TC at the Festival of Faith and Writing

Perusing photos from last year’s Festival of Faith and Writing on the event’s Facebook page, I noticed something strange: no one had a jacket on, and the ground was green. The festival will be held April 10 to 12 at Calvin College, and the prospect of experiencing a Michigan spring, rather than winter, is just one of the many reasons I’m excited about this year’s event.

Here are a few others: Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers and Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, will be one of the speakers. So will James McBride, whose The Good Lord Bird, a comedy about the abolitionist John Brown, won the 2013 National Book Award. For a music break, there will be a performance by a little band called The National.

The festival has also given me the opportunity to lead one of its Circles, small-group gatherings where attendees can discuss a topic of shared interest. Mine, titled “Contemporary Film Criticism,” will explore how opportunities for writing about film have exploded with the rise of blogs and social media. We’ll discuss the effects of this, as well as ways to become better writers on film.

If you’re interested in attending the film criticism Circle and have already registered for the festival, signing up is easy. Just email me at jlarsen@crcna.org. If you have yet to register for the fest, you can do that here. Deadline for signing up for a Circle is March 31.

Hope to see you there!