My Interview With Sarah Bessey About Her Evolving Faith, Bestselling Books, and Advice For Aspiring Authors
Her latest book shares insights from her spiritual wilderness journey to help readers on theirs, and has been very helpful to me on mine
In your latest book, Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith, you write about a painful religious betrayal that had devastating consequences for your family. How did writing about that experience affect you emotionally? Did your husband read what you wrote before you submitted it?
By the time a story is published in one of my books, I’m pretty settled about it. I’ve forgiven or been forgiven, usually a bit of both. I’ve usually tried to offer a generous interpretation that makes room for people’s humanity and complexities.
So no, sharing those sorts of stories isn’t emotionally devastating or even the re-opening of old wounds for me now. After more than twenty years of writing publicly through my own faith formation, I’ve learned a few things the hard way and that’s one of them.
My friend
once said that we need to be careful because too many of us are writing out of gaping wounds rather than healed scars. That process simply takes time and active healing. So yes, revisiting those things can make me feel a bit sad still, for sure, but any painful experience related in the book is an experience that I’ve healed through already. (And yes, my husband always reads my books before they are published.)
Describe your writing process.
I heard once that being a writer feels like having homework every night for the rest of your life! And that’s sort of true because you do feel like you’re always in writing mode - I wouldn’t have it any other way now.
In terms of the actual process of book writing, when I’m actively at work on a new book, I do try to set aside about 3-4 hours a day, first thing in the morning, just to write. (I’m more of a morning writer than a night owl, I can barely concoct a sentence after three in the afternoon.)
I’m a big believer in outlines, planning, research along with the craft of writing. These intense book writing seasons usually are about 9-12 months long. However, that’s the ideal and, like most folks, I have to be flexible there, too as there are a lot of other demands on our time especially with our family - my work day is confined to the hours when our four are at school, for instance.
When I’m not in a focused book writing season, I usually set aside time two days a week for other aspects of my work like my newsletter and any other projects underway or articles/essays elsewhere. Meanwhile, the other three days of the work week are for the other things related to work admin things or back-end details, a lot of time spent in reading or research for projects and even relationships.
How long did it take to write Field Notes, and how different is the final published version from your original manuscript?
I think I was quietly writing Field Notes for the Wilderness for more than ten years without really intending it as a book. Do those years count as the writing process? Maybe. But it wasn’t until I decided to actually gather this all up and write it as a coherent narrative with purpose that I saw the need and possibilities of it.
Once I decided to do that, it took about two years, start to finish. I started with the book proposal and then we shopped it to interested publishers. After the deal was signed, I got to work on the full manuscript. It took about 6-9 months to create the first draft of the manuscript that I submitted to my editor and then we were in the edits for another 6 months or so.
The final book is definitely recognizable from the first drafts but there were chapters that disappeared, new ones that needed to be written, stories that had to be re-organized, that sort of thing. You go through a few rounds of what we call “developmental edits” which are the big picture themes and directions. Once those are done, you enter into “copy edits” which are more the line-by-line, word-by-word edits complete with full attributions and footnotes etc. And then there are a few more rounds of edits once it’s formatted and again before it goes to press. …
Basically, writing a book is often a lot longer process than most folks think. And then of course, you realize you’re not just a writer of words, you’re also someone who has to do podcasts and speaking engagements and write marketing copy and all sorts of other skills, as part of becoming the primary promoter of your own work. But yes, the whole process can feel long for an author because you mostly finished your writing part - the part you really like! - more than a year before the book actually comes out.
How do you hope this book affects readers?
This particular book is my own hopeful offering of the practices that actually served me well in my own seasons of faith shift or evolution. I have wondered if I was writing the book I wished I would have had twenty years ago when I was experiencing deconstruction myself for the very first time, convinced it was the end of everything including me. (Spoilers: it wasn’t.)
I believe so deeply that an evolving faith is a healthy faith. This experience is another altar of intimacy with God, if only we can loosen our death grip on our certainties. So I hope Field Notes for the Wilderness becomes a shepherd for our curiosity, sets a rich table for our questions, offers tools to cultivate what we crave, and provides a blessing for what was--even as we leave it behind.
Listen, I have never seen myself as an expert, so I just hope to be a good companion to those of us wanderers, resolutely alongside the readers. And if I can spare people a few of the ditches I’ve fallen into and help them to spot the beauty I’ve learned to love, well, that’s the dream.
Deconstruction is a profoundly lonely experience for most of us. So I have such hope that this book will make people in the wilderness feel a bit less alone. And, if nothing else, maybe it will convince them of how loved they are, how courageous they are.
You’ve written other bestselling books. Do you have a favorite? If so, why is it your favorite?
What a privilege and joy it is to write books that people actually read; I never ever take it for granted. I could list every single one as a favourite for their own reasons and mean it each time.
I do know that I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Jesus Feminist since it was my first book and, more than a decade later, I still hear from people who are reading it and passing it along to friends or who point to that one as a catalyst for a lot of transformation in their lives. It’s not a perfect book but I remember that feeling of energy and possibility as it came together with such fondness. It was the dream coming true.
And now all these years and books later, it feels like Field Notes for the Wilderness gathers up every lesson I learned the hard way about deconstruction. It was a beautiful experience to write. It even feels like a love letter to my fellow wanderers and misfits, too. Those are my people and I always want to do right by them.
In addition to being a bestselling author, you’re also a popular speaker and the co-founder of Evolving Faith, an online community for “spiritual refugees.” Which of these accomplishments means the most to you and why?
I’ve never seen myself as a ministry leader, I’m always just a writer in my mind. Speaking, conferences, community building, leadership roles, all of that stuff is a bigger stretch for me and those roles don’t come very naturally to me. I’m not a typical “leader” in the ways that we’ve often understood that label or calling, I think. But writing? Writing is my vocation. It’s the aspect of my work that brings the most joy to me. The other things are just more of a learning curve, I guess.
Who are your favorite authors and why?
That is such a difficult question because I read so widely over so many genres! I’m basically a pseudo-hermit bookworm. I love poetry, fiction, literature, biographies, theology, memoir, non-fiction musings on trees, children’s lit, you name it. I could list out dozens of authors and genuinely mean it when I called them each a favourite.
But when I think about my own particular sort of writing and the lane in which I’ve found myself, I will point to writers like Madeleine L’Engle and Kathleen Norris as being very formative for me at key moments. At the time that I was really beginning to write in public, I was a young mum with a houseful of tinies. I was too Jesus-y for the mom-bloggers but too prone to reference birth and breastfeeding for the theology gatekeepers who weren’t used to women’s experiences on the page, you know?
I think that’s why so many of us found our people among the bloggers back in the early aughts - it was a way past the gatekeepers at the time. I needed to be able to include those experiences as a mother and as a woman in how I was experiencing God and the Church and the world, too.
So when I began to read their work, I felt this massive exhale of permission.These were women who were writing or thinking about theology and faith, spirituality and belief from the centre of their lives. L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journals in particular - and her line about “the tired thirties” - meant so much to me in those days as I was finding my own writing voice.
They also found God in liturgy and raising kids, music and monks, church and history, art and doing laundry. I wanted to be a whole person on the page and their work gave me that permission.
I still love theological writing that acknowledges most of our beliefs are rooted in our autobiography. Stories are always the most compelling part of a book to me - don’t just tell me what you believe, tell me why. And tell the truth.
What advice would you give to an aspiring author?
From a personal standpoint, my advice would be to do the deep inner work about your own worth and value apart from publishing or achieving particular outcomes. Basically, if you’re looking for publishing a bestselling book to “fix” you or anything in your life, you’ll be disappointed. …
Too many folks approach publishing a book like a goal line or an experience of healing, but it isn’t. You’re still you with all your weird quirks and habits and yearnings - publishing doesn’t change that. In fact, publishing can put all of your well-hidden neuroses and anxieties on full blast. So just be aware of that going in and try to approach it from a posture or expression of wholeness rather than ‘the fix.’
And from a practical standpoint, my best advice is to focus on developing your unique voice. One of the things we often do when we’re starting out as writers is to adopt and try on the voices of the writers whom we admire or appreciate. But you will always end up sounding like a ventriloquist.
It takes a lot of writing to allow your own unique voice to emerge on the page. And that means: you need to write. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. Use those words. Writing responds to generosity, even towards yourself. Getting to know your own unique voice is good work.
What’s next for you? Are you planning or currently working on a new book or other project you can give us a foretaste of?
Yes, already at work on a new project! Writers are always working on that homework, eh? I have this particular project currently underway, which I’ll share more about in a few months, I imagine, and even another book also being outlined and developed too. I think it takes a certain amount of faithfulness - or maybe just stubbornness! - to be a writer. I hope to be faithful to the work I believe God has called me to do now and in the future. So that means: back to work.
My heartfelt thanks to
for answering my questions and writing her wonderful books and Substack newsletter.
Anyone (not just my paid subscribers, as is normally the case) is welcome to comment on this post. I’d love to hear your thoughts about Sarah’s words and she probably would, too!
And if you’re in the midst of a faith deconstruction or spiritual wilderness journey and would like some help navigating it from a former pastor with wilderness experience, I’ve expanded my 1:1 coaching to include spiritual guidance. United States residents can schedule a free call to learn more here.