The portrait that emerged from those letters of the two of them in each other’s company, apprenticing themselves to the things that they loved-that was really attractive to me. Their mother had died, and their father was busy with his own work, so they got to spend their mornings doing what they wanted, which was painting for Vanessa and reading and writing for Virginia. What really came through in those letters was this sense of Virginia and her sister trying to make themselves into artists. It was just like reading a novel-there was this whole cast of characters that kept showing up again and again, and Woolf’s voice was so vivid. I can remember sitting on an old couch under the eaves of my parents’ house, wrapped in a blanket, reading these letters all throughout the break. And I just got completely caught up in those letters. My first winter break home from college, my mother gave me the first volume of her letters as a Christmas present. But I found her novels very difficult when I was young. Stephanie Paulsell: Virginia Woolf was always somebody that I wanted to read and wanted to like. HDS student Sarah Fleming sat down with Paulsell to discuss religious reading practices, books as portable pilgrimages, and what reading Woolf can teach us today.īulletin: To start, how did you first come to Woolf? Approaching Woolf’s novels and essays as sacred text, Paulsell situates Woolf as a religious thinker-and writer-for our time.

Her latest book, Religion Around Virginia Woolf, explores the religious milieu that surrounded Woolf throughout her life, from her evangelical heritage to the artistic communities she fostered. Stephanie Paulsell is the Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies at Harvard Divinity School and interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church of Harvard University.

Valovi by Virginia Woolf