Guest Speakers 2013-14

St. Stephen’s Church is thrilled to announce that Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies, Help Thanks Wow, Some Assembly Required, Bird by Bird and many other books, will open our 2013-14 speakers series.

Lamott will speak on relationships, love and the messiness of it all. Her visit will enhance St. Stephen’s focus on helping people within and beyond our parish strengthen their relationships with spouses, children, and other family members. She will emphasize how her faith is an important element of healthy and fruitful relationships. Lamott’s books and columns—most of which are filled with references to her deep faith—are treasured by people throughout the world, and are popular items in the Bookshop @ St. Stephen’s. She is a frequent contributor to Salon.com and other media.

She has written openly about her own addiction and recovery, being a single parent, and most recently, with the unexpected pregnancy of her son’s girlfriend, how the families of both young parents came together to support their children and grandchild. Lamott’s writing is perceptive, articulate, and often laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Tickets for Lamott’s visit to St. Stephen’s, October 17, 7 p.m., will be available this summer. Her visit will include a book signing. Her books are available in the Bookshop @ St. Stephen's.

St. Stephen’s is known for the quality, breadth and depth of speakers who visit the parish, including renowned theologians, writers, poets, and monks. Our speakers series has become a resource not only for our own church but for the larger church and the community. All events are open to the general public. As additional details (including registration) are available on our speakers series, you’ll find them on this page.

Other speakers coming in 2013-14 include:

September 22--Jill McCorkle (photo, right), celebrated author, whose latest book, Life After Life, is St. Stephen's summer reading selection (no registration required for Ms. McCorkle's talk). Read more about the summer book selection here.

November 9—The Rev. Becca Stevens, founder of Magdalene/Thistle Farms, an entrepreneurial organization that helps women leave lives of prostitution and addiction

November 30—The Rev. Martin Laird, author of Into the Silent Land and A Sunlit Absence

March 22-23—The Rev. John Philip Newell, author of Christ of the Celts, A New Harmony: the Spirit, the Earth, and the Human Soul and many other titles

February 8 and 9—The Rev. Francis (Frank) Wade, former rector of St. Alban’s, Washington, a leader in the Episcopal Church and author of The Art of Being Together and other books

March 7-9—Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist

April 6—The Very Rev. Katherine (Kate) Bingham Moorehead, Dean of St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida, and author of Organic God: Lenten Meditations on the Words of Jesus and other books.

Prof. Dale Martin, Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, will be our Biblical Scholar-in-Residence; dates of his visits are TBA.