National Spiritual Writing Conference at Scarritt-Bennett Center
NASHVILLE, TN: The Nashville Path & Pen Writers’ Conference brings writers and would-be writers together to explore writing as a spiritual practice. Held at the Scarritt Bennett Center, the conference has four distinct yet interrelated parts: keynote presentations; workshops; opportunities to network with editors, agents, publishers, and fellow writers; and a distinctly Nashville flavor. The conference attracts people who use or would like to use writing as part of their spiritual practice; authors and would-be authors of spiritually oriented memoir, translation/commentary, fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction; and readers of spiritually oriented books.
The conference opens Friday evening, September 8, 2006 with Beth Neilson Chapman, one of Nashville’s leading singer-songwriters. Beth will perform for one hour and then engage attendees in an intimate conversation on spirituality and the creative process. Saturday focuses on a variety of ninety-minute workshops. Each workshop is offered twice, allowing you to take four workshops during the day. Saturday evening features an open-mike where people can share their work. The open-mike session ends early to allow you to partake of Nashville’s unique music scene just blocks from the conference center. Sunday morning features a keynote address by religion writer Ray Waddle, followed by a Q&A panel with editors and published authors to answer questions about spiritual publishing. The conference ends with lunch on Sunday, September 10, 2006.
A partial list of workshops includes: Leaving a Legacy of Story: Creating an Ethical Wil!; The Kabbalah of Writing: Using Writing to Examine Your Soul; The Artist’s Way; The G-Word: Writing About God in an Interspiritual Context; Writing Spiritual Autobiography; Writing as Personal Ministry; Ears to Hear: Writing Personal Bible Commentary; The Sacred Art of Journaling.
Cost: $160 for the weekend. Rooms and meals are available onsite. To register, visit www.scarrittbennett.org or phone Kim Johnson at (615) 340-7450.
The Nashville Path & Pen Writers Conference is co-sponsored by the Scarritt Bennett Center and One River Foundation, with support from local bookstores, publishers, newspapers, and other businesses. Scarritt Bennett Center is a conference, retreat, and education center committed to empowerment through cross-cultural understanding, education, creativity and spiritual renewal. The Center is located in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, on ten tree-filled acres. The ten buildings, constructed of crab orchard stone in collegiate gothic architectural style, give the grounds a peaceful, nurturing atmosphere. The compact setting means that it’s a short walk to well-equipped meeting rooms, delicious meals, and restful sleeping rooms. The One River Foundation promotes peace, justice, and personal awakening through interspiritual study, dialogue, and contemplative practice.
What is spiritual writing? Spiritual writing explores your sense of the sacred, your quest for meaning and purpose, your encounters with God or Absolute Reality, and your wrestling with faith, doubt, belief, and the ordinary wonder of your everyday life. Such writing may or may not be overtly religious, deal explicitly with religion, or be associated with any traditional faith or belief system.
What is writing as a spiritual practice? Writing can tap the deepest recesses of your being, and reveal wisdom not otherwise available to you. Writing in this way is a spiritual practice. Spiritual writing includes journaling, spiritual autobiography, “Morning Pages,” interpretive translation of and commentary on sacred texts, and similar practices that use writing as a means to access the deeper layers of one’s heart, mind, and soul.
Why a conference? Spiritual writing and the community of writers engaged in it merit and can benefit from the interaction that a conference provides. To date there is no national conference devoted to writing as a spiritual practice, and it is our aim to correct this oversight. We believe that Nashville with its rich tradition of spiritual book and music publishing and its spiritually cosmopolitan flavor, is uniquely suited for this kind of gathering.
Partial List of Faculty:
Singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman has been a regular on the Adult-Contemporary popularity charts since the 1990s. Such stars as Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Michael McDonald, Bette Midler, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Elton John, Amy Grant, Keb Mo, Roberta Flack and Brenda Lee have recorded her songs. Her song “This Kiss,” as recorded by Faith Hill, won ASCAP’s 1999 Song of the Year award and was nominated for a Grammy. Beth is also the founder of the Songwriting and Creativity Stargaze at the Vanderbilt Dyer observatory in Nashville, Tennessee.
Philip Goldberg is a spiritual counselor, meditation teacher and ordained Interfaith Minister. The author or coauthor of 17 books, he lectures and leads workshops throughout the country. He is also the Director of the Forge Guild of Spiritual Leaders and Teachers and the founder of Spiritual Wellness Associates. A novelist and screenwriter as well, he lives in Los Angeles, where he coaches individuals and couples to clarify and deepen their spiritual lives.
A former spokesperson for Miss Black USA, Inc. Shellie R. Warren is a full-time writer and speaker who has been published in over three-dozen publications including Honey Magazine, Upscale Magazine, CCM, b-gyrl.com, DOE Network and NV Magazine. Warren, who was named Miss Woman of Color 2002-2003, is also a spoken word artist and is featured on b-gyrl.com’s compilation, The Lyristcess Lounge and Gotee-recording artist, GRITS Dichotomy A and B. She lives in Nashville, TN.
Rami Shapiro is an award winning poet and essayist, whose liturgical writings are used in prayer services throughout North America. He has written over a dozen works of poetry, liturgy, short story and nonfiction. Rami is an ordained rabbi and holds a doctoral degree in religious studies. A congregational rabbi for 20 years, Rabbi Shapiro currently directs the One River Foundation, a not-for-profit educational center for inter-spiritual study and contemplative inquiry. His most recent books are Open Secrets, Hasidic Tales Annotated and Explained, The Hebrew Prophets Annotated and Explained, The Divine Feminine, Annotated and Explained, and The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness.
Nearly fifteen years in the book publishing industry have provided Sheri Swanson with a wide breadth of experience. As a sales representative, her clients ranged from independent book and gift stores, to national chain store and distributor buyers. For five years, her dual roles at Publishers Weekly, as Southern Sales Manager and Religion Marketing Manager allowed her to nurture publisher relationships and develop an inside understanding of the business of religion publishing. Since leaving PW, she has built her own company, inkplot, into a source for book doctoring and reviewing, copy writing, and publishing industry consulting.
Ray Waddle is an award-winning journalist/columnist who writes about faith and culture for various publications and web sites. He is the author of two recent books -- Against the Grain Unconventional Wisdom From Ecclesiastes and A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time. Look for his regular columns at Interpretermagazine.org and in the Presbyterian Voice newspaper (synodoflivingwaters.com). His work has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Century magazine, USA TODAY op-ed page, and United Methodist News Service. He was religion editor for 17 years (1984-2001) at The Tennessean in Nashville, the city’s major daily newspaper, and still writes guest columns there. He teaches a writing seminar at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
The conference opens Friday evening, September 8, 2006 with Beth Neilson Chapman, one of Nashville’s leading singer-songwriters. Beth will perform for one hour and then engage attendees in an intimate conversation on spirituality and the creative process. Saturday focuses on a variety of ninety-minute workshops. Each workshop is offered twice, allowing you to take four workshops during the day. Saturday evening features an open-mike where people can share their work. The open-mike session ends early to allow you to partake of Nashville’s unique music scene just blocks from the conference center. Sunday morning features a keynote address by religion writer Ray Waddle, followed by a Q&A panel with editors and published authors to answer questions about spiritual publishing. The conference ends with lunch on Sunday, September 10, 2006.
A partial list of workshops includes: Leaving a Legacy of Story: Creating an Ethical Wil!; The Kabbalah of Writing: Using Writing to Examine Your Soul; The Artist’s Way; The G-Word: Writing About God in an Interspiritual Context; Writing Spiritual Autobiography; Writing as Personal Ministry; Ears to Hear: Writing Personal Bible Commentary; The Sacred Art of Journaling.
Cost: $160 for the weekend. Rooms and meals are available onsite. To register, visit www.scarrittbennett.org or phone Kim Johnson at (615) 340-7450.
The Nashville Path & Pen Writers Conference is co-sponsored by the Scarritt Bennett Center and One River Foundation, with support from local bookstores, publishers, newspapers, and other businesses. Scarritt Bennett Center is a conference, retreat, and education center committed to empowerment through cross-cultural understanding, education, creativity and spiritual renewal. The Center is located in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, on ten tree-filled acres. The ten buildings, constructed of crab orchard stone in collegiate gothic architectural style, give the grounds a peaceful, nurturing atmosphere. The compact setting means that it’s a short walk to well-equipped meeting rooms, delicious meals, and restful sleeping rooms. The One River Foundation promotes peace, justice, and personal awakening through interspiritual study, dialogue, and contemplative practice.
What is spiritual writing? Spiritual writing explores your sense of the sacred, your quest for meaning and purpose, your encounters with God or Absolute Reality, and your wrestling with faith, doubt, belief, and the ordinary wonder of your everyday life. Such writing may or may not be overtly religious, deal explicitly with religion, or be associated with any traditional faith or belief system.
What is writing as a spiritual practice? Writing can tap the deepest recesses of your being, and reveal wisdom not otherwise available to you. Writing in this way is a spiritual practice. Spiritual writing includes journaling, spiritual autobiography, “Morning Pages,” interpretive translation of and commentary on sacred texts, and similar practices that use writing as a means to access the deeper layers of one’s heart, mind, and soul.
Why a conference? Spiritual writing and the community of writers engaged in it merit and can benefit from the interaction that a conference provides. To date there is no national conference devoted to writing as a spiritual practice, and it is our aim to correct this oversight. We believe that Nashville with its rich tradition of spiritual book and music publishing and its spiritually cosmopolitan flavor, is uniquely suited for this kind of gathering.
Partial List of Faculty:
Singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman has been a regular on the Adult-Contemporary popularity charts since the 1990s. Such stars as Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, Emmylou Harris, Michael McDonald, Bette Midler, Anne Murray, Willie Nelson, Elton John, Amy Grant, Keb Mo, Roberta Flack and Brenda Lee have recorded her songs. Her song “This Kiss,” as recorded by Faith Hill, won ASCAP’s 1999 Song of the Year award and was nominated for a Grammy. Beth is also the founder of the Songwriting and Creativity Stargaze at the Vanderbilt Dyer observatory in Nashville, Tennessee.
Philip Goldberg is a spiritual counselor, meditation teacher and ordained Interfaith Minister. The author or coauthor of 17 books, he lectures and leads workshops throughout the country. He is also the Director of the Forge Guild of Spiritual Leaders and Teachers and the founder of Spiritual Wellness Associates. A novelist and screenwriter as well, he lives in Los Angeles, where he coaches individuals and couples to clarify and deepen their spiritual lives.
A former spokesperson for Miss Black USA, Inc. Shellie R. Warren is a full-time writer and speaker who has been published in over three-dozen publications including Honey Magazine, Upscale Magazine, CCM, b-gyrl.com, DOE Network and NV Magazine. Warren, who was named Miss Woman of Color 2002-2003, is also a spoken word artist and is featured on b-gyrl.com’s compilation, The Lyristcess Lounge and Gotee-recording artist, GRITS Dichotomy A and B. She lives in Nashville, TN.
Rami Shapiro is an award winning poet and essayist, whose liturgical writings are used in prayer services throughout North America. He has written over a dozen works of poetry, liturgy, short story and nonfiction. Rami is an ordained rabbi and holds a doctoral degree in religious studies. A congregational rabbi for 20 years, Rabbi Shapiro currently directs the One River Foundation, a not-for-profit educational center for inter-spiritual study and contemplative inquiry. His most recent books are Open Secrets, Hasidic Tales Annotated and Explained, The Hebrew Prophets Annotated and Explained, The Divine Feminine, Annotated and Explained, and The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness.
Nearly fifteen years in the book publishing industry have provided Sheri Swanson with a wide breadth of experience. As a sales representative, her clients ranged from independent book and gift stores, to national chain store and distributor buyers. For five years, her dual roles at Publishers Weekly, as Southern Sales Manager and Religion Marketing Manager allowed her to nurture publisher relationships and develop an inside understanding of the business of religion publishing. Since leaving PW, she has built her own company, inkplot, into a source for book doctoring and reviewing, copy writing, and publishing industry consulting.
Ray Waddle is an award-winning journalist/columnist who writes about faith and culture for various publications and web sites. He is the author of two recent books -- Against the Grain Unconventional Wisdom From Ecclesiastes and A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time. Look for his regular columns at Interpretermagazine.org and in the Presbyterian Voice newspaper (synodoflivingwaters.com). His work has appeared in The New York Times, Christian Century magazine, USA TODAY op-ed page, and United Methodist News Service. He was religion editor for 17 years (1984-2001) at The Tennessean in Nashville, the city’s major daily newspaper, and still writes guest columns there. He teaches a writing seminar at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
