Publishers and authors fed the nation’s religion journalists food, drink, and victuals for thought at the 62nd annual Religion Newswriters Association annual meeting, held Sept. 16-17 in Durham, N.C. Even as economic pressure and media evolution hammer at the ranks of religion journalism, attendance at the annual conference grew. More than 260 people--journalists, exhibitors, and speakers--attended this year, up over last year’s 190. “We were delighted to exceed last year's conference attendance significantly,” said Debra Mason, executive director of the association. “This is the largest gathering of religion reporters anywhere in the world.”
Book connections abounded. B&H Publishing Group spotlighted the theme of fatherhood with a five-man panel at a breakfast gathering following the prior evening’s screening of the new film Courageous. The family entertainment film from Sherwood Pictures, makers of the 2008 hit Fireproof, tells the story of four deputy sheriffs with varying home and family situations. Like Fireproof and the related 6-million-copy selling book, The Love Dare (B&H), Courageous has five related books already available from B&H, Moody, and Tyndale; the film releases in 1,200 theaters Sept. 30.
HarperOne sounded a different kind of family note in sponsoring Joe, Alina, Vicki, and Valerie Darger, the family that inspired the HBO series Big Love and the authors of Love Times Three: Our True Story of a Polygamous Marriage. The book is a kind of coming-out for the man and his three wives, who are Independent Fundamentalist Mormons and live in Utah, where plural marriage is a third-degree felony. Joe Darger characterized the book as a “dignified way” to plead for the right to live according to conscience, a more subtle argument that doesn’t make for good TV. “Big Love is a soap opera,” Joe Darger said. The Darger family includes 23 children.
HarperOne is also adding to the shelf of offerings generated by Love Wins by Rob Bell, a controversial title that inspired response books from some evangelical Christian authors, with a companion study volume in November. HarperOne will begin publishing Bell’s backlist next spring; until Love Wins, Bell had published with Zondervan, the evangelical imprint within the HarperCollins family.
Other publishers visible at the conference included the Common English Bible committee, an alliance of five Protestant denominational publishers sponsoring the new CEB, which has 500,000 copies in print. WaterBrook Multnomah and its Image imprint offered newsy titles from both its Catholic and evangelical lines (A People of Hope by John Allen and Raised Right by Alisa Harris); Jossey-Bass was giving away free copies of Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker Palmer, which provides a framework for thinking about next year’s elections. Baylor University Press was promoting Becoming American? by Yvonne Haddad (see PW’s review), which sheds light on the popular subject of Islam in America.
