Category Archives: Flannery O’Connor

Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics is out!

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics,” my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better is now LIVE and available for purchase on Amazon Kindle

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” is a call to arms, or rather, a call to pens, paintbrushes, and video cameras, for creative Catholics to take up St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s call to infiltrate pop culture and help alleviate the ills that pervade contemporary society. St. Maximilian saw back in the 1920s how the use of cinema, radio, and mass-market books was corrupting society. He thought that those same tools could be used as a countercultural force to overcome this corruption. 

 

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Furthermore, it explains through the example of three critical apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima how she herself suggested strategies and alternatives to the dehumanizing and increasingly pagan contemporary culture we have today.

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” concludes by showing how the Catholic Faith can be used to provide a road map out of our current morass and a blueprint to build a more just and fair society constructed according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and other elements of traditional Catholic Social Teachings.

You can keep up to date on developments such as when it becomes available in paperback as well as through other distribution channels by checking its website or ‘liking’ its Facebook Page.

 

NOTE: This book is an expanded and revised version of a previously published book entitled, “The Catholicpunk Manifesto.” The text of that book is mostly contained in Chapters V and VI of this work, as well as the Appendices A through C and E, with parts of it in the Preface and earlier chapters.)

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

The Catholicpunk Manifesto: now available almost everywhere!

The other day I announced a new book I wrote. Well, distribution of The Catholicpunk Manifesto has increased! You can now obtain an ebook copy for yourself through Amazon Kindle and through (as of now) a half-dozen or so other digital publishing sites via Books2Read: click here for the list of these additional options.

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There will be a paperback version, but I have to work out some issues with Amazon and Draft2Digital. The paperback edition should be available (hopefully) within a week or two? NOTE: Draft2Digital is a company that offers self-publishing opportunities to a growng number of people who seek to diversify away from (or in addition to) Amazon. I love Amazon, most of my sales for The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics and The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts come from them. But, it is prudent not to have all your beer bottles on one cooler, as they say, and Draft2Digital offers distribution to a wide array of epub sites. For those ‘in the know,’ I had used Smashwords previously as my Amazon alternative; Draft2Digital acquired Smashwords in 2021 and is slowly merging accounts. Within a few months, by Smashwords account will be merged into my Draft2Digital one, and my Smashwords storefront will have a new look.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Writing to discover

In my exploration of the culture of Catholic writing, I’ve been reading Flannery O’Connor.

I find much inspiration in her approach to writing as a Catholic and I’ve discovered two quotes of hers that I can relate to. I think all writers need inspiring quotes from other writers to keep themselves going. 😉

I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it again.

I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

Both are via QOTD.org.

I’ve discovered what Miss O’Connor talks about stir within me as I write. I sometimes do not know where I am going with the plot until the plot itself takes me there. This may sound odd, but I think other writers will understand this.

While I am writing, stuff from deep within me wells up from its dwelling place and pours forth into the story. It could be something autobiographical, some minor bit from my past brought out for character or plot development, or something I’ve read that is an interest of mine that fills a need for the story.

Like the novel that I’m working in that I mentioned in this post. The original story idea was to explore why something at work might have happened; but the story has borrowed heavily from my beliefs and interests. I had no idea that they’d have to be made manifest in it. This might make more sense if I discussed the particular story details, but I’m not going to for the moment. The story started out as one thing, and as I wondered about this or that, I just drew upon miscellaneous knowledge of mine, and finally they’ve fleshed out the plot to be something greater than the original intent. The original idea is still there and is at the crux of the plot. But the novel is becoming so much more than the original idea.

And I’m loving the fact that as the story is progressing, plotlines are now coalescing into a cohesive whole; there are coming together at an appropriate point to give the novel direction. Rather than a whole bunch of different plots all contained in the same file, they are now giving the novel its identity. Meaning, I think I’m at that point where readers will enter into the “meat” of the plot. All the main characters have been introduced, the plots laid down and now stuff is happening to drive it forward towards its conclusion.

Which I have no idea how it will end, but thats OK. Based upon what Miss O’Connor said up above, the ending is somewhere within me, waiting to be discovered.

To paraphrase Miss O’Connor: I will write the novel to discover what the ending is. I won’t know what the ending is until I see it. (And this next may fall under my belief that “writing is therapy”, and I won’t paraphrase her, but repeat the quote): I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)

Flannery O’Connor—Catholic writer

Flannery O’Connor died fifty years ago today. She was, and remains, an American writer of great talent. I say “remains,” because she lives on in her work; she has achieved immortality and her work is alive and vibrant to this day. If you are an American Catholic with writing aspirations, or even writing accomplishments, please become acquainted with her stories if you are not already. You will learn quite a lot about the writing craft and what it means to be a Catholic writer.

Miss O’Connor said, “The Catholic novel is not necessarily about a Christianized or Catholicized world, but one in which the truth as Christians know it has been used as a light to see the world by.”

More on that here: Flannery O’Connor’s Religion and Literature: Dogma and its Implications for Art, by Tami England Flaum.

Her fiction is collected in three volumes, her two novels ‘Wise Blood” and “The Violent Bear It Away.” Her short stories are all collected now in one volume, titled appropriately, “The Complete Stories.” There are several collections of her non-fiction, most notably, “The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor.”

I have only recently become familiar with her. Despite having the above four books in my library for several years, I only just read “Wise Blood” this past week, and am now happily making my way through her “Complete Stories.” I won’t be doing reviews any time soon, I doubt I’m qualified. 😉

The point of this post is this: if one is a Catholic writer and is interested in building up and developing an authentic American Catholic culture, and follows Pope St. John Paul II’s suggestions that Christian art should infuse contemporary culture with the message of the Gospel, then one should study Miss O’Connor’s writings. She’s a good teacher.

If Catholic writers do participate in culture-building, we must look to what those who have gone before us have done. We learn from them, offer to the body of culture what we can uniquely contribute and in turn hope that our work survives on to enrich another generation. The living body of American Catholicism adds to the wonderful breath of diversity that is global Catholicism, offering people an alternative to the sterile materialistic secular order.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)