VIDEO: BOOK LAUNCH AT THE WADE CENTER | WHEATON COLLEGE
OCTOBER 28, 2021
Keynote speaker, New York Times bestselling author and podcast host, Patti Callahan ONCE UPON A WARDROBE with Drs. David and Crystal Downing, co-directors of the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College
From Patti:
It was a dark and stormy night. But an incredibly fascinating conversation. @wheatoncollegeil with the @thewadecenter. Thanks to the indomitable Dr David and Crystal Downing. I come away inspired every single time. And that reading room? That wardrobe? Those artifacts? A million stories waiting. Big gratitude to @thishammer for having a college cafeteria dinner with me. Who else would do that? To the @friendsandfiction ladies who showed up!!you are a tribe I always want to belong to. And Mary who came from Nashville. Y’all this is what stories do. #onceuponawardrobe #narnia #patticallahan
A Story of Narnia and a Sister's Love.
When college student Megs approaches author C. S. Lewis with her younger brother’s request to find out if Narnia is real, he instead takes her on a magical journey through the moments in his life that led to his greatest creation.
Megs Devonshire, on a scholarship at Oxford, is brilliant with numbers and equations. She prefers the dependability of facts—except for one: the brother she loves with all her heart doesn’t have long to live. When George becomes captivated by a brand-new book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and begs her to find out where Narnia came from, there’s no way she can refuse.
Despite her timidity about approaching the famous author, who is a professor at her school, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with the Oxford don and his own brother, begging them for answers. What she receives instead are stories . . . little-known tales from different periods in Mr. Lewis’s life, which she takes home to George.
Why won’t Mr. Lewis just tell her plainly what George wants to know? The answer will reveal to Meg many truths that science and math cannot, and the gift she thought she was giving to her brother—the story behind Narnia—turns out to be his gift to her, instead: hope.
About the Author
Patti Callahan is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of sixteen novels and podcast host. She is the recipient of The Christy Award — A 2019 Winner “Book of the Year”; The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2020 and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for 2019. She is the co-host and co-creator of the popular weekly online Friends and Fiction live web show and podcast. Patti is also a contributor to the weekly life lesson essay column for Parade Magazine. A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband. WEBSITE
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About the Wade Center
The Marion E. Wade Center promotes cultural engagement and spiritual formation by offering a collection of resources available nowhere else in the world. We emphasize the ongoing relevance of seven British Christian authors who provide a distinctive blend of intellect, imagination, and faith: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers, George MacDonald, G.K. Chesterton, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams. The Wade Center implements these goals by
Assisting scholars in their study of unique materials by and about these seven authors in order to generate new understandings;
Sharing insights with a broader audience through our numerous programs and publications;
Supporting artistic works inspired by our authors;
Welcoming visitors to our museum.