Sacred Stories: Writing About Spirituality For Children

Event Details

Join Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and Dr. Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds for a dynamic conversation on how to write meaningfully about spirituality for children. The conversation will explore how storytelling can open up spiritual imagination, foster empathy, and help young readers engage with life’s big questions. Parents, educators, writers, and anyone interested in faith, storytelling, and the inner lives of children are welcome to join the conversation. The program will be followed by book sales and a signing by Rabbi Sasso. 

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso is Rabbi Emerita of Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis where she served from 1977 to 2013. She was the second woman ever to become a rabbi in the United States and was the first to be ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1974. She recently retired as the director of the Religion, Spirituality, and the Arts Initiative at Herron School of Art and Design at IUI. Rabbi Sasso is a past president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Gleaner’s Food Bank, and a past chair of the Spirit and Place Festival. She serves on numerous boards including Indiana Humanities and is a co-founder of Women4Change Indiana. Rabbi Sasso has been honored as one of the “Influential Women in Indiana” by the Indianapolis Business Journal and was featured among “Indy’s Most Influential Clergy” by NUVO News Weekly. She is the recipient of the Sagamore of the Wabash, Touchstone Award from Girls, Inc., Heritage Keepers Award from the Indiana State Museum, and the Spirit of the Prairie Award from Conner Prairie Interactive Park. The author of many articles and nationally acclaimed children’s books, Rabbi Sasso is a winner of the National Jewish Book Award and a 2018 recipient of the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award. She is active in the civic and interfaith communities. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Temple University and her D.Min. from the Christian Theological Seminary. 

Joseph L. Tucker Edmonds, PhD is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Religious Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis and the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture (CSRAAC). Joseph received his AB with Honors in Economics and Religious Studies from Brown University in 2000, the Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, and the PhD in Religion and Modernity from Duke University. His research addresses the intersection between Black religion and the body, with a particular focus on agency, care and wellness.  He is an award-winning teacher and a nationally recognized scholar on community-engaged research. Dr. Tucker Edmonds’ research team was recently awarded a $5-million grant from the Mellon Foundation to explore “Black Humanities in the Midwest” by creating a series of collaborative, community-embedded research labs throughout Indiana. He has written The Other Black Church: Alternative Christian Movements and the Struggle for Black Freedom and scholarly articles that explore Black religion, radical pedagogy, and community-engaged methodologies.