Courage to Believe: Silas House returns for the 2026 Festival of Faiths

By Lauren Taylor Carr & Kevin Murphy Wilson • Photos Provided

Over the course of his lengthy literary career, Silas House has frequently explored the uneasy intersections of religion, identity, community and belonging, often challenging the cultural and political forces shaping his native Kentucky while celebrating the people and landscapes that make it home. We recently caught up with the celebrated novelist by phone for a quick conversation tied to his participation in this year’s Festival of Faiths gathering, which once again unfolds at several prominent venues in downtown Louisville between November 11-13.

VOICE-TRIBUNE: The theme for the 2026 Festival of Faiths is "Sacred Courage." What does that phrase mean to you personally?

SILAS HOUSE: “The first thing that comes to mind is service, and the way that I think faith requires service. We talk a lot these days about how damaging organized religion has been, and it has been to a lot of people. But it has also been of service to a whole lot of people, and it's done tremendous good in the world. It's not just inherently bad or inherently good, but it contains both those things. I think about the way people of faith have mobilized around issues and changed the world, fed the hungry, participated in social justice movements and been a force for good in the community.”

VT: With Wendell Berry's passing, Kentucky lost one of its great literary and moral voices. What did you learn from him?

SH: “He taught me that it's okay to not be a fashionable writer. He wrote about things that I cared deeply about and that I write about. He also taught me about walking the walk and not just talking the talk. If you want to change things, then you have to be part of the change. When I was a young writer, he held my feet to the fire on that, and I'm glad he did.”

VT: Your new novel, The Tulip Poplars, explores forbidden love in the 20th century. How does it connect to the questions of faith and identity that seem to have followed you around for so long?

SH: “I always wanted to write a big, sweeping epic. If you're providing a big story, though, you also need to be examining big themes. And that's as big as it gets: love and belief. I don't think I could write a gay love story set during the 20th century and not think about the way religion had an impact on the lives of queer people. Even people who never went to church, their notions of queerness still would have been shaped by churches and preachers.”

VT: As you alluded to earlier, religion can inspire extraordinary compassion but also exclusion and division. How do you reconcile those contradictions?

SH: “Organized religion is complex, and it's easy for us to vilify it or make caricatures of people of faith. But it's more complicated than that. It's our job as novelists to explore all those complexities and not operate in absolutes. One of the most interesting things about being human is belief and doubt and everything in between. Most people are either people of faith or they've at least grappled with it at some point. It's a huge part of the human condition, and it needs to be written about.”

VT: What did you make of your friend [Kentucky Governor] Andy Beshear’s recent writing on the subject?

SH: “Well, I'm really glad to see the governor more forcibly taking on faith. His book [Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country] very much revolves around his faith, and I think especially faith as a means of service, and the way that his faith is such a huge part of him as a public servant and the way it guides him to try to serve others. I just love the way that the book keeps coming back to things like, ‘I am accepting of others because of my faith, not in spite of it.’ Or, ‘I welcome the immigrant because of my faith, not in opposition to it.’ I think he's making a great point about how so much of politics has lost its way and that religion has been weaponized against the very people that Christ so often speaks of helping. When I was growing up, we had such a presence of the religious left. And over the last decade or so, we've allowed the right to sort of totally take that, and the left has separated itself from religion and faith to a fault. And so I'm glad to see people like Governor Beshear and James Talarico entangling faith and politics again.”

For more information, visit FestivalofFaiths.org.