Christian Writers Conference 2027 
“Restoring Creativity” 
 
April 9-10, 2027, Grove City College, PA 

The Eastern Regional Meeting of the Conference on Christianity and Literature 
and Third Annual meeting of the Holy Moot 

Featuring Daniel McInerny, philosopher of art, novelist, and dramatist 

Call for Papers 

“Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, 
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned, 
his world-dominion by creative act.”  

– Tolkien, “Mythopoeia” 

Humans pursue creative work in remarkably unpropitious times. Sometimes these difficulties are private: Boethius wrote Consolations while in prison awaiting his death. Sometimes they are public: Tolkien and other Inklings wrote fairy-stories while industrial war and nuclear weapons threatened human civilization. Sometimes personal conflicts dramatize public ills: Irina Ratushinskaya wrote poems on bars of soap while detained in a Soviet prison camp for human rights advocacy. History’s most significant writers are animated by the conviction that literary creation holds promise for restoration, that it may be allied to our collective recovery from evil. Yet today, as ecological apocalypse or machine intelligence threaten our sense of meaningful action, many have lost confidence in the value of human creativity. In response, our CWC theme for 2027 is “Restoring Creativity”; our gathering will host a conversation about how human creativity might participate in God’s restoration of all things. 

We invite submissions that speak to our theme from multiple angles: 

• Creativity and resourcement: How have Christian traditions spoken about artistic creativity in the past and which resources might we recover to help writers and thinkers today? More specifically, which writers are notable for their belief in creativity as restorative action, and what can we learn from them? 

• Creativity and technology: How does the creative process shape the value of imaginative fruits? Now that LLMs can generate text and images with no apparent human effort, does this devalue human creation? To riff on Walter Benjamin, what is the status of the work of art in an age of digital reproduction? 

• Creativity represented: How has artistic creativity been represented in literary works and what does this tell us? What creative acts are represented as restorative—or by contrast, degenerative—and why?  

• Defining creativity: How should we articulate the nature of creativity in philosophical and/or theological terms? In what ways does God’s restorative action relate to human creativity? How do human and divine creation relate to each other?  

• Readings/performances of creative works related to these themes/questions. 

We prioritize papers on writing and literature, but we also welcome papers from neighboring disciplines (e.g. philosophy, theology, music, visual art).  

Proposals for panels (3 or 4 papers speaking to a common theme) are also welcome. 

Holy Moot 

The third annual Holy Moot (conference on Tolkien and theology) is taking place during the Christian Writers Conference. The theme for the Holy Moot this year is “Re-Sacralizing the World.” Papers, presentations, and performances related to Tolkien or other Inkling-inspired happenings are warmly invited. All are welcome: scholar, fan, believer, non-believer. 

How to submit your proposal: 
Visit our webpage - https://www.gcc.edu/Home/Academics/Majors-Departments/Arts-Letters/Engli...

This call for papers closes on Jan 11th 2027.