Back by popular demand, the Catholic Imagination Conference in its fourth iteration will be hosted at the University of Dallas. You can expect this weekend to be a time for inspiration, friendship, and worship! Please come, share your gifts, and celebrate other Catholic writers, thinkers, and performers.
As the time for the gathering comes closer, you can expect these CIC segments of the newsletter to become more practical with information about hotel, travel from the airport, and so forth. Until then, we want to share a little bit about our speakers and promote their talent. You can expect poems, articles, book links, interviews, videos, and podcast episodes that pertain to the Catholic Imagination Conference.
In preparation for our future gathering, let’s remember the past. This whole gathering began because of a series of back and forth articles between Dana Gioia, Randy Boyagoda, Greg Wolfe, and Paul Elie. In 2015, the first Catholic Imagination Conference was held at University of Southern California and brought together Ron Hansen, Paul Mariani, Tobias Wolfe, Julia Alvarez, and many others.
(Photo of Paul Contino and Tobias Wolfe at the Loyola Chicago CIC 2019)
In 2017 Angela Alaimo O’Donnell directed the second conference at Fordham University, featuring Alice McDermott, Mary Gordon, Phil Metres, Fr. James Martin, and dozens more.
The third CIC was held at Loyola Chicago, directed by Michael Murphy, and… well, who wasn’t there?! In addition to several dozen luminaries, we heard from Kirstin Valdez Quade, Phil Klay, Molly McCully Brown, Richard Rodriguez, Samuel Hazo. Watch the video about this event and go through the archival footage of several of the sessions. You won’t be disappointed.
We realize that 2020-2021 put a damper on gathering together. It has been two years of postponing, cancelling, and discouragement from meeting with one another in person. But now we have the opportunity to come together again, face to face. While the 2022 CIC may be a more intimate event than the past several conferences, we hope the time together will be full of joy, a time where we can celebrate each other’s vocations, and where we can give praise to the God who has gifted us with our imagination. Registration will open soon.
On Sept 30, we are looking forward to hosting Helen Sung and her jazz sextet. She will perform in collaboration with Dana Gioia reading poetry. This concert will be unforgettable!
On Oct 1, the grand events of the day will conclude with a reading of “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” by playwright Will Arbery, who will also be there for a Q&A led by Elizabeth Bruenig. Read Vinson Cunningham’s review of the play here. Or, listen to her initial thoughts on the play after Jessica Hooten Wilson read it in April 2021.