The multitalented Barbara Hall has made her presence known in the movie, television, and literary industries. Though her projects may seem vastly different, her faith and desire to understand how the world operates can be seen in all of them. What makes her work so appealing to different audiences is that she tries to promote compassion and debate, instead of imposing ideas on the reader.
Here, Barbara Hall shares what has continued to inspire her work in both film and literature:
A lifelong fascination with mystics, particularly Joan of Arc, has led me to study and explore visionaries, metaphysics and physics. I am also interested in callings and charisms. A near-death experience after a violent crime in 1996 led to a three-year study of world religion, resulting in conversion to Catholicism. It also led me to years of treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which took me deeply into the world of therapy. When these two worlds began to run on parallel tracks, I became interested in how they serve and conflict with each other. . . . Since then, most of my writing has included a spiritual or metaphysical element. How to be “in the world and not of it” is a concept I will continue to explore both in life and art.
I’ve always been intrigued by the notion that modern day callings and visions would mostly be ignored or drugged by modern day standards. This is the story of a visionary who somehow slipped through the cracks.
Science and religion have become enemies since the advent of NASA and penicillin. But this divorce is a recent one. Whenever people talk about the division between science and religion, they enter into the discussion as if these two entities have always been at war. The war between science and religion is a recent and unnecessary one.
Hall created the popular television show Joan of Arcadia, in which she explored the idea of who Joan of Arc would be if she lived in the present day. Similarly, her novel Charismafocuses on the plight of Sarah Lange, a woman plagued by heavenly voices that urge her to end her life. To dampen her desire to do as they say, she checks herself into a hospital, under the care of Dr. David Sutton. A strict adherent to science, he initially refuses to entertain the notion that Sarah’s voices are anything more than mental delusions. But over the course of her stay, they slowly develop an understanding, despite their opposing beliefs about the explained and the unknowable. Their relationship becomes about more than just saving Sarah, but about saving each other.
Whether or not you agree with Hall’s stance on religion, the presence of faith in her novels and her questioning of society’s accepted ideals make for interesting discussion about her work. Learn more about the incredibly talented Barbara Hall and her ebooks.