2009 Orange Prize winner to speak on narrative power at Christian Scholars' Conference

Marilynne Robinson, recent Orange Prize winner for her latest novel Home, will be one of four keynote speakers at the Christian Scholars' Conference at Lipscomb University, June 25-27.

 

The public is invited to come hear Robinson and three other nationally recognized authors and writers, a former U.S. Poet Laureate, a Holocaust scholar and a religous memoirist. Each speaker will discuss their approach to the topic, “The Power of Narrative.”

 

These sessions are free of charge and open to the public.

 

 

 

 

Locke, a moral leader, author, Holocaust scholar, and authority on police and urban affairs, is the retired professor and Dean Emeritus of the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. His research and publications on the role of the churches during the Holocaust have earned him national as well as international acclaim. His writings on the criminal justice system have been published widely, and his essays have appeared in The New York Times.

 

 

Taylor, an acclaimed memoirist, teaches religion at Piedmont College in northeast Georgia. In recent years, she has lectured on preaching at Yale, Princeton and Duke Universities. A columnist for The Christian Century and commentator on Georgia Public Broadcasting, she is the author of eleven books, including When God is Silent and Home By Another Way.

 

 

Collins was selected as United States Poet Laureate, 2001-2003. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar. His poems have been read on National Public Radio and his poetry readings are often standing-room-only events. Billy Collins has published eight collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Picnic, Lightning and The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems.

 

 

Robinson was awarded this week with the Orange Prize for fiction, a British award for female writers around the world, for her latest work Home. In 2005 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Gilead. Gilead is the fictional story of three generations of Congregationalist pastors in the small town of Gilead. The story is told through the 1956 diary entries of Rev. John Ames, the third generation pastor. In Home, the prodigal son of another pastor in Gilead, Jack, returns home after 20 years to make peace with his past.