Diana Butler Bass with Week One Chaplain Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and commentator on religion and contemporary spirituality. Her latest book, A Beautiful Year, won the 2026 Wilbur Prize, her unprecedented third. Diana’s passion is sharing great ideas to change lives and the world—from informing the public about spiritual trends, challenging conventional narratives about religious practice, and entering the fray of social media with spiritual wisdom and smart theology, to writing books to help readers see themselves, their place in history, and God differently. She does this with intelligence, joy, and a good dose of humor as noted by Glennon Doyle, John Fugelsang and the late Marcus Borg among other admirers. Diana is the author of twelve books, and her bylines include The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, USA Today, Huffington Post, Spirituality and Health, Reader’s Digest, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has been seen on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, and in TIME, Newsweek and Rolling Stone among many international outlets. Her weekly religion column (1993-2003) was distributed nationally by The New York Times Syndicate. Diana currently co-hosts “The Convocation Unscripted,” a podcast on religion and politics, and writes The Cottage, a top-five Substack newsletter in “Faith & Spirituality.” Diana holds a doctorate in religious studies from Duke University and her work has received numerous awards across many organizations and universities including Publishers Weekly’s Best Religion Book of the Year. She and her husband live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their dog, Paddy, and their sometimes-successful backyard garden.