Karen Prior: Using a Sand Hourglass to Disconnect in a Crazy Modern World

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