Just another writer
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Writerly resolutions: Looking forward to 2026
Towards the end of last year I had to do some retrenching on my resolutions and having set a two-month plan to close out the year, it occurs to me that two months is a good time period for goals, short enough that I can’t let myself delay too much and long enough that there’s
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My favorite reads of 2025
In no particular order, my favorite reads of the year: Sleep Decades by Israel A. Bonilla The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton Made to Explode: Poems by Sandra Beasley The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination by Paul Lakeland For Love of the Broken Body: A
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Writerly resolutions: December status
So looking back on the year, I set three goals: Complete draft of the new novel Between indolence, deciding that the last novel could use another round of revision and ill-advisedly beginning a new large fiction project, this didn’t happen. I set an end-of-year goal at the beginning of November to get two new chapters
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimage: St Sylvester
As a person of a certain age, the name Sylvester brings up a particular cat and his catchphrase, “Thuffering thuccotash!” Needless to say, this is not the namesake of St Sylvester Church but rather the fourth-century Pope of that name (whose papacy was the ninth-longest recorded). The church (part of a two-church parish) is located
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimage: St Thomas of Canterbury
St Thomas of Canterbury is located in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, an area that is undergoing gentrification, pushing out the poor residents of the neighborhood, albeit not completely as evidenced by the fact that there was a group of people waiting for the church’s food pantry to open when I arrived for the morning
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimage: Our Lady of the Holy Family (Notre Dame de Chicago church)
Our Lady of the Holy Family parish was created by the combination of the former Notre Dame de Chicago and Holy Family parishes on the near west side. The latter of these two was later returned to the Jesuits from the archdiocese and it now serves as a chapel to St Ignatius College Prep as
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimage: St John the Evangelist (one day late)
I tend to feel like anything much past Harlem Avenue is Iowa so Streamwood is a suburb that I would not have been able to place on a map before heading out to St John the Evangelist yesterday. I have a new candidate for newest church building in the archdiocese with this one which was
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimge: Nativity of the Lord (a bit late)
Driving east on 37th Street, I saw the bell tower of Nativity of Our Lord Parish looming over the houses and 2 and 3-flats that populate Bridgeport east of new Comiskey,¹ a strong reminder of the days when a home parish was a key marker of self-identity in Chicago. But only once I was inside
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Catholic Nerd Pilgrimage: Saint John Cantius
There are certain parishes in the archdiocese where knowing that’s where someone goes to Mass regularly tells you a whole lot about them. Saint Sabina, Old Saint Pat’s and Saint John Cantius are three which spring immediately to mind. The last one on this list is the hyper-traditionalist parish. When I attended Mass at Holy