At Baker Book House, we love the ways stories bring people together, especially when they invite us to think deeply and see the world with renewed hope. The Festival of Faith and Writing is one of those rare spaces where readers and writers gather to do just that. Hosted on the campus of Calvin University, the festival offers a glimpse of what can happen when faith and creativity meet in meaningful conversation.
In the reflection that follows, Olivia Mason of Brazos Press shares her experience of the festival—things that she anticipated, what surprised her, and the lasting impression it left. Her words echo a truth we return to often: even in stories that face the darkest realities, there is an invitation to look for the light beyond.
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A reflection from Olivia Mason, the Brazos Press marketing assistant, on the Festival of Faith and Writing. We are so grateful for all the readers and writers who joined us on the campus of Calvin University to learn, discuss, and grow together.
At the Festival of Faith and Writing, I expected to observe collective weariness, worn down from the frenetic pace of our world. I remember sitting in an audience with my pen and my notebook, ready to learn about dystopian fiction from award-winning author, Neal Schusterman. He spoke about how to navigate readers through heavy scenarios, though I suspect we were all hoping for some pointers on how to navigate it ourselves. Neal leaned in to tell us, when you’re writing about the end of everything as we know it, you must trust your readers can not only confront the darkness but imagine the light beyond.
Dystopia isn’t always fiction. But neither is the light beyond.
I scribbled that down and underlined it, because it’s easy to forget. Heaven isn’t fiction. Eternity is here, now. Among us, just as vast and intimate as the presence of death among us. Heaven is not just a reward for the future; it’s a gift for today. Nijay Gupta teaches about this in his new book, Paul for the World.
Because of this light beyond, we get to operate without fear. We don’t have to fear the uncontrollable, as Andrew and Kara Root write in A Pilgrimage into Letting Go. We don’t have to ration and distribute our joys. We get to lay down the tight-fisted, desperation of a scarcity mindset and move through our mundane days with audacious generosity and grace. This is living an anti-greed life, that Malcolm Foley describes in The Anti-Greed Gospel. The “light beyond” isn’t this scarce glimpse of hope we have to capture. It’s abundant and it’s not going anywhere.
At the Festival, instead of exhaustion, I witnessed pervasive joy between the authors, readers, and publishers. We lit up to see our favorite books in the hands of people who needed hope. We leaned into the talks, conversations, and encounters that left our wounds healed and hearts buoyed. We smiled, watching people going out into the world weighed down with good heaven-filled books. We got a delicious taste of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Amid today’s trials, I hope when you look at the Brazos Press titles and authors lined up on your shelves, you can tell that we trust you. We trust Brazos readers to imagine the light beyond, and it emboldens us in our work publishing books that confront the darkness. It’s a blessing to serve readers who reflect the hope of eternity back to us.
Interested in reading the titles discussed in this essay? Check them out here:
