Welcome to my online home.
I’m a writer, painter, teacher, mother, editor, and translator. My most recent writing training was in Duke’s Ph.D. program in Religious studies, and before that in the MFA program at Cornell. Long before that, there was Mr. Gillespie’s senior English class. For samples of poems and essays, see the Words page.
My most recent paintings are from a show in Portland, Oregon (“Toward Beauty”; see the Art page). I started drawing when my mother first refused to draw the horses I wanted to color, and had me draw my own; later, she found a Hungarian illustrator to teach me. Frau Scholz taught me, by fiery repetition, that “drawing is seeing.”
Geographically, home is partly Portland, Oregon, and partly Gomaringen, near Tübingen, in southern Germany, where my father was earning a doctorate in theology during my teenage years. I have followed in his footsteps: after a master’s thesis on theology and beauty, I finished doctoral work in the spring of 2018, in the theology track of the Religious Studies department (still at Duke) on the French philosopher-activist Simone Weil and the German printmaker and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, and the way they understand attention as the best (or only real) response to suffering.
I’ve explored the connection between beauty and God in short meditative pieces, read near the beginning of worship services at Imago Dei, in Portland. Some samples of these are on the Words page under Liturgical.
This website was built by Tom George, whose work and creative generosity I cannot recommend highly enough. His online home is spentboon.com.
Since building the website, I’ve gotten married and had two children. I took my husband’s name and use it in private life, but for writing and other professional pursuits I still use Stephanie Gehring.
The process of helping to design the website has made my life flash awake to me. I hope that in these pages you will find moments of respite and awakeness of your own. (And that you stumble on some of the treasures Tom has hidden in the details.)
I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email.
