Writing Workshop Participant Katherine Willis Pershey Presents to Collegeville Institute Board October 16, 2015 By Collegeville Institute Leave a Comment Katherine Willis Pershey At the fall board meeting in September, author, pastor, and Collegeville Institute alumnae Katherine Willis Pershey spoke about the impact that the summer writing workshop program has had on her life, and her sense of vocation as a pastor and writer. Katherine shared about her first workshop experience in 2009: “I applied to Writing and the Pastoral Life with Eugene Peterson. And they let me in. It turned out to be one of the greatest gifts of my life. I started to reclaim my identity as a writer—and simultaneously, my frayed sense of pastoral identity was healed. I had not understood that, for me, I need to be actively practicing both identities to be fully faithful to my calling.” Katherine is an Associate Minister of the First Congregational Church in Western Springs, Illinois. She is a frequent contributor to the Christian Century and The Art of Simple, and is the author of a memoir, Any Day a Beautiful Change: A Story of Faith and Family. The Collegeville Institute’s writing workshops enable pastors, ministers, lay leaders, and other thinkers and writers to come together to write, learn, and discover anew (or perhaps for the first time) the call to be writers for the life of faith. Read more participant stories » Like this post? Subscribe to have new posts sent to you by email the same day they are posted.