…about Catholic Fiction
After a period of seeming dormancy, the topic of Catholic Fiction—what it is (or isn’t), its history, its current state, its usefulness as a literary category—has become increasingly discussed both in print and on the internet. The purpose of this page is to provide links to this ongoing conversation, and will of course include essays and comments with which we here at Idylls Press/CatholicFiction.net do not necessarily agree…more’s the fun!
The list will be ordered by date, most recent first. When the list gets too long to load easily, which it will soon, I’ll divide it into subpages by date:
2011, February: “Flannery O’Connor on the Banning of Books in High Schools” by Andrew Ellison, CERC (Catholic Education Resource Center)
2010, April: “Move Over Greene, Waugh and Belloc: Catholic Fiction outside the western world” by Roy Peachey, The Catholic Herald (UK)
2009, Fall: “Faith Noir: On Graham Greene and the Catholic Novel” by Jessica Seguiera, The Harvard Advocate
2009, Oct 12: “After Alice” by Robert E. Lawder in America magazine.
2009. Feb 10: “In the Shadows of Greeneland” by Mark Lawson on Veritas blog, reprinted from The Tablet
2008, Sept 24: “Story vs Plot: Good and Bad Reasons to Read a Novel“ by Santiago Ramos, Image Journal blog
2008. Sept: “Communication, Consecration and the Catholic Novel” by Prof. Lenn Statile, 2008 Theocom Conference at St. John’s University in Queens, NY.
2008, Aug 29: “The State of Catholic Letters, by Gregory Wolfe, Image Journal blog
- Part 1: Deja Vu All Over Again
- Part 2: Shouts or Whispers?
- Part 3: The Whiskey Priest Meets Charming Billy
- Part 4: Generations Lost…and Found
2007, Nov. 6: “The Catholic Novel is Alive and Well in England” by Marian Crowe, First Things online.
2007. Sept. 6: “Catholic Fiction“, Catholic Bibliophagist blog.
2006, Aug 28: “Fiction v. Nonfiction“, Flos Carmeli blog
2005: “The Catholic Fiction Problem is a Marketing Problem“, by Regina Doman on ReginaDoman.com
2005, Oct 17: “Where is Contemporary Catholic Fiction?“, Jim Manney, People of the Book blog
2003, Jan 9: “On the Necessity of Standards”, Flos Carmeli blog
2002, Nov 3: “Literature as Evangelism“, Flos Carmeli blog
2002, Aug 1: “Catholic Novel, cont’d”, Flos Carmeli blog
2002, Jan/Feb: “The Writer of Our Story: Divine Providence in The Lord of the Rings” by David Mills
1999, Apr 1: “A Different Discipline: The American Catholic Novel“, by Gerald R. Russello, in Renascence Journal
1995, December: “On Being a Catholic Writer” by Ralph McInerny, in Crisis magazine.
1989 (date unknown): Walker Percy speech (YouTube) upon receiving Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal.
1981, January 18: “Should Novels Argue?” by Denis Donoghue, The New York Times.
1980s (date unknown): “Who is an American Black, Catholic or Jewish Writer?“ by David R. Mayer of Nanzan University, Japan.
1929: “On the Novel with a Purpose“ by G.K. Chesterton, from The Thing: Why I am a Catholic.
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