Sarah Rosenson, "Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026)
About this episode
Sarah Rosenson discusses her book on the intersection of creative writing and biblical interpretation through the lens of the Book of Genesis.
Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation? That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026). The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing. Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a…
People in this episode
Guest: Sarah Rosenson
Topics covered
- biblical interpretation
- creative writing
- fan fiction
- midrash
- close reading
- literary analysis
Keywords
- biblical interpretation
- fan fiction
- midrash
- creative writing
- Genesis
- literary analysis
- close reading
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Cherry Orchard Books
Books & works: Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible, Genesis
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