The Clerestory Podcast

In the fifth issue of Clerestory Magazine, writers respond to the theme "history," exploring the events, stories, and relationships which shape us. Originally from central Texas, Emily Lee lived for seven years in northern Mexico. She has a toddler daughter and is writing her first book, a memoir.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

In the fifth issue of Clerestory Magazine, writers respond to the theme "history," exploring the events, stories, and relationships which shape us. Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of four books, most recently, Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems. He writes for The Porch, Sojourners, The Presbyterian Outlook, and a weekly editorial in the Chatham News + Record. He is a Presbyterian pastor and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife and three young children.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

December is a sacred season in many spiritual traditions. With its darker and colder days in the Northern Hemisphere, this month can be an invitation to slow down, rest, and retreat. Today, Anne H. Putnam shares "Sure, Time Heals All Wounds, But It Doesn't Work Alone," wisdom on emotional healing ahead of the new year. Anne H. Putnam lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their cat and writes about body image, relationships, and anything else that requires an awkward amount of vulnerability. You can follow her on Twitter for politics and random musings or Instagram for cat pics and baked goods.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

December is a sacred season in many spiritual traditions. With its darker and colder days in the Northern Hemisphere, this month can be an invitation to slow down, rest, and retreat. We've invited Clerestory writers and contributors to pen prayers and reflections from their spiritual locations, responding to the theme "contemplation." In this episode, Amy Nicholson shares "Prepare Him Room."Amy Nicholson finds grace in ordinary places. She writes by a waterfall in northwest Connecticut where she lives with her husband and their three amazing kids, an aloof cat (aren't they all?), and a black lab who doesn't know she's not a human. She has been published in Country Woman, Green Mountain Trading Post, Today's American Catholic, among other places, and on her website.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

December is a sacred season in many spiritual traditions. With its darker and colder days in the Northern Hemisphere, this month can be an invitation to slow down, rest, and retreat. We've invited Clerestory writers and contributors to pen prayers and reflections responding to the theme "contemplation." In this episode, Myroslava Hartmond shares "Christmas Reflection." Myroslava Hartmond is British-Ukrainian, spending much of her life between Oxford, suburban south London, and Kyiv, where she ran an art gallery for six years. She has written on monumental propaganda, counterculture, and visual art, but the plague prompted her to take up creative writing again. She is now working on a poetry collection titled ‘Songs from Afar'.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

December is a sacred season in many spiritual traditions. With its darker and colder days in the Northern Hemisphere, this can be an invitation to slow down, rest, and retreat. We've invited Clerestory writers and contributors to pen prayers and reflections responding to the theme "contemplation." In this episode, Emily Garcia shares "A Prayer of Gratitude to the God of All Seasons." Originally from central Texas, Emily Garcia lived for seven years in northern Mexico. She has a toddler daughter and is writing her first book, a memoir.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Jen Ashley is a writer living in Charleston, South Carolina who seeks to find the humor and humanity in all things. Yes, Ashley is her last name.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Jenna Kunze is a staff reporter at Indian Country Media, where she covers stories impacting Indigenous people across the U.S. and Canada. Previously, she reported in Alaska for two years, with a broad focus on climate change, Indigenous people, and violence against Native women. Kunze is based in New York City.Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of four books, most recently, Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems. He writes for The Porch, Sojourners, The Presbyterian Outlook, and a weekly editorial in the Chatham News + Record. He is a Presbyterian pastor and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife and three young children. Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Myroslava Hartmond is British-Ukrainian, spending much of her life between Oxford, suburban south London, and Kyiv, where she ran an art gallery for six years. She has written on monumental propaganda, counterculture, and visual art, but the plague prompted her to take up creative writing again. She is now working on a poetry collection titled Songs from Afar.Featured image of the author on her first day of school in 1997 with her uncle, Aleksey. Read Clerestory Magazine. Follow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Sumitra Mattai is a freelance writer and textile designer. She holds a BFA in textile design from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Sumitra enjoys writing essays about identity, food, design and family. She lives in Harlem, New York City. Follow Sumitra on Instagram and visit her website.Featured image, “Mirror Image,” by Suchitra Mattai. Read the Magazine: clerestorymag.comFollow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:MembershipBookshopBonfire

Centuries of contemplatives and community leaders, alike, have drawn bridges between inner and outer work. Meister Eckhart, the great thirteenth century philosopher and mystic, writes, “What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.” In other words, the virtues we cultivate within ourselves spill over and course throughout the work we do in the world. For our second issue, Clerestory writers and contributors have responded to the theme community. For the last four months, we've processed belonging, loneliness, and grief… love, friendship, and loss… locality and neighborliness… storytelling and peacebuilding… racial justice… liberation and the lack of it… human interconnectedness… and life together. Today on the podcast, we're sharing three stories from Clerestory's second issue. First, Kimi Bryson shares a creative nonfiction piece, “Pittsburgh” a reflection on moving and love in the time of the pandemic. Emma McDonald shares an essay on epistemic trust, community, and the QAnon conspiracy. And Anushree Singh shares “Coconut,” a moving personal essay on self-belonging and her identity as an Indian American woman. Read the Magazine: clerestorymag.comFollow us: Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymagSupport our work:Ko-FiBookshopBonfire

Laura Kisthardt is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC). She currently serves as the Associate Pastor at First Congregational Church of Southington, Connecticut. Originally from Northeast Ohio, she was raised in the UCC and has been nourished on her faith journey by Ignatian spirituality. Laura often finds God in nature or works of art and has a passion for retreat ministry and contemplative prayer.To read Laura's full article, visit clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Olivia Bardo is a senior English major with minors in Politics and Gender Studies at Messiah University. She realized her calling to pursue social justice while reading the works of Edwidge Danticat. Since then she has sought to equalize spaces through arts and humanities. Her works appear in The Porch, The American Academy of Poets, Meniscus Journal, and elsewhere. She grew up with infusions of nondenominational and Baptist traditions and is now in the process of deconstructing her faith. She resides in northeastern Pennsylvania. To read Olivia's full essay, visit clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Elena grew up in Kosovo in the aftermath of the war there, has since lived and worked in various conflict settings across the Middle East, and is currently based in Oxford, England on a Rhodes scholarship. Her research and photography explore the quiet moments in often misunderstood and sensationalized environments, with particular focus on womxn's empowerment and bodily self-confidence. Raised by American Christian parents in a majority muslim country, she was questioning approaches to faith from a very early age. she now identifies as non-religious but committed to a concept of the Divine; 24, white, working class family, bisexual, cis-gendered. Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Naomi Oh is a dietitian and currently works in a hospital in Vancouver, Canada. Besides her interest in nutrition and health, she loves engaging in many forms of art and creativity, especially writing, reading and painting. Although she is still exploring the role of faith in her life, both reading and writing helps her to reflect on deeper topics and feel more connected to the greater community.Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire 

The visuals Jonny includes with his essay are vital to understanding the scope and meaning of this work. We highly encourage you to read along as you listen to Jonny read his piece on our site, here. Jonny Ryley was born and raised in a Christian family the U.K., where he was part of a local baptist church and was baptised in 2017. He is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, having completed his Masters in Architecture there. He worked in New York City at COOKFOX Architects for a year before his Masters and is in the process of relocating back to New York to get married to his fiancée, Genny, who he met at Hillsong Church NYC.Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Molly Silverstein is a Jewish poet, grad student, and person. She currently studies at Harvard Divinity School, where her work focuses on comparative mysticism, contemporary spiritual care, and the psychology of religion. Her writing has been previously published in Maudlin House, Sheila Na Gig, and Five 2 One Magazine, and she has performed with the Juniper Bends reading series. Winter is her favorite season.Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

A practicing Catholic from Baltimore, Emma McDonald is a second year doctoral student in Theological Ethics at Boston College, where she studies bioethics and social ethics, focusing specifically on reproductive ethics. She received an M.A. in Religion from Yale Divinity School in 2019, and a B.A. in Religion from Middlebury College in 2016.Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Elisabeth Ivey is a writer, proofreader, and editor. Her work has appeared in the Porch Magazine, Sojourners, and Gaze Journal. She was raised Non-Denominational and is now in a process of deconstruction. When she's not writing or deconstructing faith, she can be found exploring her identity as a woman of color or daydreaming about fictional worlds.Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Laura Kisthardt is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC). She currently serves as the Associate Pastor at First Congregational Church of Southington, Connecticut. Originally from Northeast Ohio, she was raised in the UCC and has been nourished on her faith journey by Ignatian spirituality. Laura often finds God in nature or works of art and has a passion for retreat ministry and contemplative prayer. Read Laura's full piece and find links to purchase the Advent guides here. Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

In "Pure in Heart: A Post-Purity Reflection on Faith and Friendship," Libya Kate examines the damaging effects of purity culture on women and female friendships. Ultimately, she redefines what "purity" means for herself, as a liberating concept for women of faith. Libya first encountered God as a teenager at a Baptist church at 15 years old. She now identifies as a non-denominational Christian. Libya enjoys robust discussion about faith, as well as reading novels, and rooibus tea. Follow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Heather Burtman is a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School. Her hometown is Eau Claire, WI and she currently lives in Boston. She was raised somewhere between non-denominational and Baptist and has more recently attended an Episcopal Church. She is still searching for a church home and exploring what it means to hold space for both doubt and faith. She has previously been published in Image Journal and in the New York Times Modern Love section. To read her essay, visit clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Claire Ashmead is from Cleveland, Ohio. She graduated from Princeton in 2017 and obtained a Masters in fiction through the University of Edinburgh in 2018. She works as a research assistant and is studying medicine, which she hopes to bring to underserved communities in her home city. She comes from a single-parent home and was not brought up with religious faith, but in the past has attended Anglican services. To read Claire's full essay, please visit visit clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Kimi Bryson is a writer, Black feminist, PhD student, and gluten free baker. Her writing and research explores sexuality, gender, faith, and race. She was raised in an evangelical Christian church, but her faith now reflects the spiritual insight of womanist theologians, Black feminist thinkers, and women writers. Follow her at @kiminoelle on Instagram. To read Kimi's full essay, "Wrong Is Not My Name," visit clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire

Introducing The Clerestory Podcast: Stories from Clerestory Magazine. Clerestory Magazine is a new space for writers, artists, and activists to reflect upon personal experience, social issues, and culture through contemplative modes of storytelling and inquiry. Coming this November at clerestorymag.comFollow us on:Instagram: @clerestorymagTwitter: @clerestorymagFacebook: facebook.com/clerestorymag Support our work:BookshopBonfire