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writing
Given the parameters and the right information, I’ve written successfully for very diverse clients. I’ve written a winning grant application for Roaring Epiphany Production Company, a non-profit promoting theater opportunities for disabled and neuro-divergent actors. I helped develop a curriculum for teaching about the ethical and religious issues surrounding human embryonic stem cell research. And I’ve written the text of several annual reports on various segments of the US beverage industry, providing lively prose narratives to a welter of facts and figures.
Left to my own devices, however, my research and writing interests tend toward topics often avoided in polite conversation: sex, death, God, and Italy. Though not enough about Italy. About that I can never write enough.
My writing grows directly out of my approach to teaching. My goal, ultimately, is to help people do the work of understanding one another, particularly when understanding seems frightening.
You can find links to some of my work below.
ON SUBSTACK
THE GRANDMOTHER TONGUE
Do people learn out because of some abstract belief in the value of knowledge? Or do they do it for more practical reasons? Or is it something else entirely? I can make my way through texts in ten languages, ancient and modern? I can mutter my way in French and German and embarrass myself in Spanish. But there’s one language I can read and speak with comfort—and joy. What could possibly move a boy from Nebraska to master Italian? The answer is love.
On Substack.
Fiction Friday
Pieces of fiction posted weekly, including excerpts from my novel in progress, Pumpkins, the story of a part-time lecturer in Roman Literature, his husband, their daughter, her charmingly manipulative boyfriend, and pumpkins with human faces. On Substack.
JUDGING PETER
What makes a good pope? What makes a bad pope? In Judging Peter, I write about popes you might have heard of, popes you didn’t know, popes you maybe love, and popes you might hate, from a variety of sources and perspectives.
Also on Substack.
Queer Catholic Book club
Equal parts camp and spirituality (aren’t they same?), Dexter the Angel and I examine Catholicism and its influence on art and culture from a queer perspective. This year, we are going step by step through Dante’s Divine Comedy. Come for the insights, stay for the church giggles!
On Substack.
LIberal arts
It’s no secret that higher education, particularly the study of the humanities and the liberal arts, is in serious trouble. So why should people study “obscure things” (as one of my first-year students defined “the liberal arts.”) How do we explain the hostility to English and History majors, to philosophers and poets, not to mention scholars of Gender and Race Studies? And what good can the study of the humanities do for people who will never step foot in a college classroom? I try to tackle these questions (and others) in Liberal Arts.
On Substack.
On Paper
Popular Culture
“Supernatural Drama ‘Evil’ Provides No Easy Answers to Questions of Faith, Reason and the Nature of Evil,” Religion Dispatches, OCt 30, 2019
“An apparent resurrection might be an unexpected artifact of unconscious systemic racism; a Boss-from-Hell might in fact be under the influence of a devil. The mysteries of digital technology and the Internet give grim plausibility to what once seemed like obvious paranoia. Is the voice coming from that virtual assistant an impersonal algorithm, a malicious hacker, or something worse? The serial killer might not be possessed, but what if the person chatting with him on 4chan is? The line between the human and the demonic is a fuzzy one…
FIction
“Windows, Walls, and Doors” in Decameron (Yonkers International Press, JUl 6, 2020
A short story about the paranoid relationship between a man and his coffeepot. Inspired by the COVID-19 lock down and published in Decameron, a collection of pieces that "convey a breadth of human responses to extraordinary circumstances, from loneliness to fantasy, anxiety to mortality, and from hope to silence."
Book Review
"The Siege at the Bridge: James Martin and the Fight over LGBT Catholics," The Revealer (Center for Religion and Media at New York University), Dec 21, 2017
“If the book has not always succeeded in inspiring the kind of civil dialogue Martin envisioned, it might be because he underestimated the complexity of the contemporary Church in two important ways. Framed as a two-sided conversation between the “institutional church” and LGBT Catholics, Building a Bridge virtually ignores the role played in that dialogue by what is arguably the most prominent group of contemporary Catholics: married heterosexuals.… Nor does it seem that Martin anticipated the out-sized role played by a few prominent converts in arbitrating the boundary between the Church and the non-Catholic culture. The issues that matter to these two groups – married heterosexuals and converts to Catholicism – are interrelated in unexpected ways that have a serious impact on the place of LGBT Catholics in the Church.”
Elsewhere ONline…
Essay
“Double Love: Rediscovering the QUeerness of Sin and Grace,” in qUeer Christianities, Kathleen T. Talvacchia, Michael F. Pettinger, and Mark Larrimore, Editors (New YOrk University Press, 2015), 127-136
Opinion and Analysis
“Why Did a Progressive Pope Use a Gay Slur?” The Nation, June 11 2o24
“Indeed, if we are going to talk about timeless truths, we might try this one: Masculinity is largely a state of fear. Peruse the library shelves of history and in no time at all you can gather a lovely bouquet of anxious males worrying that they or their fellows are not really man enough. Weave them into a garland, put them in your hair, and frolic as you will. And this might prove to be the best remedy for this kind of male fragility.”
“The Vatican’s Bewildering New Declaration,” The Nation, Apr 16, 2024
"It was only after I had gotten to page 10 of the declaration without once encountering the word “gender” that I realized that, following the Times’ lead, in a very real sense, I was reading Dignitas Infinita backward...”
“Why LGBTQ Catholics Are Ambivalent About the ‘Gift’ of Same-Sex Blessings,” The Nation, Jan 3, 2024
"Less expected was the ambivalence, anger, and cynicism expressed by some LGBTQ Catholics.… When asked whether he and his husband would now have their relationship blessed by a priest, my best friend told me in language too colorful for The Nation what those priests could do to themselves."
“The Pope Wants Us to Talk About Sexuality and Climate Change,” THe Nation, Oct 11, 2o23
"Talk of a universal ‘conversation’ sounds a bit utopian and might remind people of that other utopianist, Elon Musk, and the social platform he’s seeking to reshape. Reviews of that enterprise have been less than enthusiastic. Are Francis’s projects faring any better?"
“Are Pro-Choice Catholics Worthy of Communion?” The Nation, Jun 29, 2021
“As understandable as their fears might be, when non-Catholics insist that the needs of civil society trump the demands of private belief, they end up feeding the persecution narrative dear to some Catholic bishops and laity. Ultimately, their fears are probably groundless. USCCB efforts to restrict communion, far more likely than motivating Catholic voters to try to outlaw abortion, will probably just drive even more Catholics out of the pews.”
"The Vatican Sex-Abuse Summit Was Never Going to Undo the Harm," THE Nation, Feb 28, 2019
“Progressives welcomed Francis precisely because he advocated for a less-authoritarian approach to the papacy. I might call it ironic that some of these same people now criticize him for failing to implement top-down action—were the pain of a boy’s shoe box and the anguish of a grieving parish not on my mind.
