Deep Enough for a Lifetime of Exploration

Conversations with Quaker Creative Writers

Quaker creative writers bring characters and worlds to life in novels and poetry. Friends who work as authors and poets often consider their art a form of ministry and rely on various spiritual practices to sustain it. Friends Journal talked with five Quaker writers about their spiritual paths, sources of inspiration, and how they approach their writing as faithful action.

Bethany Lee. Photo by Bee Joy España.

Sources of Inspiration

Literary inspiration comes from personal experience as well as other works of art. Beginning in September 2013, poet Bethany Lee, her husband, and their two children spent a year sailing down the West Coast of the United States and Canada. The parents and children collaborated to build the Splitpea, an 11-foot dinghy with 150 square feet of living space. The trip inspired a lot of Lee’s writing, including poems about seafaring in the collection The Coracle and the Copper Bell, and a memoir, Close to the Surface, both published by Fernwood Press this past May. (A coracle is a little circular boat.)

One of the poems in Coracle, “See in the Dark,” discusses the moon tiring of being worshiped, becoming unavailable, and turning inward. “For me, the poem came from parenting,” Lee said, noting that parents are expected to be constantly available.

Quaker Christian novelist and poet Rashid Darden notes that many readers mistakenly think his character Adrian Collins is actually Darden. The Adrian character is featured in an excerpt in Darden’s 2020 book Time, which is a collection of samples of his work from the past 20 years, including social media posts, poems, and novel excerpts.

Like Darden, Adrian is a Black gay man in the United States. Readers can see how Adrian’s life experiences have impacted his choices. The character was Darden’s “guinea pig, therapist, and experiment,” he said. Although Darden once felt emotionally closer to the character, Adrian is not an embodiment of the author. “I literally would make a different decision than Adrian every step of the way,” Darden said.

Rashid Darden. Photos courtesy of the writers/poets.

Characters in Harvey Gillman’s poems start as mental images. The main character in “A Visit from a Neighbor” was inspired by a mind picture of a shabbily dressed woman generated by the writing of John O’Donohue, an Irish monk and teacher. The poem is set to appear in Gillman’s next collection, which he is still working on, a follow-up to his 2021 Epiphanies: Poems of Liberation, Exile, and Confinement.

The poem “Ragged Doll” started when Gillman met Russian exile Sergey Nikitin and read his book that mentioned Quaker humanitarian aid after World War I. The book had an image of a girl with a doll, and Gillman felt the girl was leading him to understand her, as characters often do. He said, “What they’re saying is, ‘What life will you give me in your writing?’”

One of Gillman’s poems draws a connection between Tisha B’Av, a Jewish observance lamenting the destruction of two temples in Jerusalem, one in 586 B.C.E. and another in 70 C.E., and the twentieth-century Nakba. Nakba (or catastrophe) is how Palestinians describe the killing of 15,000 people and displacement of 700,000 who lost their homes during the Arab–Israeli War of 1948. Israel fought the war after declaring its independence from Britain. Many of the first Jewish inhabitants of Israel were survivors of the Holocaust in Europe in which Nazis killed six million Jews. Gillman’s poem laments the trauma Jews and Palestinians have endured.

Gillman grew up as an Orthodox Jew. At age 14, he studied under a rabbi and wanted to join the clergy when he grew up. He grew up observing Tisha B’Av, which is an annual fast day in commemoration of the destruction of the temples. In his teen years, he gave up practicing Judaism.

The novel And This Shall Be My Dancing Day was inspired when author Jennifer Kavanagh saw a roadside shrine and wondered about it. In the book, which is Kavanagh’s third novel, the protagonist Emma encounters a dead bouquet hanging on an apartment door; her curiosity about it drives the plot.

Meeting for worship opens Kavanagh’s eyes to injustices and invites her to contemplate moral choices such as those her characters face. Kavanagh explained that the theme of spirit versus body that the book deals with did not require any research and is drawn from general human experience.

Nancy Learned Haines, author of To Every Season, retired to North Carolina and learned about the history of the area. Learned Haines and her husband live in a house built on land that Quakers historically claimed. Researching the history of the land led to her discovering that early Quaker Mary Jackson was appointed clerk of the women’s meeting at Eno Meeting in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The meeting was laid down in 1847, after years as a struggling preparative meeting under the care of Spring Meeting.

“I started thinking about what would it be like to be the clerk helping to set up a meeting and then watch it all fall apart,” Learned Haines said.

To Every Season is loosely based on Jackson’s life in the late eighteenth century, and is Learned Haines’s first work of fiction. The current Eno Meeting of Hillsborough, where Learned Haines is a member, was founded in 2010 and is not a continuation of Jackson’s meeting.

Harvey Gillman.

Writing as a Source of Spiritual Sustenance and a Ministry of Sharing Quaker Values

Not only do the finished novels and poems explore Quaker experience and spirituality, the process of writing itself is spiritual and reflects the authors’ and poets’ faith journeys.

“Writing is a spiritual practice for me, and it helps me connect to the pieces of my soul that speak more quietly,” said Lee, who is also a composer, pianist, and harpist. Lee is a member of West Hills Meeting in Portland, Oregon, and a recorded minister with Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends.

The writing process brings Lee wonder and surprise, and she hopes her poems evoke the same responses in readers. Although she hopes that her poems elicit these feelings in readers, she notes that the parts of poems that resonate most with readers may differ from those that are most evocative for her. 

Looking out at the forest or spending time on the water are activities that also sustain Lee spiritually.

In some poems, Lee refers to the Divine as “the mystery” to be welcoming to people of varied faith perspectives. She also chooses to live with the metaphor of the Divine as love.

“That one is deep enough for a lifetime of exploration,” Lee said.

In the poem “Unqualified Goddess,” Lee writes about mortals’ unwillingness to accept death because they do not have a divine point of view. “Never letting things come to an end doesn’t leave us any space for something new to come,” Lee said. For the past six years, she has played the harp for hospice patients. Hospice work is a calling she first experienced as the teenaged daughter of a pastor who involved her in planning memorial services.

Rashid Darden also reflects on mortality in his writings compiled in Time. Darden writes about the 2016 death of singer David Bowie, who Darden viewed as a father figure. Darden never met Bowie but found his work and persona deeply compelling.

Darden’s grief over losing Bowie has evolved over the years. “That grief for me has transformed into larger conversations about legacy, both practically and morally,” Darden said.

Bowie curated his work carefully, leaving some things accessible to the public and other pieces private, according to Darden. Bowie seemed whole when he died, Darden observed.

Darden regards writing as a spiritual profession. He has participated in a gathering for writers in ministry, convened by Blyth Barnow, a minister and writer who serves on the national leadership team for Showing Up for Racial Justice. Darden also sits in silence and seeks divine guidance for his work. He is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington (D.C.), and the associate secretary for communications and outreach at Friends General Conference. He lives in Conway, N.C.

Darden considers his novel A Peculiar Legacy to be a Quaker book, as it chronicles people who worship in the manner of Friends, even though they do not call themselves “Quakers.” One of the questions Darden considers in his fiction is whether a faith can be considered Quakerism if it “has been untouched by white Quaker hands.”

When a white, middle-class Quaker walks down the street and sees a person of a different race, class, or sexual orientation, they might look more positively at that person after having read Darden’s fiction, he noted.

“It’s my duty to honor [the idea] that lives can be changed by reading fiction,” Darden said.

And This Shall Be My Dancing Day presents Quaker convictions through non-protagonists. The character Denise—sister of protagonist Emma—embodies Quaker activist values, Kavanagh explained. One character dies because of helping a person in dire need, Kavanagh noted.

“The writing emerges from strange things. I think the Spirit moves in me,” Kavanagh said.

Kavanagh was raised Anglican. When she and her husband divorced and her daughter became gravely sick, Kavanagh had a spiritual awakening. “I became cracked open to be able to access another dimension,” Kavanagh said. In the mid-1990s, Kavanagh started going to Quaker meeting. She is a member of Westminster Meeting in London.

Every morning, Kavanagh reads mystical writings from Quakers, Hindus, and Jews. Quiet and solitude feed her spirit. During the day, she also pauses between actions to remember who she is. Waiting for clarity before making decisions is an important spiritual practice, according to Kavanagh.

For Gillman, the poet, writing can lead to revelation and spiritual purpose. “I write in order to discover. It’s the ministry of sharing my joy of words,” Gillman said.

In the 1960s, Gillman began reading radical Christian theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Paul Tillich. He studied in the central library in London and noticed that there was a Quaker meetinghouse across the street. He began attending meeting secretly, because visiting other houses of worship was frowned upon in the Orthodox Jewish community. “I thought they were zany but really interesting,” Gillman said of his initial impression of Quakers.

When he went to university, he left religion because he could not reconcile the idea of an omnipotent God with the world’s evil. He later became a teacher and studied Zen Buddhism. He felt he needed a more “homegrown” spirituality, so he began attending another meeting in his early 20s, while living in Essex in the UK.

One of Gillman’s spiritual practices is to sit in a hut in his garden with the doors open and watch the garden grow. Doing so helps him realize the interconnection of self and others through Spirit. He feels as though he is entering a pool of quietness and sometimes holds meeting for worship with just himself and his cat. Gillman is a member of Rye Meeting in the UK.

Learned Haines, the writer of historical fiction, finds her participation in meeting for worship and other Quaker community activities sustaining. “I don’t have a real heavy spiritual practice,” said Learned Haines.

Learned Haines researched To Every Season at the Guilford College library, as well as in recorded minutes of yearly and quarterly meetings. She wanted to explore early Friends in Hillsborough, and discuss what it was like to be a Quaker pioneer during the time the land was a frontier for people of European descent. After noticing a lack of stories about women pioneers on the East Coast of the United States, she started her research in 2019.

Learned Haines used to work as an engineer of military equipment before coming to terms with her pacifist convictions. The protagonist of the novel grapples with her Quaker pacifist views. “Because of the Regulator Rebellion and the American Revolution, she was forced to confront pacifism,” Learned Haines said of the protagonist.

Jennifer Kavanagh.

Learning from Favorite Writers

Writers develop their skills and expand their base of inspiration by reading others. They pass along their wisdom by offering advice to others who practice their craft.

Gillman draws inspiration from the work of John O’Donohue.

Lee likes reading the poetry of Mary Oliver. She also reads Madeleine L’Engle, Robert Bly, and William Stafford. She worked with Stafford’s son, Kim Stafford, Oregon’s ninth poet laureate. Lee played the harp while he read his work aloud.

The Quaker author Darden most admires is Kenneth Boulding. He also appreciates the writings of Bayard Rustin. Darden reads a lot of anthologies and devotional books.

Kavanagh reads Quaker authors such as Isaac Penington, William Penn, Thomas Kelly, and Rufus Jones.

Nancy Learned Haines. Photo by David Haines.

Advice for Quakers Who Wish to Write

Both Learned Haines and Kavanagh recommended joining Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) for Quakers wishing to write. QUIP is an international group of Friends who create and sell books and other publications as a form of ministry.

Asked for advice to Quakers who want to write, Kavanagh had a succinct response. “The main advice would be ‘just do it,’” Kavanagh said.