Alan Ackmann

Calvin College Catch-Up

I’ve now returned from Calvin Festival of Faith in Writing held in Grand Rapids Michigan, which I found to be a pleasant little town about the size of Evansville, Indiana, only without the funny smell and economic desperation. It’s possible, though, that my impression of Grand Rapids was altered by its seventy degree outside temperatures (I haven’t experienced that in over six months) and the fact that conferences put me in a good mood, which usually makes me like the city that hosts them. This conference, especially, was full of pleasant people enthusiastic about their craft, who lacked that jaunty pretension I get from so many writers at, say, the AWP convention. It also didn’t take too long to have Relief’s decision to attend the conference be confirmed as a good one.

First of all, our reception was overwhelming positive. I was delighted by how few people (a) were finding out about Relief for the first time, and (b) were thrilled by what the journal was all about once they heard. Over and I over, I received excited nods when I explained that the journal—though it explored Christian themes and experiences—valued authenticity over comfort, and literary craft over religious preachiness. People seemed entirely on our wave-length, and my suspicions that writers were hungry for a journal that bridged the secular and Christian writing worlds was confirmed time and again through conversations with writers and presentations by speakers, making it an absolutely joyous experience. So while it took a while to find my groove, (the first time I tried to pitch Relief I got as far as “It’s a Quarterly Christian Journal”, then didn’t know what else to say and had to be rescued) by the end had the pitch down to a lithe two minutes. The conference was good from a sales perspective—we arrived with over one-hundred and fifty journals, and left with seven—but it was even more gratifying to meet so many wonderful and like-minded people. For the first time, all the work I’ve been doing with the journal felt legitimate and good.

Since we mostly wanted to publicize the journal, I snuck off to panels only rarely. The ones I attended were hit or miss (they often are) and had an annoying trend of not actually talking about what they claimed they’d talk about. There were some highlights, though—Mary Gordan gave a perceptive opening talk about whether fiction could be moral, and Chip MacCalister (a former publisher and current agent) gave a talk about book proposals that was equal parts theoretical and practical. The best lecture for me, however, came from Michael Chabon, who I’ve had a mixed response to over the years—I thought Wonderboys and Werewolves in Their Youth were both great, but got bored by Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Summerland. But Chabon’s talk on place and myth was fantastic, and while the structure was as meandering as that of Summerland (sorry, Mike) the terrain he covered in his talk included the role of setting in literature, the sanctity of language as identity, the merit of genre fiction as a medium, and his own journey of discovery as a writer. The talk accomplished the curious rhetorical trick of never telling its listeners exactly where they were going, while simultaneously making them grateful to be invited along. It was marvelous stuff, and if you ever get a chance to hear Chabon speak I highly suggest you take it.

So it was a pleasant weekend, overall. It was my first time attending a conference as an editor rather than a writer, and I found it easier to be on the presenting side than the attending side. And in the end, talking to a bunch of Christians wasn’t nearly as daunting as I’d thought it might be, which I probably should have anticipated—along with the time change upon crossing into Michigan.

And speaking of change, it’s time to get back to teaching and to grading—so I’ll see you next time!

Posted by Alan Ackmann - Apr 22, 12:36 PM.
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