• Home
  • About
  • Events
  • Podcasts
  • News
  • Giving
  • Dribbble
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Email
Collegeville Institute

Bearings Online

Menu
  • Residency Programs
      • Scholars, clergy, church leaders, thinkers, artists, and writers who are seeking to discern and communicate the meaning of Christian identity and unity in a religiously and culturally diverse world are invited to apply for our residency programs.
      • Get Practical Information »
      • Apply for a Fellowship »
      • View 2020 Scholars »
      • Resident Scholars Program

        for those looking to stay a semester or a full academic year

      • Program Details
      • Work and Scholarship
      • Housing and Facilities
      • Application Process
      • Former Resident Scholars
      • Apply Now »
      • Short term Residencies

        for those looking to stay for a shorter period of time

      • Program Details
      • Living and Working
      • Application Process
      • Former Short Term Scholars
      • Apply Now »
    • Close
  • Writing Workshops
      • Each summer, the Collegeville Institute opens its doors to pastors, ministers, lay leaders, and other thinkers and writers for week-long, intensive writing workshops geared toward various levels of writing skill, genre and interest.
        Each fall, the Collegeville Institute partners with other institutes, seminaries, or churches to coordinate regional off-site workshops.
      • Get Practical Information »
      • View 2021 Workshops »
      • Explore Past Workshops »
      • Fall Workshops:

      • We will be posting Fall 2021 writing workshop offerings in May. Check back later.
      • Summer Workshops:

      • Apart, and Yet a Part: A Workshop with Writing Coach Michael N. McGregor
      • Exploring Identity and (Dis)belonging through the Personal Essay
      • Our Own Deep Wells: Writing on Vocation across Race and Culture
      • In the Thick of It: Explorations of Advanced Topics in Prose Writing
      • Emerging Writers Mentorship Program
      • Breaking the Academic Mold: Liberating the Powerful, Personal Voice Inside You
    • Close
  • Vocation Projects
      • The Communities of Calling Initiative invites congregations into a 5-year project on vocation.
        The Collegeville Institute Seminars offer resources to explore calling in your community.
      • Vocation Projects Overview »
    • Resources on Vocation:

      • BridgeCalled to Life – a free program for small groups
      • Called to Work - hands at a laptopCalled to Work – a free program for small groups
      • FrancoisLives Explored – a video storytelling project
      • booksBooks – publications on vocation
    • Close
  • Fellows Program
    • Bringing together an ecumenical group of gifted Minnesota faith leaders, the Collegeville Institute Fellows Program focuses on leadership development with the goal of strengthening religious leaders’ sense of themselves as civic leaders.
    • Fellows Program Overview
    • Twin Cities Fellows Program
    • Rural Minnesota Fellows Program
    • Multi-Religious Fellows Program
    • Close
  • Faith and Writing
    • Good writing is essential to powerful theological education within congregations. In this section we highlight book reviews, provide resources for good writing, feature the writing of our program participants, and more.
    • Resources for Faith and Writing
    • Participant Publications
    • Bearings magazine
    • Submit Your Publication »
    • Close
  • Search
You are here: Home / Events / Our Own Deep Wells

Our Own Deep Wells

Writing on Vocation Across Race and Culture

January 19, 2021 By

Event Details

  • Date(s): Friday, Jun 18th, 2021-Friday, Jun 25th, 2021
  • Venue: Collegeville Institute
  • Categories: Writing Workshop
  • Tags: 2021 writing workshops

Writing about vocation that centers our own distinct identities holds power to transform individuals, communities, and the world. In our time together, we will draw from our own deep wells, wherein lie stories, images, and artifacts handed down from our ancestors to help us live into a better future.

As a group of scholars and practitioners writing from faith perspectives, we will bring a range of writing projects, including vocational autobiography, congregational studies, ethnography, personal essay, sermons, poetry, and memoir. We will explore the power of writing from our lived experience to help others – young people coming after us, peers navigating their own vocations, faith communities in which we lead and participate – to explore the “why” of their lives with intention and creativity.

Our learning community will begin each morning in group-led ritual or spiritual practice. We will share works-in-progress and meet one-on-one with writing coaches. We seek applicants who are working to center the voices of oppressed and marginalized communities and/or grappling with power and privilege as an element of vocational discernment.

This writing workshop will be held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic:

  • Friday, June 18: Welcome and Orientation Session (time to be announced)
  • Monday, June 21 – Friday, June 25: Virtual Writing Workshop (times forthcoming)

Workshop Leaders

Patrice Gopo draws on her experience as the child of Jamaican immigrants, born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. She enjoys exploring issues of race, immigration, and belonging. Patrice is a firm believer in the power of personal narratives to create pathways of connection and understanding in society. As a result of this belief, Patrice is passionate about empowering others to write and share their personal stories in pursuit of healing in society and a more equitable world. Patrice’s teaching emphasizes  the personal essay as a vehicle for social change. Through a mixture of writing activities, class discussion, and example essays, Patrice will help participants find entry points into their own work.

Patrice lives with her family in North Carolina. Her essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Catapult, Creative Nonfiction, Gulf Coast, Full Grown People, and online in The New York Times and The Washington Post. Her radio commentaries have appeared on Charlotte, North Carolina’s NPR Station WFAE 90.7. Her work has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and she is the recipient of several Regional Artist Project Grants. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 NC Arts Council Artist Fellowship, and her essay collection, All the Colors We Will See: Reflections on Barriers, Brokenness, and Finding Our Way (Thomas Nelson, 2018), was a Fall 2018 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.


Dori Grinenko Baker
is passionate about helping others expand the genre of stories, images, and artifacts for helping people find meaning and discover purpose. She is an educator, activist, and scholar focused on feminist theologies, young adult culture, leadership development and spiritual practices that sustain activism. She serves as Senior Fellow for the Forum for Theological Exploration.  Baker’s first career as a journalist led to seminary, ordination, and a PhD in religious studies. Her scholarship centers religious formation in faith communities and emphasizes cultural studies, critical race theory, ethnography, and vocation.

Her most recent book is Another Way: Living and Leading Change on Purpose, co-authored with colleagues at FTE, Stephen Lewis and Matthew Wesley Williams (Chalice Press, 2020). Among her other publications are: Doing Girlfriend Theology: God-Talk with Young Women (Pilgrim Press, 2005, 2020); The Barefoot Way: A Faith Guide for Youth, Young People and the Adults Who Walk with Them ( Westminster John Knox, 2012); and Greenhouses of Hope: Congregations that Grow Young Leaders Who Will Change The World (Alban, 2012).


The program is limited to 8 participants. Due to the Covid-19 public health crisis, the Collegeville Institute will host Our Own Deep Wells as a virtual writing workshop.

Application Process:

The application deadline has now passed.

More from my site

  • Called to Life: Vocation Stories about IdentityCalled to Life: Vocation Stories about Identity
  • A Voice from Within: Vocation in Younger AdulthoodA Voice from Within: Vocation in Younger Adulthood
  • Called to Life: Vocation Stories about BelongingCalled to Life: Vocation Stories about Belonging
  • To Bless Our CallingsTo Bless Our Callings
  • Called to Life: Vocation Stories about Food and BelongingCalled to Life: Vocation Stories about Food and Belonging

Writing Workshops

  • Current Writing Workshops
  • Practical Information
  • Past Workshops
  • Voices of Past Participants
  • Kilian McDonnell Writer-in-Residence Award

Event Categories

Latest News

Register Now for Collegeville Connections Events

March 2, 2021

Job Announcement: Executive Director

January 8, 2021

Resident Scholars Conclude Program on Zoom

December 18, 2020

Subscribe

Sign up for our email newsletter today, and keep up to date with what's going on at the Collegeville Institute.

Sign Up Today

Get Involved

Give online

Check out our writing workshops and our residential programs.

Contact Us

2475 Ecumenical Drive
PO Box 2000
Collegeville, MN 56321

Phone: 320-363-3366
Email: staff@collegevilleinstitute.org

Map/Directions

Copyright © 2021 Collegeville Institute. Read our Privacy Policy.