Spring Meeting 2025
Spring Meeting 2025
2025 Fall QUIP Program and Annual Meeting
Quaker Writing in these times of Crisis and Change
Thursday, October 2 thru Sunday October 5
Residential at Pendle Hill Retreat Center, Wallingford PA USA and Online via Zoom
Our theme thru 2025 is ‘Quaker Writing in these times of Crisis and Change’. Join us for an exciting range of panels, keynote speakers, and workshops. Alastair MacIntosh will speak on Depth and Discernment in Spiritual Writing, Eileen Flanagan on Publication as a Spiritual Practice in Times of Crisis, and Sam Schifman on Artificial Intelligence. An experienced panel will discuss blogging – contributions from Craig Barnett, Philip Gulley, Rhiannon Grant, and Emily Provance. In addition to our business meeting there will be the regular ‘Show and Tell’ session for authors to showcase their recent books.
2025 Spring QUIP Program and Midyear Meeting
Publishers of Truth in an Era of Climate Change and Authoritarianism
Over 30 Friends met on Zoom to hear Cherice Bock address the topic of QUIP’s theme thru 2025 is Quaker Writing in these times of Crisis and Change.
In her talk, Cherice Bock spoke to the topic Publishers of Truth in an Era of Climate Change and Authoritarianism. She shared 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 was 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/.
The talk was followed by our Business Meeting and Show and Tell, an opportunity for all Friends who join us to talk about their recent publications. Videos of the Cherice’s talk and the Show and Tell are below.
Video of Cherice Bock talk Publishers of Truth in an Era of Climate Change and Authoritarianism
Video of Spring 2025 Show and Tell
2025 Fall QUIP Program and Annual Meeting
Using Online Platforms and Social Media to Promote Quaker Books
5 October 2024
Over 30 Friends attended this 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, 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 was followed by a QUIP Annual Meeting for Business and a Show and Tell session where Friends shared their new and recent publications.
Find the Business Meeting Reports here.
Here is the video of the Panel and Show and Tell.
QUIP Spring 2024 Program and Midyear Meeting
Children’s Peace Libraries and Literacy Project
Erika Mittag (Friends Meeting Austin, TX) and Sally Farneth (Portland, Me Friends Meeting) told 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. This Quaker project has developed over some years and Erika and Sally told us about their successes and challenges so far, what they have learned and their goals for the future. To learn more about the project, please see Literacy for Peace and Justice and TLC/Children’s Peace Libraries websites.
2023 Spring 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 QUIP Fall Program and Midyear Meeting ONline
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 Spring Program and Annual Meeting
Our Annual Conference was held online in three sessions from 7-21 May 2022.
View 10 videos of the plenaries and workshops from this conference here.
30 years of QUIP: 1983-2013 – a timeline
Spirit Rising: Young Quaker Voices
El Espiritu se levanta: Voces Jovenes Cuaqueras
An anthology of writing and art by Quaker teens and young adults worldwide. English version available in paperback from Quaker Books at FGC. Spanish version available in paperback and as an ebook.
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. To join now please use the button below.
QUIP Clerks and Officers
- 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