Karen Swallow Prior, Ph. D., is the 2025-26 Karlson Scholar at Bethel Seminary. She is a reader, writer, and speaker., she is the author of You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful (Brazos 2025); The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos 2023); On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books (Brazos 2018); Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist (Thomas Nelson 2014); and Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me (T. S. Poetry Press 2012). She is co-editor of Cultural Engagement: A Crash Course in Contemporary Issues (Zondervan 2019) and has contributed to numerous other books. She is a contributing writer at The Dispatch and has a monthly column for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, First Things, Vox, Think Christian, The Gospel Coalition, and various other places. She hosted the podcast Jane and Jesus. She is a research fellow at Comment and a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum. She and her husband live on a 100-year-old homestead in central Virginia with dogs, chickens, and lots of books.

karenswallowprior.com

Welcome to 12-Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

I praise God for you, Karen.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you, a part of the world that you enter.

I am in beautiful central Virginia, which is God's country.

I love the way you did that.

It indicates that you love intros, right?

Like you're a writer, or at least a writer enthusiast, right?

So from what I read about you, where did that love actually ignite, the love for reading?

My mother read to my brothers and me when we were little, you know?

I mean, she just read to us every day.

But yet, I think I'm the only one that ended up loving reading.

So it probably also has to do with my personality, maybe the way my brain is wired.

But I just loved books from before I can even remember.

And as soon as I could, actually reading on my own is one of my earliest memories.

And so I just have always loved books.

And I still do, even though it is harder and harder in this crazy modern world to read with the attention I did as a child, I still try.

Yeah, it is tough, isn't it?

Sit and read.

Do you do things like me where I'm taking my phone out of the perimeter by five miles?

You know, I really need to do that.

So because it's always next to me, but I do have one of those little timers.

It's like a little hourglass with sand in it.

And so I use that when I'm writing sometimes and when I'm reading.

So it's just a quiet analog way to give me about, I think it's like 30 minutes before it runs out.

I can go by that.

I'm intrigued though.

Do you prefer writing or reading more?

I prefer reading more, but because writing is my work, I write a lot more.

I write so much that I sit there and go, I need to get this done so that I can sit down and read.

And so my dream life would be like doing nothing but reading all the time and then writing and planting flowers and running and not having to do any podcasts or marketing or emailing.

But, you know, I mean, it all goes together.

And so if I didn't have conversations with people, I wouldn't even know how to write in a way that would communicate with them.

So I say that, but that's a fantasy and I probably wouldn't live it even if I were able to.

But I love reading and writing is a way that I process what I'm reading and thinking about.

What advice would you give to the budding writer to develop their identity?

No matter how good they are at writing naturally and how much practice they have, they should.

And sometimes the writers who have the most natural talent are the ones who might be least likely to look at it as a craft, which it does need to be considered a craft because you can always get better.

I mean, no matter how well you can whip something off at the drop of a hat, you can still work at it, massage it, improve it, edit, revise and make it better.

And so if you approach writing as a craft is something that you practice and something that you put time and effort into, then you are a writer.

That's because it's the process that you're engaged in that makes you a writer.

And so that's when I think you can really identify as a writer.

And it's not as much about whether you get published or whether you get paid, but whether you really see writing as a craft and something that is, again, like I mentioned about myself, kind of the way that I process things.

Tell me about family life and how writing has affected family life for you.

So, yes, I've been married to my husband for 41 years.

Wow.

You're very much married.

You could take the ring off and there'd be a mark there, right?

There's definitely a mark there, but I am not the same size I was when I got married, which I know is not what you meant, but that's where my thoughts went.

No, it's good how I'm hearing the physical manifestation of your writing skill.

You're doing that, right?

You're literally creating characters, your thoughts on a particular statement, and then you're fleshing it out.

It's exactly how you do your craft, isn't it?

It is.

It is.

Yes.

My poor husband, when he married me, we married young, and when he married me, I was intending to be a social worker.

That's what I was majoring in and studying.

He ended up with a writer.

I mean, a professor too.

A professor makes a pretty decent spouse, I think.

But the writing part, I couldn't do that without his support and understanding because I do often have my nose buried in a book or I'm reading things and I have to have my alone time to do the writing.

If you have a kind of job where you go off to an office every day, which I did for a long time, but you're doing your work and everyone assumes you're working, but when I'm at home working, that doesn't always look like work when I'm just sitting by myself quietly, but I am working.

He's been super understanding and supportive.

In his younger years, he was a musician, so he understands the life of an artist and what that requires.

He's been very supportive.

We never were able to have children, and so that also is something that I think God has used to help me to do more in my writing life than I otherwise would have been able to.

I feel like in that sense, it's a calling because we can't do everything.

He called me to this instead of some other things, and I'm just trying to be faithful with it and grow in it, not just grow in the skill and the craft, but even grow in my own character because no matter what we're doing, we are developing our character, whether well or poorly.

Tell me about being called and what that looked like.

How did you meet Jesus?

Well, my parents were Christians.

They actually became Christians when I was little, so they were relatively new converts, at least in a really committed sense.

When I was about six or seven, they started going to a Baptist church.

Shortly after that, I don't remember when I accepted Jesus into my heart because some of my earliest memories are already praying to Him knowing He was my Savior, but I did become baptized.

I chose to be baptized shortly after we started attending that Baptist church, so I was seven or eight or nine, and so was baptized and made my public profession of faith.

I have lots of questions and thoughts and reflections, but I've never experienced for myself extreme doubt, which, I guess, I don't know.

I just think that's a gift, and I empathize with people who do, and I understand the questions and struggles, but I've had my times of disobedience in my life, but I always knew that the Lord was near and drawing me to Himself.

What would you leave as a message for future you listening to this conversation?

I would say continue to have faith in the Lord's direction and provision, and when you look back, you will see that He has done things that you would never have imagined on your own.

Before we leave, is there anything else you'd like to share with our amazing audience?

I'd just like to share that even though it can be hard in this crazy world to see, the Lord is good and kind and faithful, and look to Him, and you will see it.

Prayer and prayer, a pleasure I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12-Minute Conference.