QUIP Spring 2025 Program and Midyear Meeting
11am Eastern US time/4pm UK time – on Zoom
Join the Spring Program and Midyear Meeting
Schedule and Agenda for the Meeting for Business
QUIP’s theme thru 2025 is Quaker Writing in these times of Crisis and Change.
Join us 12 April 2025 for a talk by Cherice Bock, Publishers of Truth in an Era of Climate Change and Authoritarianism. A recorded Quaker minister, Cherice worships with North Valley Friends in Oregon(USA)and is published widely including books, blogs, journals and websites. In this talk she will share the stages in her life journey that have led her to minister through writing on social justice, climate change, and our Quaker response. Cherice sees climate and environmental justice issues and their connections to colonialism, racism, and gender as the most important call to Quaker activism and education in our time. After her presentation to us on Saturday 12 April, there will be time for a discussion with all those online.
Cherice Bock is the author of A Quaker Ecology: Meditations on the Future of Friends, that was published by Barclay Press in 2022. Advance reading from part of this book may be helpful to those joining us on the day. You can read sample pages online at https://chericebock.com/
Please register for the program. Register Here
The talk will be followed by our Business Meeting and Show and Tell, an opportunity for all Friends who join us to talk about their recent publications. Please register for the meeting and indicate whether you want to present for 3-5 minutes about your recent work. The Zoom link for the Program and Meeting will be posted here the day before the event.
Join the Spring Program and Midyear Meeting
QUIP Fall 2024 Program
Using Online Platforms and Social Media to Promote Quaker Books
5 October 2024
11am Eastern US time/4pm UK time – on Zoom
Watch here for the videos from the stimulating panel discussion with published authors who shared their experiences to date in using social media and other online platforms to promote Quaker and other spiritual books. Stephen Cox, Sarah Hoggatt, Paul Jeorrott, and Sally Nicholls told us about the benefits and pitfalls of various book marketing channels. These included the use of authors’ own websites, blogging, podcasting, and social media including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and X/Twitter. Find more information about the program here.
The program will be followed by a half-hour break. QUIP Annual Meeting for Business will begin at 1 pm Eastern US time/6 pm UK time followed by a Show and Tell session where Friends can share their new and recent publications.
Please register to get the materials for the meeting and the Zoom link. All Friends who want to present in the Show and Tell are asked to register.
Find the Schedule, Zoom Link and Business Meeting Reports here.
QUIP Spring 2024 Program – 20 April 2024 – Online
Children’s Peace Libraries and Literacy Project
11am EDT/4pm UK to 12:15pm/5:15pm
Come hear Erika Mittag (Friends Meeting Austin, TX) and Sally Farneth (Portland, Me Friends Meeting) will tell us about the publishing project they are involved with in Rwanda. The project uses open source books available from several sources and adapts and modifies story lines, language structure and character names to be culturally relevant or familiar, as well as modeling Quaker values and social emotional learning. The project is under the auspices of Friends Peace Teams – African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI) and the Literacy for Peace and Justice programs and seeks to support more broadly efforts to teach nonviolent conflict resolution on many levels.
The Peace Libraries were established under the Transformational Leadership Center (connected to AGLI) as locations for AVP training and other peace-building activities. The project began with printing books separately in English and Kinyarwanda for the libraries. Come hear about how this Quaker project developed, their successes and challenges so far, what they have learned and their goals for the future. To learn more about the project please see their website, https://tlcchildrenpeacelibraries.org/, a work in progress. They will answer questions from Friends if time permits.
12:30/5:30pm to 1:30pm/6:30pm – QUIP Show and Tell
A tradition at QUIP. Friends share their new publications. If you want to share, please contact Liz Yeats (liz.yeats@outlook.com) and be ready to present a 2-3 minute talk. Let us know if your presentation will include graphics so we can work out any logistics of screen sharing necessary.
1:45/6:45pm to 2:30/7:30pm – Meeting for Business
We will have a short meeting for business to deal with matters held over from the fall meeting.
2023 Annual Meeting Online – “Who”s Writing Whose Stories”
Friends gathered on 7 October 2023 for a presentation “Whose Writing Whose Stories” followed by the annual meeting for business. Emma Condori Mamani (a Friend from Santidad Holiness Friends Yearly Meeting in Bolivia, a graduate of Earlham School of Religion, a member of the editorial board of QUIP publication Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices and an activist in the area of environment in Bolivia) and Becky Birtha (a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and an American poet, short story writer, and children’s author) addressed the the topic. The discussion was facilitated by Daniel Flynn (a Friend from Brussels who is a volunteer teacher, translator, reviewer, transcriber, voice-ove, and workshop leader) using the following queries:
• As Quaker writers, editors, publishers, and reviewers, can we/should we/how do we tell someone else’s story with integrity?
• How do we avoid cultural appropriation, insensitivity, and racist stereotyping and be respectful of others experiences, culture, etc.?
• How do we recognize when our words might be harmful to a person of a culture, race, or religion different than our own?
View the video of the presentation. View the annual meeting minutes.
Quaker Quicks Selling Well
Jennifer Kavanagh writes about the success of the Quaker Quicks Series, small books, of about 20,000 words about different aspects of the Quaker way, mostly for those who might not know much but were interested in hearing more. Read all about it here.
2022 Mid-year Meeting
2022 Mid-Year Meeting was held Saturday 22nd October 2022
It commenced with a talk from Quaker author, teacher, and pastoral theologian, Zachary Moon, speaking about his recent book, Goatwalking: A Quaker Pastoral Theology (Brill, 2021). The talk together with the following Q&A are now available to view here.
The minutes of the meeting are now available to download.
2022 QUIP Annual Meeting
Our Annual Conference was held online in three sessions from 7-21 May 2022. The videos of the plenaries and workshops from this conference are available to view below
Session 1 – Panel: Approaches to Book Reviews
Harvey Gillman, Pamela Haines & Joe Jones share their perspectives on the place and purpose of book reviews in the world of writing and publishing. Harvey Gilman explores ‘The ministry of the Review’, Pamela Haines invites us to look through ‘Windows on the World’, while Joe Jones offers a pragmatic context in the ‘Truth about Reviews’
Session 2 – Workshop: Quaker Writer or Writing
A Quaker writer, or a Quaker, writing? Is there a difference? What difference does the distinction make? Philip Gross frames the session and seeds a discussion with questions exploring the complications and discoveries that can come from the relationship between our Quakerism and creative work.
Session 3 – Workshop: Writing for Children with respect
John Lampen hosts a workshop for everyone who enjoys good writing for children and teenagers and likes to share it with them—especially those who hope to write or publish it. How can we engage young people’s interest? How do we share our values and insights without being patronising or didactic?
Session 4 – Marketing our Writing: A Humble Quaker Way of Promotion & Publicity
J. Brent Bill & Iris Graville in dialogue about their own experiences of what’s worked (and what hasn’t) in the challenging world of book marketing. Many of us think of our writing as public ministry. While Fox and early Friends weren’t shy about touting their writing, the modern publishing industry pushes us to treat it as a product. How do we publicize the ministry we’ve been given? How does promoting our work fit with Quaker humility?
Session 5 – Workshop: Putting Pen to Paper
A session for new or aspiring writers, in which to think a little and practise a little, with space for the beginnings of creativity! Jennifer Kavanagh sharse her own experience in publishing and as a writer and provides some exercises to stir the creative juices.
Session 6 – Panel: Friendly Blogging
Co-clerk, Natasha Zhuravenkova, in conversation with three Quaker bloggers:
Nancy Thomas lives in Oregon and is part of the North Valley and Newberg Friends meetings. She is poetry editor of Friends Journal. Nancy was an intermittent blogger on the Barclay Press site from 2003 to 2008 and began her own blog – Mil Gracias – in 2009. In 2022 she has added a new blog – Life in an Old Growth Forest: Reflections on Aging – to her site.
Robin Mohr has served as Executive Secretary of the FWCC Section of the Americas since 2011. Over the last 30 years, Robin has worked for non-profit organizations in Washington, D.C, New York, and San Francisco. She and her husband, Christopher, are members of Green Street Monthly Meeting in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and have two young adult children. Robin Mohr blogs at What Canst Thou Say?
Johan Maurer has been blogging since 2003, after participating in Quaker e-mail discussion lists since about 1990. He served on the staff of FWCC for ten years and FUM for seven. He is a member of Camas Friends Church in Washington state, USA, and Moscow Meeting in Russia. He blogs currently at Can you believe?
Session 7 – Authors Reading from New Work
Quaker writing in five very different writers’ voices from J. Brent Bill, Stephen Cox, Iris Graville Stephen Sayers and Ashley Wilcox.
Session 8 – Editing a Manuscript
Charles Mrtin (publisher and developmental editor) and Kathy McKay (copy editor) discuss their collaboration in bringing a manuscript into print, from the initial submission through the final draft and briefly give an overview of the several Inner Light Books projects they have worked on together.
Show and Tell Sessions: QUIP friends talk about their latest books and projects
Epilogue for the last day of the conference with Charles Martin.
30 years of QUIP: 1983-2013 – a timeline
Visit the new Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices
Why Join QUIP?
Read what Friends Vanessa Julye, Phildadelphia, PA, USA and Harriet Hart, London, UK say about attending QUIP Annual Meetings in The Ministry of Words in The Friend.
QUIP Clerks
- Co-Clerk: Emma Condori Mamani,
- Co-Clerk: Natasha Zhuravenkova, Bartenevskaya street 9-161, Moscow, Russia 117042
- Recording Clerk: Rausie Hobson, 8217 Silk Hope-Liberty, Siler City, NC 27344 USA
- Treasurer: Nancy Haines, 214 Pleasant Green Rd, Hillsborough, NC 27278 USA
- UK Treasurer: Finola O’Sullivan, 51 Corrie Road, Cambridge CB1 3QQ UK