Praise for "The Soulmaking Room"

Now Featured in the Patheos Book Club
The Soulmaking Room
By Dee Dee Risher

"Dee Dee Risher’s inaugural book is beautiful, personal, and filled with spiritually grounded wisdom. She draws from her story to share how the difficult passages in our lives—the failures and losses—shape us into our best and most truthful selves."

—Shane Claiborne, Author, social activist, founding member of The Simple Way

"What do you get when you cross an Anabaptist, a Pentecostal, and a mainline Protestant? The answer to that question is reason enough to read this book. Then add powerful meditations on failure, midlife, and building a woodshed out of the lumber of youthful dreams, and you have a book that warrants a term like treasure. I have long been a fan of Dee Dee Risher’s work as an editor, first at The Other Side then at Conspire, but now in The Soulmaking Room, her own voice as a writer is being offered to the world—a gift and treasure indeed. This is truly beautiful writing and rich wisdom."

—Brian Mclaren, author and theologian

"The bargain God offers the soul is simple but demanding: The price of enlightenment is that you are thus obligated to pass it on! Dee Dee Risher does that quite well—and she does it again here."

—Richard Rohr, author of Falling Upward and other books; founder of Center for Contemplation and Action

"Dee Dee Risher has spent her life engaged in the struggle for justice—as a poet, a singer, an editor, a mother, a friend. Deeply rooted in the bibli- cal narrative, she has honed her craft of weaving together critical issues of race, class, oppression, the struggle to remain faithful, rich and per- sonal stories from her life with her husband and two children, the great story of faith, and life in all its beauty and tragedy. Dee Dee has created a work of art to help us see more clearly the path toward integrity."

—Murphy Davis, author, pastor, activist, founder of The Open Door

"I consider Dee Dee Risher one of our radical discipleship movement’s most trustworthy, thoughtful, and compassionate spirits. Her journalism, prose, and poetry bear an authenticity and transparency that honors the dignity beneath our blemishes and finds faith amidst struggle. I commend her as an emerging elder helping us to embrace both Word and world."