Posts in Literature
S12 E02: A Social Imaginary with Karen Swallow Prior

What role does the imagination play in shaping the identity of a culture? 

Our collective imagination provides metaphors, stories and symbols that bind people groups together and create a common understanding of the world. 

But what happens when those metaphors no longer carry the same meanings? Or even worse, when those stories and metaphors no longer create unity but bring division and harm? 

Professor and writer Karen Swallow Prior addresses these concerns in her book The Evangelical Imagination

She tells us, contemporary American evangelicalism is suffering from an identity crisis - and a lot of bad press. 

In this episode, Karen discusses what Charles Taylor called ‘A social imaginary’ and how artists and creatives can respond to the evangelical crisis of identity and bring healing to our cultural fractures. 

Transcript

Read More
S11 E13: Building Bridges with Katherine Paterson

There is a relationship between grief and transcendence that may not be immediately recognizable. But it’s one often expressed within art and in particular, children’s literature.

Whether it’s Lewis’s wardrobe to Narnia, Dorothy’s house transported by cyclone to Oz or a bridge to Terabithia built across a chasm of loss.

Grief has a way of transporting us to a fantastical world of imagination where we can more easily grapple with the difficulties of loss and even find closure to the trauma that sent us looking for relief.

In this episode, Makers & Mystics host Stephen Roach talks with children's book author Katherine Paterson about the motivations behind her writing and why she feels it is important to create a safe space through art and literature for young adults to work through difficult emotions and experiences.

Katherine Paterson is the author of more than 40 books, including 18 novels for children and young people. She has twice won the Newbery Medal, for Bridge to Terabithia in 1978 and Jacob Have I Loved in 1981.

LIsten on Spotify

Listen on Apple

Read More
S10 E11: The Winding Path To Meaning with Josh Nadeau

Josh Nadeau is a print maker, writer and clothing designer living in Western Canada.

His Instagram account, Sword and Pencil, features a library of images and musings about goodness, truth and beauty.

His work, both in word and in image, aims to offer solutions to disenchantment and acts as an antidote to Christian culture’s rampant mediocrity.

In this episode, Stephen talks with Josh about the role of suffering in spiritual and creative development, the winding path to meaning and the need to cultivate virtue in our everyday lives.

* Patrons of the podcast can enjoy an additional interview segment with Josh on Waiting Well & The Temptation of Idolatry.

Music in this episode is provided by Sean Williams.

Read More
S10 E06: The Poetics of Restoration with Malcolm Guite

Malcolm Guite is an English poet, academic and priest in the Church of England. He is a fellow of Girton College in the University of Cambridge and has published widely in the field of theology and literature.

His research interests include the intersection of religion and the arts and the examination of the works of J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In this episode Malcolm and I discuss what I’ve termed as the poetics of restoration and how poetry and literature hold keys to understanding and even bridging the gaps between tradition and originality.

Patrons of the podcast can enjoy three additional interview segments with Malcolm, one on the moral imagination (which members of our creative collective will recall from discussions in our last book club.) also Malcolm’s thoughts on imagination as empathy, and practices to can we establish to achieve longevity for the artist and writer.

Bright Wings Poetry Contest!

Support The Podcast. Get The Exclusive Content.

Brightbell Creative: Meaningful Marketing For The Creative Artist

Read More
S9 E12: How Art Shapes Empathy with Mary McCampbell

In this episode, I talk with Author and Professor ,Mary McCampbell about her book, Imagining Our Neighbors As Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy. In our conversation, we discuss how narrative art serves as an invitation to awaken and expand our capacity for empathy.

Buy Mary’s Book

Support The Podcast! Your generosity enables this work to continue.

Featured music by: Jessamyn Day

Interlude music by: Luke Vandergriff

Read More