“My ambition is not to be a bestseller, but to add to conversations about creativity and spirituality, among other topics.”
—Christine Havens
A member of the Writers’ League since 2024, Christine lives in the Austin, TX area.
Scribe: Welcome, writer! Tell us — what do you write?
Christine Havens: While I enjoy writing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the pieces I’ve had published are poetry, essays, reflections and devotionals, feature articles, and book reviews/study guides, largely focused on Christian spirituality. I have unpublished short fiction, mostly fantasy, and have an idea for a series of fantasy novellas. Plus, I’d love to do a zine using some of my drawings.
Scribe: If you could choose one author to blurb your book, who would it be, and what would you want it to say?
CH: If I ever get a book published (I am working on a project about creativity), I would love to have Austin Kleon blurb it with a drawing—something along the lines of my book being heartwork. But then, I’d love a blurb from Edward Carey, too.
Scribe: You have one book you’re allowed to push onto all of your friends, and they’re forced to read it to remain your friend — which one would you choose?
CH: Out of the many I could choose from, I think The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantu. It’s a beautifully written, haunting book about the trauma at the border—the author’s need to rehumanize himself and those he dehumanized while a border patrol agent. I fell in love with it the moment I read the ARC when I worked at BookPeople.
Scribe: Tell us your WLT story.
CH: I heard about WLT first somewhere around 2013, and joined, but was still finding my way forward while attending the Episcopal seminary in Austin and let things lapse. Heard more during my time at BookPeople and attended some Third Thursday events before COVID. After helping an older gentleman at my church with a book and poems he was working on, he gifted me with his ticket to a recent A&E conference. It felt lovely to be in that environment, so finally I have renewed my membership because I need community and conversation about writing and creativity that I’m not finding elsewhere.
Scribe: Where do you see your writing taking you (or you taking it) in the future?
CH: I’m hoping to have books published in addition to having pieces in magazines and a collection of essays. My ambition is not to be a bestseller, but to add to conversations about creativity and spirituality, among other topics. I’d like to have a zine that’ll make people smile or say, “yeah, that’s how I feel.” Challenge people, too.
Scribe: Here at the WLT, we love sharing book recommendations. What’s one book that has come out within the past few years that you couldn’t put down? (Bonus points if the book is Texas related!)
CH: There have been a few, but want to give a shout out to Stephen Graham Jones’s I Was a Teenage Slasher. I never thought I’d describe a horror novel as nostalgic, but the story is so wrapped in small town Texas that it took me back to small town Iowa. Great prose and thinking about the nature of revenge and justice, stuff that Jones does so well.
Scribe: Is there anything else about you that you would like to share with the world? An opportunity for blatant self-promotion!
CH: I’ve got a workshop I lead about wordplay as spiritual care—it’s safe space for folks to be in the moment. Always looking for opportunities to give it.
While I haven’t posted to my blog for a while, here’s the url: www.ripplesinthefont.com There’s some pieces I’m happy with there.
Here’s a link to one of my favorite features I wrote for The Living Church: https://livingchurch.org/church-life/tempered-by-the-holy-spirit-clergy-metalworkers/.
Scribe: Let us know any social media handles you have!
CH: Twitter: @christinabelle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christinabelle1?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Insta: @shandymeister