“
I
n my walk in the secular world, the poets hate my God talk,” said poet Jim Bodeen. “ ‘Oh, there’s Bodeen
again and the God stuff,’ they say.” Raised Lutheran in North Dakota and Seattle, connected to the Salva- doran Lutheran Church through the ELCA Companion Synod program, and a reader of theology, Bodeen writes poems that are filled with “God talk.” He is a Lutheran writer: someone influenced by, and often wrestling with, the tradition that formed and still nurtures him. Walter Wangerin Jr. describes
himself the other way around. “I am a writer who is a Lutheran,” said the ELCA pastor whose first novel, The Book of the Dun Cow, won the National Book Award.
Instead of adhering to Lutheran principles, Wangerin’s writing is informed by his view of the world. “We all have means for interpreting existence, and Lutherans have a very particular means,” he said. “It’s how we see that’s Lutheran, not what we write.”
Finding and connecting writers who see the world through Lutheran glasses is the goal of the Lutheran Writers Project, based at Roanoke College, Salem, Va. Since 2007, the project has co-sponsored two Festivals of Lutheran Writing, attracting several dozen keynote writers and more than 400 participants. It has lifted up new and established Lutheran voices through symposia, a book tour and a Web page (
www.lutheranwriters. org).
“We offer lots of ways to encour- age conversation among people who write and who are interested in
Basye, a freelance writer living in the Pacifi c Northwest, is the author of Sustaining Simplic- ity: A Journal (ELCA, 2007).
Living with words
Lutheran writers share how
their work ‘faces the world’ By Anne Basye
writing,” said project director Paul Shepherd, author of More Like Run- ning Away (Sarabande Books, 2005) and a member of St. Mark Lutheran Church, Charlottesville, Va. That includes an online newsletter, to which more than 800 people sub- scribe, he said.
Some of these writers are preach-
er’s kids like Carol Gilbertson, professor emerita at Luther Col- lege, Decorah, Iowa; director of the Festival of Lutheran Writing; and author of the poetry chapbook From a Distance, Dancing (Finishing Line Press, 2011). “I was surrounded by biblical language, the proclamation of the gospel and well-chosen words. What I grew up comes out in my writing,” she said.
The Lutheran Writers Project
Based at Roanoke College, Salem, Va., the Lutheran Writers Project offers resources and events for writers, readers, church groups and insti- tutions. The project sees its mission as renewing the imagination of the Lutheran church and celebrating the gifts of Lutheran writers. Find out about events, author tours and the Lutheran Book Club, suggest Lutheran authors you know and more at
www.lutheranwriters.org.
20 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Others attended or teach at Lutheran colleges, like poet Philip Bryant, a graduate and faculty mem- ber of Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minn. “Everybody asso- ciates Garrison Keillor nationally with the Lutheran thing, but I think Lutheran writing is deeper than that,” he said. “And talk about point of view—that’s only one slice.” (In fact, Keillor claims to be Episcopalian.) Many are laypeople. Poet Jill Alexander Essbaum gets funny looks when she tells people she’s a Lutheran writer. “It wouldn’t sound weird if we were Jewish or Catholic writers,” she said. “Maybe it’s because it is so spe- cific. I mean, ‘Presbyterian writers’ sounds weird too.” Commenting on writing, Gilbert-
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