Live, from Grand Rapids, it's the Festival of Faith and Writing!

Approximately 2,000 writers, readers, editors, publishers, and assorted literary types are converging at Calvin College for the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing.I’m here for the first time ever, to listen and take notes.This event pulls together a wide range of authors–novelists, poets, essayists, memoirists–to present various thoughts on writing and faith. And editing. And reading critically. And how not to use sentence fragments…or maybe when it’s okay to use them. Like, maybe, in a casual blog post composed at midnight.Oh, and there’s a discussion group on effective blogging, but it filled up and closed before I even knew I had to sign up. So I guess I’ll never know how effective I could have been….

The Bloggers Circle [CLOSED]What are the challenges and pitfalls of good blogging? How much should you disclose about yourself and other people on a blog? How do you respond to critics? To what extent should blogging be descriptive, a kind of reporting, and to what extent should it be reflective and expressive of your own feelings and thoughts?

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s the list of speakers.I only knew a few, like Katherine Paterson, Kathleen Norris, Yann Martel, Haven Kimmel, Phyllis Tickle, Elizabeth Berg, Deb Rienstra, Rob Bell, Francine Rivers, and Luci Shaw. Maybe some others, too. You can see from this diverse group that this is not intended to be an exclusively Evangelical event–I think it’s encouraging a broader conversation of faith and writing at a literary level. A lot of these speakers not only have written books and won prizes, they also teach at prestigious universities. I hope I’m inspired and encouraged rather than overwhelmed by these brilliant minds expressing themselves.Hopefully I can check in here at the blog. I’ll try to snap a few pictures of famous people. I’ve been known to say and do embarrassing things when I meet people I admire. I stepped on someone’s foot just before we were introduced, I’ve said really stupid things, and on one memorable occasion in 2005, I was riding on an airplane back from Belgium one row in front of Phyllis Tickle. The story involves airsickness. You can read about it here if you like. After all, there’s really no better way to spice up a story on the mamablogsophere than to include a little vomit vignette.Anyway, if anything memorable happens should I happen to bump into Kathleen Norris or Katherine Paterson in the hallway or the ladies room, you’ll be the first to know.