History

If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.I am weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.

Jeremiah 20: 9

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Connecting and validating people of faith who love WORDS, story, and The Word.

The Faith & Culture Writers Conference is  a unique gathering for conversation around creativity, the arts, and making a difference in culture with words and story. Writers need fellowship! Both inspirational and practical, the annual event engages, encourages, networks, and challenges people in their calling to write the stories, blog posts, articles, and books that God has led them to write. The vision is to bring in both established authors and new voices to the conversation around voice and story.

Speakers, authors, theologians, activists, bloggers, literary agents, filmmakers, journalists, editors, and everyday writers are among the speakers and workshop leaders each year. Past speakers include Deidra Riggs, founder of Jumping Tandem retreats, Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, William Paul Young, author of The Shack, Ken Wytsma, The Justice Conference founder, Paul Louis Metzger, theologian, professor and author of Connecting Christ, Richard Twiss, author of One Church, Many Tribes, Gina Ochsner, author of Necessary Grace to Fall, Brian Doyle, author of Grace Notes, Tony Kriz, author of Neighbors and Wisemen, and Dan Merchant, film-maker of Lord Save Us from Your Followers. Some of the varied literary agents who have taken book pitches include: Don Jacobson, Bill Jensen, Jenni Burke, and Terry Glaspey.

2011 Beginnings

God has given us the creative arts as a way to communicate our story to others in a culture starving for beauty and relevance and stories that matters. Although the internet, social media and hashtags are great ways to connect virtually, we have a God-given need for living, breathing, in-person connections and gatherings, a place to be known by fellow creatives. Because of this craving for community, we established the yearly Faith & Culture Writers Conference (FCWC) in 2011, with Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon serving as our hosting sponsor. Our unique yearly gathering is a place where we find community, camaraderie, and life-giving connections with others who share a mutual calling to live out a creative life.

Our vision is to move our conference to a different university setting each year which makes our event accessible to a wide number of people.  The 2013 Faith & Culture Writers Conference was held at Multnomah University while the the 2014 FCWC was hosted by George Fox University. In the 2015, the Faith & Culture Writers Conference moves to Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon.

“The Faith & Culture Writers Conference is a unique creative writing conference experience. Some who attend say they are not writers at all, but they write out of necessity and calling and conviction, as it is through the written word that they are able to communicate their stories and message in a changing world starving for truth and beauty.  I love that about our conference, as we are honored to introduce fresh new voices to the conversation around word and story and faith and culture and the arts, people who write because they have to write.”

Cornelia Becker Seigneur, FCWC Founding Director

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Special thanks to Martin French, our WORDS logo and artwork designer, and to Social Media Handlers for hosting and design of our website.