Name: Sacred Traces: Writing the Texture of Religious Experience
Start: 2026-04-18T16:00:00-0400
End: 2026-04-18T16:45:00-0400

Sacred Traces: Writing the Texture of Religious Experience

Saturday April 18, 2026 4:00pm - 4:45pm EDT

Chapel

In conversation, Aaliyah Bilal and Melody Gee explore how writers draw from lived religious experience—its rituals, questions, inheritances, and contradictions—to craft resonant stories.

Book signing follows in the Chapel Narthex

Speakers

Aaliyah Bilal

Aaliyah Bilal is a fiction and nonfiction writer who focuses on the Black American Muslim experience and stories that connect Chinese and Afro-Diasporic peoples. She has experience as a director and producer of short films and she has published stories and essays with The Michiga... Read More →

Melody S. Gee

Melody S. Gee is the author of We Carry Smoke and Paper: Essays on the Grief and Hope of Conversion (University of Iowa Press, October 2024) and three books of poetry. She is the recipient of Kundiman fellowships in poetry and fiction, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and Artist Support Grants from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis... Read More →

Saturday April 18, 2026 4:00pm - 4:45pm EDT
Chapel

Concurrent Session, Conversation

2026 Festival of Faith and Writing

Aaliyah Bilal

Melody S. Gee

Get help with the event

2026 Festival of Faith and Writing

Aaliyah Bilal

Melody S. Gee

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