The Catholic Culture Podcast: 113 – Can a Novelist “Create” a Saint?

Aug 26, 2021

In his new book How to Read (and Write) Like a
Catholic, fiction writer and editor Joshua Hren lays out an
approach to Catholic literature that spans all the way from St.
John Henry Newman called “a record of man in rebellion” to the
other end of the continuum, which is a representation of the
Beatific Vision. Topics discussed include:

• How important is beauty to fiction? Will beauty save the
  world?
• The importance of particularity; Carmelite vs. Ignatian views
  of imagination
• Newman and Augustine on the uses, limitations, and dangers of
  indulging sentiments about fictional characters
• Can the action of grace be dramatized? Can the life of holiness
  be fictionalized?
• The depiction of repentance, conversion and the lasting effects
  of sin in authors like Balzac and O’Connor

Joshua Hren is the founder and editor of Wiseblood Books as well
as, with James Matthew Wilson, founder of a new creative writing
MFA program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, which is
also discussed in the episode.

Watch discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ump3CRZ6GRY

Links

How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic
https://tanbooks.com/liberal-arts/literature-and-theology/how-to-read-and-write-like-a-catholic/

MFA program
https://www.stthom.edu/Academics/School-of-Arts-and-Sciences/Division-of-Liberal-Studies/Graduate/Master-of-Fine-Arts-in-Creative-Writing/

Wiseblood Books https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/

Listen to Newman’s sermon “The Danger of Accomplishments” at
Catholic Culture Audiobooks
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-john-henry-newman-danger-accomplishments/

Read “The Danger of Accomplishments”
https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/sermon30.html

Previous interview with Joshua Hren, “The Flannery-Haunted
World”
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ep-70-reviving-catholic-literary-tradition-joshua-hren-john-emmet-clarke/

Follow this link to join the Online Great Books VIP waiting list
and get 25% off your first 3 months: https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/

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