Episode 1 of Rewrite Radio features Dennis Covington’s presentation at the 2016 Festival of Faith & Writing in which he told stories about his time writing from the borders of Syria’s civil war, the stories behind his book REVELATION: A SEARCH FOR FAITH IN A VIOLENT RELIGIOUS WORLD. He also reads a selection from his memoir SALVATION ON SAND MOUNTAIN: SNAKE HANDLING IN SOUTH APPALACHIA, a finalist for the National Book Award.Dennis Covington is the author of six books and his work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Vogue, Esquire, Redbook, Georgia Review, and Oxford American. His awards include the Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel, the Boston Book Review’s Anne Rea Jewell Prize for Nonfiction, and creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Alabama State Council on the Arts. He’s currently a professor of creative writing at Texas Tech University. To help introduce Dennis Covington’s reading in the podcast is his fellow 2016 Festival speaker Chris Hoke, author of WANTED: A SPIRITUAL PURSUIT THROUGH JAIL, AMONG OUTLAWS, AND ACROSS BORDERS. Chris is a writer, gang pastor, and jail chaplain in the Pacific Northwest. You can learn more about his writing and his work with gang members in and outside of jail at www.chris-hoke.com.