Phyllis Tickle: A Life

By the time of her death in 2015, Phyllis Tickle was one of the most beloved and respected figures in American religious life, and her writing offers a unique combination of the down-to-earth, deep spirituality, and scholarship. In this comprehensive biography, Jon Sweeney, official biographer of Tickle’s literary estate, explores every aspect of her life, a more than 50-year legacy of poetry; plays; literary, spiritual, and historical/theological work; and advocacy.

Sweeney examines Tickle’s personal and professional roots, from her family, long marriage, and life on The Farm in Lucy, Tennessee, to early academic career and move into book publishing, where her role as founding editor of the Religion Department at Publishers Weekly influenced the growth of spiritual writing and interfaith understanding during the 1990s. Sweeney also looks at pivotal relationships with John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and Brian McLaren, as well as her great influence on the increasing number who adopted fixed-hour prayer, the Episcopal Church as a whole, and the Emerging Church, for which she served as historian, forecaster, and champion. A look at her early, passionate advocacy for the LGBT community, lecture circuit controversies, and projects left unfinished completes the picture.