Amy Leach on Becoming Salt of the Universe

by Swanson

“I was recently giving a sermon and found myself spontaneously quoting from Amy Leach’s singular and surprising new book. I expect many readers will find their own lives troubled (in the Biblical sense) and enlightened by her fresh perceptions. She has lived into a hard-earned and entirely credible wisdom, the best evidence for which is her irrepressible sense of humor. One feels companioned by this book, and sorry when it ends.”

— Christian Wiman, author of Zero at the Bone

Amy Leach grew up in Texas, lives in Montana, and earned her MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and numerous other publications. She is a recipient of a Whiting Award in Nonfiction, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Amy Leach is the author of The Everybody Ensemble, Things That Are, and her most recent work which is the focus of our conversation today, The Salt of the Universe: Praise, Songs, and Improvisations.

In our conversation Amy and I talk about leaving the tradition you were raised in, music that stirs the soul, being overchurched, salty pickles, and so much more.

Visit Amy Leach in any of the books she has written.

Episode Show Notes

Works by Amy Leach

Resources & People Mentioned

  • Marilynne Robinson
  • Herman Melville
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • ‘Self-Reliance’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Emily Dickinson
  • Ellen G. White
  • John Denver
  • Charlotte Bronte
  • Walt Whitman
  • Bible
  • Banff Film Festival
  • Nouria Newman
  • John Coltrane
  • Thelonious Monk
  • Ornette Coleman
  • John Milton
  • Bob Dylan
  • Prince
  • Harry T. Burleigh
  • Greensleeves
  • The Message by Eugene Peterson

Drink Recommended

  • Hard Apple Cider

Photo pulled from giramondopublishing.com
Links to book purchases give a kickback to a local New Mexican bookstore and Contemplify