Matthew Chapman

Matthew Chapman, author of Trials of the Monkey, is an atheist (but not a "new" one), a lineal descendant of Charles Darwin, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, a respectful observer of life in Dayton, Tennessee, and a respecter of the humanity of those fellow humans who happen to believe in a divine universal creation. He believes atheists and religious believers should be able to coexist (his answer to the question posed over at the other blog this morning.) Evolution is "everybody's story," but not everybody warms thankfully to it as the spiritual core of our common narrative. Darwin's boy thinks that may be okay.

Here he is at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, in 2001. (btw: I was on the program that year too, plugging my then-new William James book. Wish I'd got his autograph!)