The Catholic Writer Today

Dana Gioia's recent essay, "The Catholic Writer Today," has energized the Catholic literary conversation. My goal in writing The Fine Delight and maintaining this website has been to investigate the strands of American postconciliar literature and culture, so I am especially pleased to see one of our country's best known and most capable critics bring an essential contribution to this conversation.

Joshua Hren, who was recently interviewed for this site, has published an expanded version of Gioia's essay as a monograph from Wiseblood Books. My advance copy arrived today. Beautiful design, layout, and typeface compliment the charged ideas contained within: I highly recommend this examination of contemporary literary Catholicism. Gioia's essay has already spurred great debate--intellectual, learned debate--and that's exactly what we need to move Catholic literature into future generations.

The book can be pre-ordered here.