What will Kentucky Book Festival visitors find on your table?
My new memoir, My Life in Seventeen Books (Monkfish), will be there, as well as previous books: Thomas Merton: An Introduction toHis Life, Teachings, and Practices (St. Martin’s Press and Penguin Random House Audio); The Complete Francis of Assisi (ParacletePress); and two of my collections of Meister Eckhart poems coauthored with Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heartand Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light (Hampton Roads).
Whom do you invite to stop by? Who will benefit from reading your book?
My readers tend to be the spiritually curious, as well as the religiously engaged. I’m a Catholic, married to a rabbi, who writes aboutreligion.
Could you please tell us something curious about you and/or your book?
I’ve been a bookseller, a sales rep for publishing companies, a publishing marketing executive, and a long-time development editor. Ileftseminary, where I thought I was going to become a priest, and instead books became my vocation.
Is this your first time participating in Kentucky Book Festival? If yes – what are you looking forward to themost? If you’ve participated before – what was your favorite experience at the Festival?
It is my first time here, yes! I love Kentucky. One of the chapters in my memoir is about encountering Wendell Berry long ago, andwhat I’ve learned from him. I also visit the Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County every year for a week at Christmas. I have manyfriends there. And then there’s the bourbon.
