Jessica Mesman Griffith is the author of four books, including the forthcoming Strange Journey (2017) and Love & Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters, winner of the 2014 Christopher Award for literature. She is a cultural columnist for US Catholic Magazine and editor of the group blog Sick Pilgrim at Patheos/Beliefnet. She is an affiliate faculty member at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis and a frequent speaker specializing in spiritual autobiography, memoir, and literary nonfiction. She has an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is the former managing editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction.
Books by revered white Christian men haven’t been much comfort to me lately. A Grief Observed is the only Lewis book I can stand to read anymore. Here we see the great apologist, one of our finest and most beloved spiritual writers, stripped of his convictions and openly, viciously angry at God. The Oxford don is confused, … More “Deeper Into Mystery” in America Mag’s Spring Literary Issue
I was listening to the She Kills podcast today on my daily walk. I’m three episodes deep and so far it’s everything I hoped it would be: smart women–actors, writers, directors–having deep conversations about their favorite horror films and their own work. Episode three featured Clarke Wolfe and Barbara Crampton on “The Final Girl” … More A word about JoBeth Williams as Diane Freeling, Horror Movie Mom
I’m honored to join James K.A. Smith, Mary Kenagy Mitchell, Lauren Winner, Shane McCrae, and Nick Ripatrazone on the editorial staff of Image Journal. I’ll be the editor of the Good Letters blog, where I wrote from 2008-2015, and where I’ve met some of my favorite writers and colleagues. I’m excited to go back to … More Image Journal’s New Masthead
Recent studies in epigenetics provide scientific evidence for what the Old Testament writers knew: According to multiple researchers, we really do carry our parents’ trauma in our bodies. In fact, the evidence suggests we carry the impact of our ancestors’ traumas in our DNA, just as God promised, going back at least three generations. Our … More Hereditary: The Horror of Generational Trauma
My obsession with stories of time travel is not rooted in physics but in grief. When my mother died when I was 14, it was almost as if I’d jumped tracks to an alternate plane, one where I was an orphan. In a life that no longer felt like my own, I spent hours … More Somewhere in Time
What is the relationship between silence, creativity, fear, doubt, death, and missing voices — especially in art and literature? I spoke with the hosts of Encountering Silence about why I teach Tillie Olsen’s “Silences” in all my creative writing classes, and about the relationship between silence and creativity, silence and privilege, silence and the body, … More The Silence of Missing Voices
There’s no woman so disparaged in Catholic and Christian circles—by men and women alike—as the angry feminist, the perceived man hater, the baker of “rage cookies,” as one popular columnist once described feminist writers. The angry woman is easy to mock. She has no real power. Anger makes us an even more prominent target. I … More The Prophetic Anger of Women
I’m back from three days in Grand Rapids, where I reconnected with spiritual writing friends and colleagues from all over the country for the 2018 Festival of Faith and Writing. The weather was pitiful, because Michigan, but the company was as delightful as ever. I don’t know how they do it, but the festival organizers … More Festival of Faith and Writing 2018: I think we need a password
Wherein we struggle to define exactly what it is I do, and David Dault settles on “curator of artistic communities for curious and wandering souls.” I like that title. Click to listen.
Jessica Mesman 