Write for the Friends Incubator!!!
- windycooler
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
We're publishing a book! Constellation of Witness is a new collection of testimonies about public ministry by Quaker public ministers, fully illustrated by Joey Hartmann-Dow. Co-edited by Windy Cooler, Tom Hamm, and nova sturrup, this book seeks to tell the stories of public ministers together as a community, and to explore the ministries Quaker communities are called to together. With your help we just successfully raised over $10,000 to support the real cost of developing this book! It is scheduled to be ready for gift giving by The-Day-The-World-Calls-Christmas of 2026!
This book will include first-hand accounts from public ministers themselves, reflections shaped by grief, sacrifice, joy, risk, endurance, and daily labor. These are not abstract theological essays but lived testimonies about what it costs to follow a call, what sustains a minister over time, and what it means to be accompanied or to stand alone. Alongside these voices, we will hear from Friends both familiar and less widely known, drawing lessons from our 400-year history as Quakers about recognition, authority, rupture, courage, and care.
Taken together, these voices form a constellation. Different lights, different contexts, different temperaments, yet a shared commitment to faithfulness beyond the meetinghouse walls.
If this vision resonates with you, I invite you to consider contributing to the project. Your support will help us gather, edit, illustrate, and publish these stories so that the Religious Society of Friends may remember what it knows about ministry and imagine what is still possible.
Deadline: First drafts, detailed proposals, and outlines are due May 15th. This submission is just a draft — we will work with you through around July 1st to complete a final draft.
We welcome poetry, essays, fiction, and interviews. Pieces typically run between 500 and 2,000 words. We are not prioritizing work that is argumentative or academic in tone, though you are welcome to bring such pieces to our attention for other projects growing out of this one.
What we're looking for...
Personal testimony and call
First-hand stories about what has been hard and life-affirming about your call
Explorations of call, community, and purpose
The ministry that ended or changed: honest accounts of laying down a ministry, or watching it transform
Failure and faithfulness: what happened when a leading didn't go as expected, and what you learned
Seasons and silences: the dry spells, the waiting, and how you stayed faithful through them
Interviews and conversations
Interviews with public ministers: we have Friends who would like to be interviewed and are specifically looking for people who can sit beside them and record their stories
Intergenerational conversations between a younger and older minister about how the call has changed (or hasn't) across generations
Interviewers are encouraged to include a brief reflection on what it felt like to sit beside someone and hold their story
Dimensions of ministry often left unspoken
The ministry of presence: accompanying, bearing witness at vigils, prison visiting, care for the dying
The body in ministry: how health, disability, age, or fatigue shape how people carry a call
Family and relationship: what public ministry costs and gives to the people closest to a minister
Collaborative or corporate ministry: stories of when a whole meeting or community felt called together
Widening the circle
Voices from Quaker communities in Kenya, Bolivia, Cuba, and other places where Friends are numerous but underrepresented in English-language publishing
Letters to a new minister: epistolary pieces offering tender, honest guidance to someone just beginning to feel a call
Submit: HERE
Questions and correspondence are welcome. This project may grow into additional volumes and forms as we discover together how best to tell the stories of public ministers and the ministries Quaker communities are called to share, so be encouraged!
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