Janaki Spickard Keeler joined Pendle Hill in June as our latest Minnie Jane Artist-in-Residence for 2015. She will be with us for 10 weeks and will be working on a screenplay. Below is her artist’s statement.

How does an act of violence ripple through a community and shape us in individual and collective ways? How do we meet the challenges of hatred, work through the pain, and learn to grow through and around the scars left behind? How can we live with integrity in a world where justice may never come to some?

Like most people, I struggle with these questions. I have an unusual way of coming to answers, however: I write novels when a question lies heavily on my heart and demands to be heard. “Graduation” is the story of a group of high school friends who are forced into an abrupt coming of age in response to an act of violence against one of their own. Over the course of their senior year they grow and change and respond to the violence in their own ways.

During my time here at Pendle Hill, I will be working on turning the third draft of “Graduation” into something that can be shared with the world. Several years ago, I heard the call of Spirit telling me to write my life into being. As I write about the themes of trauma, hope, identity, and loss, I am writing myself into being. Every novel I write changes me; every novel makes me more me. Writing is a spiritual journey into myself and into the world.

I will be offering a weekly hour-long writing group for anyone who is interested, where I will share my experience of writing as a spiritual practice. I will also be sharing parts of my novel as writing progresses and way opens, and will continue to blog occasionally at quietistquaker.wordpress.com.  — Janaki Spickard Keeler