Where is Home When No Place, or Every Place, Feels Like Home?
my talk from the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing
Listen to my talk at the CFFW 2024 here.
Every other April I used to sit in Djibouti and read about the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing (CFFW) online and feel so deeply jealous. All those writers! All those books! All those talks and publishers and editors and readers and magazines! And I was so far away.
Then, in 2021, Pillars: How Muslims Led Me Closer to Jesus was set to be released in April (on my birthday!) and my publisher arranged with the CFFW to book me as a speaker! I had a book coming out! I was going to attend – and speak at – the Festival of Faith and Writing! Sure, I would have to fly around the world to do it but that wouldn’t be a problem. We would just have to book the flight around my launch party which included Barbara Brown Taylor (BBT) and Abdi Nor Iftin!
For someone who is anti exclamation point, you may have realized by now that this was quite exciting for me. All those acronyms: CFFW. BBT.
And then.
2021.
COVID was still upon us. Travel was still complicated. Large events were still being cancelled.
The launch event was online and if BBT in real life is anything close to what she is like online, I am 100% right in remaining a huge fan.
CFFW was cancelled.
I was, yet again, in Djibouti in April, wondering if I would ever have a chance to attend CFFW.
And then the festival was rescheduled for April 2024 and I was re-booked as a speaker. And there was great rejoicing. I didn’t have a new book to talk about but I can always talk about my older books and work out new content.
I went. I spoke. I got terribly, terribly sick.
It wasn’t COVID. But I hadn’t yet been living in the USA for a year at that point and my body struggled with Minnesota sicknesses.
I made it through both of my speaking events but at dinner on the last night, I was eating pizza with New York Times journalists and Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter who is the executor of her estate and I was so sick that I had to leave the table early.
Did you hear me? NYT journalists and Madeleine L’Engle’s granddaughter and I walked away. I would have cried all the way back to my room but my eyes were so swollen no tears could have made their way out.
Maybe I will have another opportunity to attend, maybe even to speak at the CFFW. For as long as I was alert, I had a fabulous time.
Here’s one humbling real-talk memory: I had a book signing scheduled and at this book signing I was seated next to The Modern Mrs. Darcy. Yes, her. At the other end of our table was Mary DeMuth. Yup, her.
They both had lines reaching out the door. Out the door.
I signed two books.
One was the book I gifted my student guide.
Thank you to the other woman who trekked across campus with my book in your arms! I will never forget you!
All this is simply preamble to say that two weeks ago, the podcast associated with the Festival of Faith and Writing aired my solo talk.
“In Episode #69 of Rewrite Radio, Rachel Pieh Jones joins us to explore how writing cultivates the humility, curiosity, and delight necessary to create a sense of home when nowhere, or everywhere, feels like home.”
What does home mean for you?
How do you write home?
How do you write your way home?
I just finished listening, and now I'm crying. Your way with words is amazing!