Chris Brogan at Chapman University

If you are anywhere near Orange County, California tonight you should make every attempt to go hear Chris Brogan speak at Disciples-related Chapman University. Chris is well known in the world of social media and blogging. I read his blog every morning, because I appreciate his short, actionable posts and his analogies. The comments are always a good read too. If you’re interested in going to hear him, you can get a ticket through EventBrite. P.S. It’s FREE!

Chris and Julien Smith just released a book called Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. I’m about halfway through – it’s interesting. I’m reading it with an eye toward what DisciplesWorld might learn and employ, but also with the Church, churches, and Christians in mind.

Anyone out there going? If so, come back and post your thoughts after the presentation. I’ll be watching the comment stream on Twitter (type #broganoc into the Search box to see Tweets from the event.)

A conversation with Audrey Borschel, on media literacy

Audrey Borschel, Disciples of Christ pastor and author

Audrey Borschel is an ordained Disciples of Christ minister, and the author of Preaching Prophetically When the News Disturbs: Interpreting the Media (Chalice Press, 2009) During the upcoming General Assembly, she’ll lead a resource group on Saturday, August 1 from 3:45 to 5:15 p.m.

Rebecca Woods, DisciplesWorld news and website editor, spoke with Audrey in late May.

RW: So what will you be talking about during the resource group?

AB: The focus will be on media literacy — helping people to understand how the news is produced, how stories are framed, how biases creep in inadvertently, and what gets left out. We need some tools to understand this, and to get a bigger picture.

Here’s a good example — I agreed to be a community blogger for the Indianapolis Star. I’d been doing this for a couple of months, and I noticed one story they ran about recycling. It said that three percent of our stuff in Indianapolis gets recycled, while in other places, it’s 30 percent. They quoted Mother Jones [magazine] and called it a ‘progressive liberal’ magazine. So I went to the source, and I found out they [the Star] were quoting a waste management newsletter that Mother Jones had quoted in full.

RW: So there was a difference between the information the newspaper presented, and how Mother Jones presented it?

AB: Yes. We almost have to be investigative journalists….And then it gets into the definition of ‘political’ — a term that’s misused so much.

Everything is political, if you think about it. The case for Jesus’ ministry was overtly political. He wanted to evoke change among the people and he wanted people to continue that change. In our society — a democratic society — it’s all about this.

RW: Do you find that people in congregations want to hear about things that are perceived as ‘political,’ or do they want to avoid the subject?

AB: As far as people coming to church and what they expect, I’ve heard it both ways. In one congregation I was accused of being too political. I realized that I needed to do more educating. In other places, I’ve found that people really thirst for connecting the world and their faith. They wonder where the nexus is between the faith and culture.

As far as awakening a congregation to social justice issues — it’s not so difficult if people understand that social justice is all over the gospel.

RW: Your book is about preaching. What do you see in today’s preaching that causes you to be concerned?

Complacency and fear. Those are two instances when preachers don’t attend to the task of bringing the scriptures to life, and engaging the people actively — helping them think about the scriptures and the relationship to their way of living.

And a lot of preachers will stay away from the big news stories, even though they intersect really well with the scriptures. On the other hand there are people who are fearless, and if they see that something needs to be said, they’ll go ahead and say it.

RW: Are some clergy worried about the legalities of preaching on social justice issues?

AB: There’s probably some confusion — about the IRS, about the First Amendment — I cover this in a section of the book. Once people know that clergy are free to speak on many subjects and once people know what they can’t do — that should help some of the pastors who would like to preach on justice issues.

RW: Do Disciples have any particular challenges?

AB: One of the challenges, among Disciples, is in identifying the audience. Even though we purport to be pretty progressive, there are many congregations that haven’t had the exposure to a lot of the conversations that others of us have had. Because of that, they don’t have the background to understand some of the material that a preacher who might be an activist would try to convey.

Take Jeremiah Wright. That was obviously an example where a little sound bite caused terrible commotion and harm. My advice is to hear the entire story, and if it’s visual, then hear and watch the entire thing and understand the context. It’s all about context. When I saw [Wright’s] preaching, I could understand [his comments] because I understand the context of black preaching and theology.

The same for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. From the get go, I knew people would cherry pick her ‘wise Latina’ comment about making decisions at the appellate level. But we need to be able to look for context.

RW: Do you think most journalists would prefer a media literate audience? Are there some who perpetuate media illiteracy?

AB: I’m not sure that journalists don’t want people to be media literate. I might question some of the radio personalities or blog commentators who are so biased that they want their point of view to be the dominant one.

But in my book, there’s a chapter about op-ed writers. There is a lot we can learn from op-ed writers when we compose our preaching. The way that some of the commentators use images and structure, cinema, all kinds of things — it’s great. And they want to be understood.

I haven’t really become cynical through this process of learning and teaching media literacy, but I do tend to look at some news stories and wonder, what are the facts, what’s missing, and why are they framing it in this particular way?

RW: What about blogs?

AB: As a blogger, I’m well aware that bloggers are criticized for being inaccurate. Some of them do misuse information. For example, using e-mails as source of information can be misleading.

RW: How did you become interested in media literacy?

AB: When I was doctoral student at the Aquinas Institute of Theology, somehow I had this idea about the intersection between preaching and ‘disturbing’ news, and about doing theological reflection on the news. An advisor hooked me up with someone who had done a lot of work with the news. The framework for my doctoral thesis was media literacy for preachers.

RW: What will people learn by coming to your resource group during General Assembly?

AB: I’ll be trying to lay the groundwork for why [media literacy] is important. I will be giving some of the tools for media literacy — how to identify pieces of stories, for example. We’ll discuss the different types of news media, so that people see that there’s a variety of print and electronic sources, not only newspapers. I want to make people aware of how they get the news, and how the new sources of news can be intimidating, and sometimes misleading.

They’ll also gain insights that will be helpful not only for preaching but for pastoral care. When we do preaching, we are doing mass pastoral care from the pulpit. If there’s a crisis for the community, preaching on it can be a way to help people understand the relationship between their faith and the events that happen around them. There are great pastoral implications for it.

——

Audrey Borschel’s book, Preaching Prophetically When the News Disturbs, is available through Chalice Press. She will be doing a book signing right after the August 1 Resource Group. Audrey is also a member of The Intersection.

A Conversation with Jason Byassee, on Theology and Writing

Jason Byassee

Jason Byassee is a former assistant editor with Christian Century and currently executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School. He writes for and edits Duke’s Faith and Leadership online journal and its “Call and Response” blog. He earned his master of divinity and doctorate degrees from Duke.

At the Disciples’ upcoming General Assembly in Indianapolis, Jason will share his advice on writing theologically for a broad audience during a resource group on Theology and Writing, on Friday, July 31 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.

Rebecca Woods, DisciplesWorld news and website editor, spoke with Jason Byassee in June.

RW: So you’re leading a General Assembly resource group on theology and writing. What will you cover?

JB: I’ll encourage pastors and others to think about themselves as writers. It’s not hard [at least for pastors] because every pastor is already writing sermons. But I want to encourage them to think about having a more expansive audience.

Many pastors write for their church newsletters. I suggest that they do this with as much care as they take with their sermons; and from there, to consider writing for a broader audience — religious publications and secular settings.

This has been made easier because of the Internet, but it’s harder than ever to make any money at it. So…there’s not necessarily a reward for this type of writing. It has to be seen as part of a pastoral lifestyle.

The question isn’t whether a pastor is going to be a writer…it’s the kind of care that they’re going to take in writing. And not only every pastor, but every Christian. Writing is a way of transforming feeling into thought.

RW: How does this type of writing fit into the pastor’s role?

JB: I’m convinced that this kind of broader writing changes the way a congregation views its pastor. I remember when my own pastor started publishing. Suddenly he had a new authority — I listened to him with a different set of ears.

Some may think, if you do that kind of broader writing, it takes away from the local parish. It may do that in the short run, but in the long run, it changes the way people listen.

RW: What sources from the Christian tradition do you draw on to make your case for pastor-as-writer?

JB: I really love some of the sources from the ancient church, about learning how to discern Christ in surprising places, and learning how to pay attention to Jesus in strange forms. I draw on a number of ancient and modern sources — from Simone Weil and Annie Dillard, to Augustine and the Desert Fathers.

RW: So what are some of the obstacles to writing that pastors face?

JB: There’s something every writer has to get over — the discipline of clearing space to write regularly. Because as important as it is, it isn’t urgent. Nobody is saying “You have to get this to me by Thursday.” So you have to clear space for it, even though nobody can see what you‘re doing. Later they may see the value, but maybe not right away.

And then there’s the mystification of the publishing process. I want them to know that people on ‘that side of the curtain’ are always looking for newer and better writers. And pastors are involved in things we editors can’t see. They’re involved in day-to-day things that we want to honor.

The tasks that go along with being a pastor contribute to being a writer. For example, noticing is a kind of pastoral activity. Noticing is also a crucial writing activity. I’m fascinated by the overlap.

Also, being a writer is not just about publishing your sermons. Often sermons don’t translate well to print. There are ambiguities [in sermons]…it can be done, but it has to be done with real care.

RW: How did you become interested in helping pastors to develop as writers?

JB: I was doing doctoral work, and I was frustrated. I wasn’t sure if I dropped dead that anyone would notice. I couldn’t figure out how I was helping anyone.

Then I became a local pastor. I was pastoring a rural church in North Carolina with about 80 people in it. And I knew that whatever else I might do during the week, I had done something on Sunday that mattered.

So I had this desire to be in between academia and pastoral work. At the Christian Century, I could pay attention to what was going on in the academy, but I could also pay attention on behalf of pastors.

RW: How did you end up working at the Christian Century?

JB: I was at a conference and the editor of the Century told me he was having a hard time getting people to write about movies. So I started there, and then the job came up [as assistant editor] and they hired me. Even when I was writing for them from the parish, I would never have thought it would become a job. Yet, I worked for the Century from 2004 to 2008, and I’m still a contributing editor there.

RW: So why did you move on to what you’re doing now?

JB: What led me back to Duke? While at the Century, I was adjunct teaching. I was thinking about how the academy is good at saying, “Here’s something new that you weren’t already thinking about,”…and asking critical questions about it. I did a lot of thinking about the distance between the academy and the parish.

And at the Century, I reviewed other people’s stuff. In a sense, I passed grades on it. [Christian writer] Andy Crouch, in his book Culture Making, says Christians shouldn’t be just evaluating other people’s creative works, they should be creating their own.

So I’m back at Duke, and I get to teach the kind of writing that I do. Really, there’s not a big emphasis on this kind of writing in most places in theological education. And Duke is the place that taught me to care about this stuff… [professors and writers] Lauren Winner, David Steinmetz, and Greg Jones are now my colleagues.

I also have a minor administrative post called special assistant to the dean. In an informal role, I am advising students and faculty on how to publish more broadly.

And I’m editing this new website at the Divinity School. We call it a publication — Faith and Leadership magazine.

RW: What was the first thing you ever wrote that was published?

JB: It was a piece on Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life, published in the Christian Century back in 2003.

RW: What are you working on now?

JB: I have a book coming out next year. It’s about the theology of the small church, and Abingdon is the publisher. It’s partly theology, and partly rooted in the pastoral experiences I had in the small church. It’s tentatively called The Gift of the Small Church.

RW: Any advice for writers?

JB: You’ve got to read what you want to write. There’s a famous writing book — Reading Like a Writer. There’s a great deal of overlap between reading and the writing life.

RW: So what are you reading?

JB: I’ve spent some time lately with a book by Christine Pohl — Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition. And there’s a new book by David Hart, called Atheist Delusions. And Dana Robert’s Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion.

I’ve also been reading a novel called Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, about a mission hospital in Ethiopia. It’s about a family’s life serving in this place.

RW: Do you have a favorite writer?

JB: Flannery O’Connor is probably my favorite author, from the 20th century. Augustine is the great one for all time.

Paul Elie’s The Life You Save May Be Your Own is another good one.

I like paying attention to people who are sort of writing not on their home field — theological writers who are writing in some other vein. For example, David Steinmetz writes editorials in places like USA Today.

I like Marilynne Robinson, her novels and essays. And Andy Crouch — I stop what I’m doing when I see his name.

—–

Changes at DisciplesWorld

For the past few months, we at DisciplesWorld have been refining our focus. Like many publications, our print circulation has been declining. Visits to our website have increased, but we haven’t really integrated print and web as much as we would like to. With 6 years of publishing the magazine, it was time to ask ourselves, how well are we serving our readers? What are they looking for, and what can we provide for them? After a process of evaluating and re-defining our mission to better reflect what we believe DisciplesWorld is all about, we are now ready to begin rolling out some new projects and telling you about the changes to come.

First, we have a new blog. Publisher and Editor Verity A. Jones, and Managing Editor Sherri Emmons will be talking about these changes, and inviting you into a conversation about them, over at the Between the Lines blog.

Second, we have launched an email newsletter, the DisciplesWorld Dispatch. If you would like to receive it, please click here to sign up. Through the Dispatch, we’ll be able to keep in touch with readers, advertisers, and supporters, and let you know what’s happening with us.

We’ve also launched a new community site called The Intersection. Here, you can engage in discussions with Disciples and others; post blogs, photos, videos, music, and podcasts; create a personal profile; and more. The site is free to join. Even though we created The Intersection, the site belongs to the community of members. We hope you’ll join and help us develop it. The Intersection also has its own Twitter account: @faithmeetslife.

Later this year, we’ll be making some changes to our main site, www.disciplesworld.com, and to our approach to web news. We’ll keep you informed about those changes.  The NewsMuse blog will probably undergo a re-focusing and eventually, a re-launch. For now, I’ll be posting infrequently as much of my time is being spent on getting these new projects off the ground, so if you would like to be a guest blogger, just let me know.

Lastly, while we’ve done a lot of thinking and talking (internally and with some of you) up to this point, we don’t want the conversation to end. So let us know what you think, and what you’d like to see from DisciplesWorld and how you’d like to be involved in making it happen.

Social Monday: Twitter and conventions

I just spent a week in Grand Rapids at the United Church of Christ’s General Synod. I had the opportunity to write for the UCC’s news team and was asked to cover some interesting topics and activities: Rep. John Conyers’ visit to Synod to talk about health care reform, youth mission projects in the community, interviews with several youth who participated in the UCC’s Sacred Conversations on Race, resolutions on the global food crisis and the Accra Confession, and immigration reform.

How should Twitter be used during meetings and conventions? Photo: aflcio2008 (Creative Commons license)

I also observed how people were using Twitter during the convention, and how the UCC news staff participated and included Twitter in convention coverage.

Using Twitter during conventions isn’t new. People who are attending will often agree on a hashtag (a word or a combination of letters and numbers preceded by #) to include in meeting-related tweets. This makes their posts easy to find using Twitter’s search feature (type in #gs27 to see all UCC Synod-related tweets). Some Twitter applications allow more sophisticated tracking of hashtags, and alert you when someone Tweets using the hashtag — UC News director Gregg Brekke uses twhirl, and his laptop would beep and display every #gs27 tweet as soon as it appeared on Twitter.

Gregg and the UCC’s communications staff did their own Tweeting from the @gdbrekke and @unitedchurch accounts. They also gave others’ Twitter efforts a boost by retweeting interesting tweets. And Gregg included several Twitter users’ comments in the UCC’s daily, 4-page convention newspaper, in the “Overheard” section.

Having just bought a new Blackberry and equipped it with Twitterberry, I came to General Synod ready to Tweet myself (@rebeccawoods). Previously, whenever I went to an event, the sheer difficulty of tweeting from my old mobile phone limited me to a few Tweets per day.  Posting anything from a non-qwerty keyboard was a pain, and I couldn’t see if anyone replied to me, sent me a direct message, or retweeted anything I’d posted until I got back to a computer with internet access. It almost wasn’t worth the trouble.

This time, having upgraded, I had to contemplate new questions about using Twitter during an event:

How much to Tweet? Normally, I post 2-6 times a day. This is what those who follow me are accustomed to.  I might be able to get away with a slightly higher volume during the convention, but not much.  I’ve unfollowed folks who post too much, and to me, more than 10 times a day (15 if you’re really interesting) is too much.

What to Tweet? Few people following me are from the UCC, and many don’t know anything about it. So I began by letting people know what I was doing: going to cover the United Church of Christ’s General Synod. I think I included a link to the UCC’s Synod site, in case someone wanted to check it out (I hope I included a link — if not, that was a missed opportunity).  I also tried to tweet about things that might be of interest to others: getting to meet Conyers and journalist Ray Suarez, links to articles, etc. Not too much insider stuff, although some of it was unavoidable.

What not to Tweet? There were some great speeches and sermons, but I only posted one line from one speech. I probably could have done more. Often, in my opinion, those don’t translate well.  There’s just something about being there. Same with worship. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with tweeting during worship, per se, it’s just a question of whether you immerse yourself in doing it, or take a step back and tweet about it. It also connects with others who are there, experiencing it with you…but not so much with those who are on the outside. I also chose not to tweet during discussions or interviews, or to pass along the myriad comments I overheard in bars and restaurants. The most fascinating part, to me, was reading what people posted during business sessions and particularly, discussion of resolutions. A protest broke out after one vote, and I was in the newsroom watching the proceedings on closed circuit TV. The cameras, of course, didn’t show the action. But people in the convention hall were tweeting about it!

What are your experiences with Twitter and conventions or meetings? Do you have any rules or advice?

Here are a few links:

From Chris Brogan, social media expert extraordinaire, 27 Things to do Before a Conference. [Some of these might seem like overkill for a meeting like General Synod or the Disciples' upcoming General Assembly]

From Mari Smith, Ten Ways to Tweet from Live Events [scroll down past the stuff that is related to the Social Media Summit

To see how a conference becomes a year-round community, log on to Twitter [if you have an account] and search #sxsw.

Let’s talk transparency in the church

Verity A. Jones, DisciplesWorld editor and publisher

In our May 2009 issue, we published an editorial called “Time for Transparency” (reposted here, in case you missed it.) Our goal was to highlight the relationship between transparency and accountability, and to point out that if the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) wants to increase accountability, it should make a better effort at being  transparent. We (DisciplesWorld) have some ideas about how that might be done, including asking the General Assembly (via this Resolution) to create an open meeting policy for the Assembly, the General Board of the General Assembly, the Administrative Committee of the General Board, and any other task forces, councils, or working groups formed by those entities to carry out their work. While the General Assembly can’t require the general, regional, or congregational ministries of the church to creat such a policy, our hope is that they will.

An open meeting policy is just one way the church might become more transparent. At the conclusion of the editorial, we invited readers to join the conversation.

We’ve already heard from several of you with some great ideas for what transparency should look like, what specific practices are in place within congregations, regions, and the general church, and how you’d like to see things move forward. We invite you to share your thoughts on transparency, your ideas, and best practices.  Please share your comments here, or become a Fan of our Facebook page and join the discussion there, by clicking on the “Discussions” tab.

Steve Kindle vs. Miss California (and the NOM)

Disciples of Christ minister Steve Kindle

If you’re ever reporting on gay marriage, Steve Kindle is someone you’d want to interview. Kindle (a Disciples of Christ minister, and a straight man) is a vocal advocate for gay marriage and other lgbt issues. DisciplesWorld wrote about him when he appeared in Daniel Karslake’s 2007 Sundance film on Christianity and homosexuality, “For the Bible Tells Me So”, and we interviewed him again after California voters passed Proposition 8 last November.

Like most people who have an opinion on the subject, Kindle took note when Carrie Prejean, Miss California, voiced her opposition to gay marriage.  But what really got him going wasn’t the subsequent revelation that she had posed for revealing photos. It was her association with the National Organization for Marriage (the same folks who brought you the thunder-and-lightning ad campaign called “The Gathering Storm”)

Kindle methodically takes on the NOM’s Q&A format — their “talking points” approach to getting people riled up about the supposed threat  of gay marriage. He describes the NOM’s effort this way: “I have never discovered a more ill-informed, logic challenged, subject changing, straw man creating attempt at defending a position since the efforts of the holocaust deniers.” And then he sets out to take them apart.

Each day for about the past week, Kindle has taken on one point from the NOM and systematically debunked it. You have to admire the sheer bulldog-like quality of his approach. The guy knows what he’s talking about, and he’s not going to let go.

Thank you, Don Mitchell

Donald E. Mitchell, was one of the founders of DisciplesWorld, serving for almost a year without pay, selling advertising to help birth the magazine. Don died April 28 after a long bout with lung cancer.  He was 81.

For more than 30 years, Don was known across the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) for his work as public relations director at Church Extension. He won numerous awards, particularly in photography, from church professional groups.  He previously had been a newspaper and TV photographer in West Virginia.

Don, thank you. You will be missed.

Social Monday: Jump in the podcasting audio-stream

By Christian Piatt

Christian Piatt is an author and new church planter in Pueblo Colorado with his wife, Amy. His podcast can be found on iTunes, or by visiting his website at www.christianpiatt.com.

When I first heard of podcasting, I thought it was pretty cool. Immediately, I went online and set up free subscriptions for way more of my favorite shows than I can reasonably listen to, but as a junkie for free information, I couldn’t pass it up!

How great would it be, I thought, if I could do my own podcast? But surely it’s way too complicated and time-consuming to manage myself, right? I had received a book on podcasting a while back, but I was too intimidated to get started. For months, it remained no more than a good idea in the back of my mind.

Then, because of a series of curious circumstances, I ended up with a credit of a couple hundred bucks at my local music store, which is a dangerous thing. I wandered the aisles for a while and came across a cabinet of digital recorders. The price tags ranged from $200 to $350 bucks, and given my experience with digital recording gear, I assumed these were mediocre gadgets at best.

Turns out that digital recording technology has come a long way both in quality and affordability. Next thing you know, I’m on my way home with a little portable unit, complete with built-in microphones, cables and headphones. At home, I did a few test runs, speaking and playing into the recorder, amazed at the quality of this little machine that ran off of four AA batteries.

Maybe this podcast thing is not such a crazy idea after all.

I got online and found links to Audacity, a free audio mixing software program. Surely, I figured, this thing is lame. I mean, who can get anything decent out of some freeware? But the more reviews of it I read, the more convinced I became that it could at least handle my basic needs.

Next, I’d need a host site – somewhere to put my podcasts online so people could find and play them. Again, after some browsing, I found Podbean, one of many podcast “hosts” who offer free basic packages to get you started. Like others, they charge for premium services and extra memory storage, but I could get started and see if this podcasting thing was right for me without signing up for some pricey membership.

As a fan of National Public Radio, I had a fantasy of making my podcast sound like “This American Life,” so I’d need some sound clips to break up the narrative. I found more than I could use in three lifetimes at FreeLoops.com and The Freesound Project.

Outfitted with all the necessary gear, now I needed some interesting content. I started by narrating a few chapters from my newest book project, followed by a memoir-style account of my own faith journey and some spoken word clips. But what about ministry? Could I use podcasting to get the word out about our church on a local scale, or maybe nationally? That’s when I put together the “Big Fat Jesus Head” series I did with my wife.

I was getting some decent traffic from friends and people I told about my new project on Facebook, but I wondered if there was another way to get my work in front of people who liked podcasts, but who might not know who I was. That’s when I learned about Podcatchers, which are online services that serve as a clearinghouse and search tool for the thousands of podcasts out there.

In a few months, I’ve gone from this podcasting thing being an intriguing but daunting idea to having almost 600 hits on my first handful of episodes. Even better, when people search my name on search engines, the podcast is yet another thing that pops up. My literary agent was thrilled too, because that book project she was promoting for me found a foot in the door when a publisher showed interest in listening to the first few chapters online.

Next steps include recording Amy’s sermons, archiving personal stories from members of our church, concerts and interviews with other activists, artists and various people of interest. Aside from being a great tool for non-readers to get your message, there’s something deeply personal about hearing someone’s story or message in their own voice.

Now that I got it going, I have to wonder why it took me so long to come around. Turns out even we tech-heads have our hang-ups about new technology. But like anything else, it’s just a new tool at my disposal and, once I learned how to use it properly, became another avenue for personal expression, publicity and connection with people regardless of place or time.

Even better, it’s broadening our circle of people who hopefully will get some benefit from the ministries we’re doing here in Pueblo. If what Amy preached about Sunday can help someone in Nebraska a month from now, it just extends the life and scope of our ministry.

If you ask me, that’s technology at its best.

To sign up for Christian’s E-newsletter, “Faith Portals,” visit www.christianpiatt.com, or email him at cpiatt@christianpiatt.com.

Meet PaMdora

The Vintage Purse, an art quilt image created by Pam RuBert and featuring PaMdora

Have you met PaMdora? She’s a recurring character created by Pam RuBert, quilter and artist extraordinaire. RuBert graduated from Disciples-related Williams Woods University a Disciples of Christ-related school in Fulton, Mo.

Rubert has won awards and attention for her work, and was featured in a PBS documentary and in the January-February issue of American Style Magazine.

Read contributing writer Robyn Graves’ article on RuBert here. Also, you can follow PaMdora on Twitter or visit Rubert’s website to view more of her work and check out the PaMdora’s Box  blog.