"Peer into the private life of the man behind the Bible Design Blog phenomenon": My Interview with The Bible Exchange
When you graduate from creative writing school, along with your diploma you receive a poetic license, a picture ID card that gives you the freedom to speak with unearned authority on whatever subject catches your fancy. I've used mine extensively over the years. (This is a true story: a publisher once told me I didn't have the right kind of degree to have have written the book I'd just written. "Au contraire," I said, sporting my sophistication. I have the kind that lets me pontificate on every subject under the sun.) If you harbor any doubts about this predilection for pontificating -- though if you've read this far, it's hard to imagine you do -- check out the interview I did over the weekend for the Bible Exchange. They asked a lot of good questions about Bibles, and threw in some curve balls covering everything from desert islands to future fiction to favorite color. And I swung at every pitch, naturally.
Here's the link: The Bible Exchange: "17 Questions with J. Mark Bertrand"
I'd like to thank Paul Tanca and Bobby Hanson for making it possible, and Matthew Everhard and Randy Brown for helping out. Also, special thanks to everyone who suggested questions! There were some great ones in the mix that got me thinking.
J. Mark Bertrand is a novelist and pastor whose writing on Bible design has helped spark a publishing revolution. Mark is the author of Rethinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in This World (Crossway, 2007), as well as the novels Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds, and Nothing to Hide—described as a “series worth getting attached to” (Christianity Today) by “a major crime fiction talent” (Weekly Standard) in the vein of Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, and Henning Mankell.
Mark has a BA in English Literature from Union University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and an M.Div. from Heidelberg Theological Seminary. Through his influential Bible Design Blog, Mark has championed a new generation of readable Bibles. He is a founding member of the steering committee of the Society of Bible Craftsmanship, and chairs the Society’s Award Committee. His work was featured in the November 2021 issue of FaithLife’s Bible Study Magazine.
Mark also serves on the board of Worldview Academy, where he has been a member of the faculty of theology since 2003. Since 2017, he has been an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He and his wife Laurie life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
