To join this event via Zoom, register using the button below. You can also watch the live stream of the event on Collegium Institute’s Youtube channel at https://youtu.be/t3wym1WY96w. Only Zoom attendees will be able to submit questions during the Q&A.
If there is anything we have learned in recent years, it is that the world, and our very selves, remain deeply wounded. We have also learned that amidst these wounds there remains hope for healing. It is in this space of woundedness that faith and fiction can shed some light while broadening and deepening our hope. In this event, we gather three prominent contemporary writers—Kirstin Valdez Quade, Randy Boyagoda, and Christopher Beha—to reflect on their own novels, the role of a novelist in our time, and the distinctive possibilities for engaging with the Catholic tradition in the late modern world.
Grounded in reflections on their own writings, we hope to explore questions that relate to faith and fiction. How can fiction speak to both present and perennial difficulties? How can wounded characters provide solace and guidance for wounded readers? What kind of stories do we need more of in contemporary life? Are there such things as Catholic novelists or Catholic novels in the 21st Century? In what ways does a diverse global Church require that we change what we think of as a Catholic novel?
Our event features:
Randy Boyagoda is the writer of Governor of the Northern Province, Beggar's Feast, and Original Prin. He holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts and Letters at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto.
Christopher Beha is the author of a memoir, The Whole Five Feet, and the novels, Arts & Entertainments and What Happened to Sophie Wilder. His latest novel, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, was nominated for the 2020 National Book Award. He is the editor of Harper’s Magazine.
Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of a collection of short stories, Night at the Fiestas, and the novel The Five Wounds published this April. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
Moderated by Katy Carl, Editor-in-Chief of Dappled Things.
This event is cosponsored by Dappled Things, America Magazine, Image Journal, and Slant Books.
Date: Monday, May 24, 2021
Time: 7:00 PM-8:30 PM ET
Location: Zoom
Registration: This webinar is free and open to the public. Click the button on the left to sign up.
Randy Boyagoda and Christopher Beha’s opening remarks at the beginning of this webinar were recorded. To watch the video on our YouTube channel, click the button on the right.