Making the Road As We Go: A Reading with Jeanette Stokes (via Zoom)

Please join us for a reading with RCWMS Executive Director Jeanette Stokes, whose new book, Making the Road as We Go, is now available for pre-order.

The day Jeanette Stokes graduated from Duke Divinity School in 1977, she turned to some friends and said, “They’ll be sorry.” With only an inkling of what she would do next, she felt sure it would have something to do with women, faith, and social justice. A couple of months later, with the help of friends, she founded the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South (RCWMS), where she has served as Executive Director for most of the past forty-five years. In Making the Road as We Go she explores the path that led her from childhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Smith College during the Vietnam War, to seminary at Duke Divinity School and ordination as a Presbyterian minister. In the book she reflects on her evolving relationship with the church and her development as a feminist devoted to an expanded vision of faith and spirituality. This vision—which she has created in concert with an ever-changing community—provides sustenance for the challenges of working for justice and living in an imperfect world.

Jeanette Stokes is the author of three collections of essays, 25 Years in the Garden, 35 Years on the Path, and Just Keep Going; three memoirs, Hurricane Season: Living Through a Broken Heart, Flying Over Home, and Following a Female Line; and a book on writing, Just Keep Going: Advice on Writing and Life. She is happier if she spends some time each week walking, writing, painting, and messing around in the garden.