Deesha Philyaw reads award-winning stories for Kelly Writers Series – The DePauw newspaper

On behalf of the Kelly Writers Series, DePauw University welcomed award-winning writer Deesha Philyaw on Feb. 11. The achievements of Philyaw’s debut short collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, include the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prize and a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. Philyaw joined students in a class, had an informal lunch and entertained audience members at the reading event in the evening. 

The night started with a reading of the first chapter of Philyaw’s new novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman. The book, which is planned to be published later this year, is centered around the wife of a Megachurch pastor. Both comical and sensational, the audience found themselves laughing and closely paying attention to what was about to come next. 

Philyaw also read part of “Eula,” the opening story of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. 

In the Q&A session that followed, Philyaw answered questions frankly and without hesitation. When asked about the TV show adaptation of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, she revealed that the initial contract she had with HBO Max had been cancelled. While her agent is currently looking for a new host, after already writing the first two episodes, she said, “It is still very much alive in my heart.”

Many audience members were intrigued by how Philyaw brought her characters and the world in her book alive. One audience member asked whether characters in her stories were based on real people she knew. Philyaw said that none of the characters are based on a single individual because she doesn’t want anyone she knows to feel like they have been written about in her book. She also revealed that her mother and her grandmother, both single mothers, were her greatest inspirations and that there are sentiments of people she knows in her characters. The questions of faith that she continuously explores in her books come from her own inquiries about religious practices and her experiences attending church while growing up. 

Multiple classes at DePauw teach her book, and this event gave many students and faculty an opportunity to talk to the writer they have been closely engaged with. 

The next Kelly Writers Series will invite Deborah Jackson Taffa on March 11, 2026.