Wow! In Pieces was named a past years honorable mention in the inaugural Catholic Reads Reader’s Choice Award. Thank you, Catholic Reads for hosting the award, and thank you to my readers, for voting it in!

This essay began as a note to my newsletter subscribers and ballooned into this. Over at Dappled Things:

Andrea (not her real name) is my new, doctor-prescribed psychotherapist. Because I have bipolar disorder and ADHD, I have the pleasure of visiting medical offices with the words “behavioral health” blazoned upon the signage. I had skipped out on psychotherapy for months after my previous therapist left the practice, but when the erratic mood swings, paranoia, and suicidal ideations started happening, my psychiatrist insisted I get back down to business.

Read the rest here.

Plot twist! I’ve been sitting on this news for a few months. From the official announcement:

With a mingling of gratitude, grief, and joy, I [Katy Carl] write this to let you all know that SS. Peter & Paul 2024 is my final issue as editor in chief of Dappled Things magazine. After this issue, I will remain on the magazine’s board as editor emeritus—serving in an advisory capacity, but no longer involved in the journal’s day-to-day decision making and operations. But it is with great trust and relief that I hand this responsibility over to our incoming editor in chief, Rhonda Ortiz.

The invitation to become editor in chief of Dappled Things shocked me, and some time passed before I could entertain the idea—not because being editor in chief didn’t interest me, but because I believed I couldn’t rise to the occasion. Imposter Syndrome is my old friend, you see, and Imposter Syndrome thinks I am neither intelligent nor educated nor talented nor “literati” enough to lead a respected literary magazine.

But Imposter Syndrome is a liar. Hard things are always worth doing, especially at this time of life. Complacency hovers along the edges of middle age, when life is busy and bodies are tired and opinions are largely fixed. And underneath complacency is fear: fear of learning something new, fear of my own ignorance, fear of public opinion, fear of not being taken seriously, fear of failure.

Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.

This challenge is exactly what I need. I am glad I said yes.

What does this mean for my writing? Good things, I hope! The questions, “Is this too much?” and, “Will she ever finish Molly Chase?” have easy answers. The editor in chief position is new for me, but I was already working for Dappled Things, and others will take over my previous duties. And I firmly believe my writing will benefit from the time sitting in the chief’s chair. Behold, my continuing education:

In Adrift, Josiah makes a passing narratorial comment about poetry not being his forte. He is echoing his authoress here, for I am no poet. My mind works differently; I’ve never thought in meter and verse. Yet here I am, studying poetics for the first time since college—not because anyone at Dappled Things is worried (we have a talented poetry editor) but because I want to be excellent in all areas of my job.

Hopefully these efforts roll over into Molly Chase. A little poetry can only help, and never hurt. Right?

Otherwise, I will be spending more time with my frenemy, The Chicago Manual of Style; catching up on Catholic literary greats and rising stars, and reading more Substacks than I would ever have anticipated. And submissions. Lots and lots of submissions.

Check out Dappled Things and subscribe here:

“‘Oh! it is only a novel!’ replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame…” —Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I don’t have time to read fiction,” a conference attendee told me, as she stood beside the Catholic Writers Guild vendor table, nonfiction books piled in her arms. “All I have time for is spiritual reading.”

A few hours later, another attendee, after looking over our fiction selection, told me the same. “I’m a professional caregiver. My job is stressful. I only have time for spiritual reading.”

Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

I didn’t argue the point. We smiled, and they went on their merry way. Yet these and similar exchanges beg the question:

What counts as spiritual reading?

No doubt you can guess my answer, that fiction is formative, spiritually and humanly, and instead of setting up a dichotomy between fiction and nonfiction, we ought to take a both/and approach. Sometimes Jesus gave his listeners the straight dope. Other times, Jesus told stories. Fictional stories. Q.E.D.

If you’re convinced, might I suggest you browse the offerings at Chrism Press?

Otherwise, buckle up, because you’re in for a long treatise.

“Insipid” Fanny Price.

Fiction as Spiritual Reading: Three Stabs at an Argument

(1) Argument by Anecdote.

I discovered Jane Austen in high school, thanks to the 1995 A&E adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which our public library had on VHS. Next, the novels themselves. I loved every single one of them.

Except Mansfield Park.

I couldn’t stand its heroine, Fanny Price.

Certainly I valued Fanny’s philosophic mind and moral certitude. She is a good person. But Fanny is mousy and humorless, and I had no patience for her.

“Austen wrote a dud,” was my sixteen-year-old assessment, as I tossed the book aside.

Years later, an older friend suggested I reread the book with the word “abuse” in mind. This radically changed my view of Fanny and helped me see her character arc more clearly, especially as I began to think seriously about family dysfunction. While I still wouldn’t say that I liked Fanny, my prejudice lessened and my sympathy increased. Same with my intellectual curiosity—the more I contemplated the story, the more questions I had. I ended up writing my college senior essay on Mansfield Park.

Spending more time with Fanny Price made me a better reader, a better student, and a better human.

Does this count as spiritual reading?

Bust of Aristotle, Trinity College Dublin.

(2) Argument from Authority

Aristotle may have a partial answer. From the Poetics:

Two causes, and natural ones too, seem generally responsible for the rise of the art of poetry: (1) the natural desire to imitate, which is present from childhood and differentiates man as the most imitative of all living creatures as well as enables him to gain his earliest knowledge through imitation, and (2) universal enjoyment in imitations.

That is, we learn by acting things out. What’s more, we enjoy it.

We find an indication of this in experience: for we view with pleasure reproductions of objects which in real life it pains us to look upon—likenesses of very loathsome animals or dead bodies, for instance. This is especially true if the reproductions are executed with unusual accuracy.

Awful stuff happens in stories. And we love it. (Conversely: No conflict? No good and evil? No story. 😴)

The reason for this is that learning is the most pleasant of all experiences…

We love watching our heroes get put through the wringer because we’re learning. These imitations of life teach us about real life.

…not only for philosophers but for the rest of mankind as well, although mankind has but a small share in this experience.

A good story is universally accessible—in which case, no wonder Christ told stories. A fancy degree may help one speak intelligently about stories, but it is not required.

In fact, mankind’s pleasure in beholding likenesses of objects is due to this: as they contemplate reproductions of objects they find themselves gaining knowledge as they try to reason out what each thing is; for instance, that this man is such and such a person. (Aristotle, Poetics, trans. Preston H. Epps, pp. 5-6 / 1448b.)

Stories make us think. Stories lead to knowledge. Stories help us contemplate human nature.

Does this count as spiritual reading?

Fra Angelico, The Sermon on the Mount

(3) The Incarnational Argument

Let’s return to Jesus’s storytelling and attempt some armchair theology.

God took on human flesh and became a man in all things but sin. In this, we have the divine exchange, that “we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Everything Christ does in his Incarnation has eternal significance. That he experiences humanity in its fullness has significance. That he experienced emotion has significance. Christ hallowed tears. He hallowed laughter. He hallowed pain and suffering. By his teaching and his presence at the wedding at Cana, he hallowed human love, raising marriage to a sacrament.

And he hallowed storytelling—a natural human activity, which we all do and have done since we were children, as Aristotle points out. Christ is not only a storyteller, but he’s the Master Storyteller. He not only tells the divine story, but he is the divine story.

All other stories are echoes of this, participating in his story to greater and lesser degrees. And because human stories participate in Christ’s, they carry some of that same power.

Good stories aid contemplation. Good stories form the mind and heart. Good stories train the emotions through empathy and catharsis. Good stories depict the complexities of the moral life. Good stories invite us inside the minds of others, fostering love of neighbor. Good stories help us to laugh at ourselves. Good stories expand our horizons. Good stories acknowledge the reality of Redemption—if not overly, then in their bones.

Does this count as spiritual reading?

I think it does.

I’ve been quiet online, other than scheduled social media posts of an authorly nature. The past few weeks have been difficult, for reasons that some of you know well. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

We are blessed in our family and friends. Truly blessed.

Yet these past weeks have been challenging for others besides ourselves. Several friends have lost loved ones. One friend lost her grandmother last week, and now her mother is actively dying from cancer. Other friends are in the midst of difficult family situations, walking by faith as they search for the best path forward. And so on.

I’m reminded of a scene from In Pieces (you knew I was going to mention my writing, but my writing is deeply personal, so bear with me) in which Molly challenges the idea, articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, that:

We pray not to change divine disposition, but to gain what God has decided will be fulfilled through the prayers of the saints. By asking, men deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity wants to give them, as Gregory (the Great) says.

To this, Molly replies, “I asked God to help Papa, not condemn him to an unholy death. He chose not to answer my prayer. Would Thomas Aquinas say that God willed my father’s suicide from all eternity?”

Josiah’s answer (“No, but he would say God allowed it because He would bring something greater out of it”) is the right and faithful answer. Yet Molly tells Josiah his answer is not comforting. Sarah Robb picks this up later on, when, during a sermon on the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, her pastor argues that their deaths proved God's providence, as David became king after Saul, and the Messiah came through David's kingly line. A valid point, Sarah thinks, except that

“...the argument did not address grief. David mourned the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Trumpeting Divine Providence would not have lessened his pain.” (Ch. 21)

The ‘right’ answer isn't always the right answer.

When I drafted these scenes, I was working from intuition and conversations with friends who knew grief intimately. Now I'm standing alongside Molly. Changes my view on what I wrote, even if I wouldn’t change a word of it.

You are in my prayers.