April 11, 2006 Grand Rapids, Mich. - A stunning lineup of keynote and public addresses will highlight the 2006 Festival of Faith & Writing at Calvin College, slated to run April 20 to 22.
A highlight will be a Festival-opening address, titled "The Thumbprint on the Clay," by acclaimed author Luci Shaw.
That talk - free and open to all - is scheduled for noon on April 20 in the Calvin Fieldhouse and will kick off the 2006 Festival, which will draw almost 2,000 registrants from around the globe for workshops, seminars, lectures, networking, conversations and more around the intersections of faith and writing.
Shaw is the author of several collections of poetry and a variety of non-fiction books, including God in the Dark and The Crime of Living Cautiously: Hearing God's Call to Adventure. She has been a frequent Festival presenter in the past and was a natural fit to kick off the 2006 event says Festival director Shelly LeMahieu Dunn.
In addition to Shaw's free address, keynote talks open to the public will be given by Alice McDermott, Salman Rushdie, Marilynne Robinson and Walter Wangerin, Jr.
McDermott won the National Book Award for Fiction for her novel Charming Billy, while Rushdie has written numerous books, most famous of which is The Satanic Verses, which led to a bounty being placed on his head. Almost 25 years after she published her first novel, Housekeeping, Robinson released her second novel, Gilead, which won a Pulitzer Prize. And Wangerin is the author of over 30 books of fiction and nonfiction, and currently holds the Jochum Chair at Valparaiso University in Indiana, where he teaches literature and creative writing.
Tickets for the keynote addresses are $15 (or $12 if more than one talk is purchased). Students get discounted rates for all the keynote addresses.
Another Festival highlight open to the public will be an address by Don Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz. His talk will be at 9 pm on Saturday, April 22 in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium and is $5 (or $3 for groups of 10 or more).
Biographies of the speakers can be found at
http://webapps.calvin.edu/academic/english/festival/speakers/speakers.ph p
Calvin College is one of the largest Christian colleges in North America and is a center for faith-based liberal arts teaching and scholarship. It is affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
NOTES FOR MEDIA
*Media can interview Festival director Shelly LeMahieu Dunn by calling 616-526-8720. *Members of the public interested in tickets for the keynote talks can call the Calvin College Box Office at 616-526-6282. Or tickets can be ordered online at https://authenticator.calvin.edu/cgi-bin/tickets.pl *For the complete Festival schedule see http://webapps.calvin.edu/academic/english/festival/conference/schedule- t.php
................... Henry Hess Director of Communications The Christian Reformed Church To learn more about the Christian Reformed Church visit www.crcna.org