December 2023 | LISLE, IL—Sandra L. Glahn has signed a two-book contract with IVP Academic for the spring 2026 release of A Woman’s Place Is in the Story. Her second contracted book, a work in biblical studies yet to be determined, will release at a later date.
Alexandra Horn, marketing manager for IVP Academic, said, “There is scholarship that moves scholarship forward, and then there’s scholarship that has the potential to heal the church. Sandra L. Glahn is a rare and superb scholar whose work has the ability to do both.”
Glahn (PhD, University of Texas at Dallas) is professor of media arts and worship at Dallas Theological Seminary, where her emphases are first-century backgrounds related to women, culture, gender, and the arts. She has authored or edited more than twenty books, including Vindicating the Vixens, Earl Grey with Ephesians, Sanctified Sexuality (coeditor), Sexual Intimacy in Marriage (coauthor), and most recently Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament.
“Working with Sandra Glahn on her stellar book Nobody’s Mother has been a career highlight for me personally, as I daresay that book will be a highlight for readers,” said Jon Boyd, acquiring editor and IVP’s academic editorial director. “Her meticulous scholarship behind the scenes is matched by her skilled attention to the craft of writing, so I’m frankly reveling in the prospect of reading her next manuscript.”
In Nobody’s Mother Glahn combined spiritual autobiography with scholarly exploration to take readers on a journey to ancient Ephesus and across early church history. Ultimately, she lays a biblical foundation for men and women serving side by side in the church.
Boyd said, “Nobody’s Mother zoomed all the way in on Ephesus, and her next book zooms way back out to consider the biggest arcs of Scripture’s narrative, and how women are present in them, not segregated off to the side. Glahn knows how to read a story (just as she knows how to write one), so her insights should be golden.”
Glahn’s next book, A Woman’s Place Is in the Story, will provide a broader view of the role of women in the whole of Scripture. Glahn said, “First, we had men’s history. As a corrective, we added women’s history. Now it’s time to integrate the two. Women in the Bible are participants in the grand narrative rather than missing altogether or stars of isolated cameos. A woman’s place is in the story. She’s not absent from it nor is she a sidebar. This work will explore how women of the Bible appear in their literary contexts—that is, how their narratives fit as part of a whole.”
Glahn says that she is passionate about subjects relating to women, gender, and justice. This focus came out of the decade that Sandra and her husband spent going through infertility and pregnancy loss. “Our trauma led me to take a closer look at the Scriptures and their blueprint for marriage, women, gender, the human body, and bioethics,” Glahn said. “The answers I found drove me to look more closely at the cultural backgrounds that influence biblical texts that relate to these topics. I love helping people engage their hearts and minds in these important issues.”
Glahn is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary Inc. Both titles will have world rights.
Contact: Krista Clayton, kclayton@ivpress.com
