Emily Ruth Mace

Emily Ruth Mace is co-editor-in-chief at KtB. She's a freelance editor, writer and religious studies alt-academic with an interest in religious liberalism and life at the borders of traditional religion and spirituality. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University and a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. In addition to KtB, her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Mama, Religion Dispatches, the Chronicle Vitae, and others. A one-time bicoastal resident of California and New England, she currently lives outside Chicago, and can be found online at emilyrmace.com and Tweeting occasionally at @lemilym.

Recent Posts by Emily Ruth

Emily Mace places flowers at the memorials for the 7 killed in the Highland Park parade shooting. Photo credit: CNN Politics

Flowers for Fireworks

The Highland Park I knew blurs with the Highland Park that so recently was, and yet the memorials that frame the ends of this street reveal the Highland Park that we will yet be.

Raking__Hope-emily-ruth-mace

Raking Hope

This simple act of caring for my home in order to prepare for winter feels like an absurd act of hope.

an empty cracked egg with a downy feather attached

The Empty Tomb

How could we anticipate something so seemingly simple as peace, when something as violent as a virus is tearing through our lives, our traditions, our loves?

Cover of Albert Camus, The Plague, showing a photo of a man with a red plague mask drawn over his face.

Camus’ The Plague: Coronavirus Quotes

Do all you can to fight plague where you find it, and don’t forget to love: a selection of some of the most relevant quotes from Camus’ The Plague for a time of coronavirus.

KtB's default image surrounded by floating images of the coronavirus

The Times We’re Living In

Trying times are liminal times; they’re not meant to be a new normal. When we’re in one, we only know what came before and what we’re facing; we cannot know, yet, what comes next.

The Good Place

Getting to the Good Place

Can moral philosophy get Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani to the Good Place, or do we need to talk, first, about salvation?

All in the Interfaith Family

Susan Katz Miller talks about “how to be the most joyful and creative and successful interfaith family you can be, whatever that looks like.”

Paris is Burning

Rebuilding is not the same as loss; scar tissue is not the same as history.

Killing the Buddha

Perseverance of the Editors

I’ve always been startled by the variety of writing that appears between the digital “covers” of this magazine: features, criticism, commentary, fiction, and personal essays—but never anything so ordinary as all that for KtB.

When Wax Softens, Light Shines Through

Purchasing the little nativity scene convinced me that I had unfinished business with the religion of my youth.

Seeing Directly Through the Clouds

Chicago, Illinois.

The Endless Watch

On fighting complacency in America.

Silver Bells

Reading The Polar Express in the wake of mass shootings.

Showering in Eden

A transparent eyeball in the Panama jungle.