucky, blending history, observation, memoir, and the stories of dozens of people he met along the way. He is professor of communications and journalism at Milligan University, where he teaches courses in news and feature reporting and writing, creative nonfiction, editing, and communications law and ethics; serves as chair of the performing, visual, and communicative arts area; and is the faculty adviser of the college student-run news service. With an MA in English from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College, Dahlman is an award-winning magazine editor, freelance journalist and columnist who covered religion for more than seven years. Dahlman has written for numerous British and American publications, including The Guardian (UK), Christianity Today, the Johnson City Press, and the Cincinnati Enquirer.
At FFW2024:
Dahlman will discuss the difficulties at the intersection of faith and journalism.
READ a local news article about Dahlman’s book, A Familiar Wilderness
Recommended FFW Pre-Reading:
A Familiar Wilderness:
Searching for Home on Daniel Boone’s Road
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