Dear Reader:
I’ve become editor in chief of Image at an exciting moment: our hundredth issue prints this week. It’s a historic extra-thick volume built around the theme of artistic friendship, rivalry, and collaboration, and it celebrates Image’s anniversary by meditating on the ways friendship sustains, provokes, and inspires artists and writers.
The new issue is a reflection of thirty years of God-haunted art—and also a sign of what’s to come. So now is the perfect time to become a subscriber. Act soon, and your subscription will begin with our hundredth issue. And you’ll get a great deal. For a limited time, new Image subscriptions are $24—that’s 40 percent off regular price (add $10 outside the US).
I took on this role at Image because I believe that the arts can remind us of what it means to be human. I believe that poets and painters fired by the Spirit will be the ones to refresh our vision and help us see ourselves—and our neighbors—anew. Image has always made space for this, and as we celebrate our thirtieth anniversary, we’re reinvesting in that mission with a new sense of collaborative energy.
Going forward, Image is being shaped by a remarkable team that has joined us at this intersection of art, faith, and mystery: people like Shane McCrae, Joan Silber, Chigozie Obioma, Leslie Jamison, Dina Nyeri, Emily Bernard, Phil Klay, and more. We’re also drawing on old friends of the journal like Lauren Winner, Christian Wiman, Scott Cairns, and Carolyn Forché. They’ve invested their talents in Image. Don’t you want to invest in a subscription?
Image occupies a unique place in the literary landscape as the oldest literary journal to feature work that engages with faith, and one that unapologetically upholds the highest writing standards. Since 1989, we’ve published writers like Annie Dillard, Ron Hansen, Elie Wiesel, Kathleen Norris, Marilynne Robinson, Mary Oliver, Li-Young Lee, George Saunders, and Chimamanda Adichie. Going forward, we’ll draw on our deep editorial bench to keep bringing you the best-loved and brand-new voices grappling with the mystery at the heart of faith. We’ll also feature and celebrate visual artists in new and exciting ways.
If you’ve subscribed in the past but let your subscription lapse, this is an ideal time to get back into the conversation.
If we’re new to you, you haven’t really experienced Image until you’ve held one our beautiful print editions in your hands. I think you’ll find that it enriches your reading life, stretches your imagination, and expands your capacity to see and appreciate the sparks of the divine everywhere. I know that’s been true for me.
And I’m not alone. Acclaimed poet Katie Ford calls Image “a brilliant, crucial journal.” Rowan Williams writes, “Image shows the seriousness of the language of faith in keeping the human world large and difficult and interesting.” And Lauren Winner says, “Whenever I put down an issue of Image, I find that my sense of wonder has deepened.”
As always, your subscription gets you four issues of thought-provoking, soul-stirring content by new and decorated writers—the usual mix of moving, honest, funny, challenging, daring, meditative creative work at the places where art, faith, and mystery collide.
As always, your print subscription includes web access to a rich backlog of material from our archives—including fiction by Shusaku Endo and Mary Gordon, poems by Mark Jarman and Marilyn Nelson, interviews with Dana Gioia and Eugene Peterson, and much more. All this for 40 percent off our regular subscription rates.
Won’t you join us? Subscribe now to take advantage of this offer in time to get issue 100.
Yours sincerely,
James K.A. Smith
Editor in Chief, Image
Offer not available on gift subscriptions or renewals. Offer not available retroactively. Add $10 for non-US print subscriptions. Sales tax applies in Washington State.
What They’re Saying
“Image occupies a unique place in the religion/arts world. No other journal manages to maintain such academic integrity while at the same time avoiding theological jargon. No other journal manages to offer such depth while still remaining comprehensible to a general readership. No other journal manages to be so provocative while also being so full of common sense. And no other journal in this field begins to match Image for quality of presentation. A major achievement with a rich and promising future.”
—Jeremy Begbie, Thomas A. Langford Research Professor in Theology, Duke Divinity School
“Just read the last copy of Image on Tuesday. So beautiful. The writing. The design. The art. All of it.”
—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
“Image is the most meaningful literary journal being published today. Each issue brings us back into an understanding that art pierces the surface of our lives to illuminate the soul; that art is, indeed, a redemptive gift from God.”
—Bret Lott, author of Jewel
“This magazine fills a real gap in the area of art and religion, and I am convinced that for many people this journal will be a very important source of better understanding of the deep links between art and religion.”
—Henri J.M. Nouwen, author of Behold the Beauty of the Lord
“You have produced something that is fine, beautiful, and commendable. God certainly is not in need of your help, but if He were to venture an opinion I'm fairly sure that He would smile upon all that you have done. In looking over Image, I confess, I felt a sense of grace, something borne in the air, something wonderfully and almost inexplicably buoyant. My response is to say to you, Kol HaKavod, which means, in Hebrew, ‘All the honor is yours.’”
—Mark Helprin, author of A Soldier of the Great War
“Image is a realistic, valuable, and extraordinarily interesting magazine. Its writing and artwork is simple, direct, and without pretension—like the best of all American writing. It deserves generous support—and applause.”
—Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
“Reading Image is like entering a room full of unpretentious, smart friends talking about fascinating questions. The magazine is not only beautiful; it's probing, thoughtful, and wise about art, politics, and the life of faith. I need Image, and I'm not surprised so many other people do, too.”
—Jeanne Murray Walker, poet and playwright, author of The Queen’s Two Bodies
“Image is a daring project, filled with the highest promise. Our nation’s high culture, which is increasingly uncertain about what distinguishes high from low, is perhaps ready to be pointed toward the humane and humanizing understanding of the arts that has been in the past, and can be in the future, nurtured by biblical faith.”
—Richard John Neuhaus, author of The Naked Public Square
“Image is the most exciting new journal I’ve seen...a beacon, a lighthouse for Christians involved in the arts.... Perhaps, like Eliot’s quarterly, it will influence an entire generation. It has that potential.”
—Larry Woiwode, novelist, author of Beyond the Bedroom Wall
“A first-class journal in every aspect—graphics, design, and most importantly, content...a rare and valuable prize.”
—Dan Wakefield, author of Returning: A Spiritual Journey
“Image is compelling. I've seen nothing like it.”
—Bill Moyers, Public Affairs Television, Inc.
“A beautiful magazine.”
—Madeleine L’Engle, Newbery Award-winning author