amateur believer

Patty Kirk

Raised in California and Connecticut, Patty Kirk progressively fled home to New Orleans, Boston, Berlin, Beijing, and Hong Kong, studying German and Mandarin Chinese, teaching English, working in restaurants, and writing. She returned to the United States to pursue an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas. Kirk and her family live on a farm in Oklahoma.

Currently Kirk teaches writing at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, where she is Writer in Residence and Associate Professor of English. In addition to teaching, she writes, cooks, gardens, and continues to write. Her honest and challenging personal essays address such diverse topics as Christian living and spiritual development, food, cattle, literature, biblical exegesis and translation, and teaching. Confessions of an Amateur Believer (2007), a collection of essays about her journey from atheism to faith, is her first book. Her second book, a food memoir entitled Starting from Scratch: Memoirs of a Wandering Cook, is due out with Thomas Nelson in January 2008.

Interviews: with Joyce Handzo of In the Library Reviews
with John Pattison of Burnside Writers Collective