During women’s history month, I (Jessica Hooten Wilson) was listening to the Gloria Purvis podcast when she featured one of my favorite writers, Abigail Favale. The former Dean of Humanities at George Fox University, Favale and I first me when we presented on a panel at the 2019 Catholic Imagination Conference in Chicago. She had published a memoir Into the Deep about her conversion from evangelicalism to Catholicism, highlighting the Catholic exaltation of women as a key inspiration. In Church Life Journal, Favale writes of her conversion:
I grew up in an Evangelical context… shorn of anything visibly female. There was some interest in femininity, narrowly construed, but only in the outskirts of things, never in the sanctuary—kitchens, nurseries, and women’s Bible studies. But there was no Mary, except for a brief cameo at Christmas. No Church as our Mother, no communion of saints. No Hildegard, no Joan, no Judith, sword drawn.
In Favale’s new book The Genesis of Gender with Ignatius Press, coming out in June 2022, she tackles gender from a distinctly Catholic imagination. I was able to preview its content in a talk that Favale delivered at the University of Notre Dame Ethics and Culture Conference, alongside panelists Erika Bachiochi and Leah Libresco Sargent, in which there was standing room only.
For the 2022 CIC, Favale will be presenting in a session sponsored by Ignatius Press, featuring fellow IP author Fiorella de Maria, who has written not only on Catholic feminism in The Abolition of Woman but also a series of mystery novels with her sleuth Father Gabriel.
The discussion of women in the Catholic imagination is not new; it has been featured at previous conferences. But, we are excited for a host of new voices at this iteration. In addition to Purvis, Favale, and de Maria, we will hear from the editors of the Catholic Women Writers series from Catholic University of America Press, Bonnie Lander Johnson and Julia Meszaros. Their inaugural novel The Dry Wood by Caryll Houselander is reintroducing a host of forgotten Catholic women writers, including Enid Dinnis, Anna Hanson Dorsey, Alice Thomas Ellis, Eleanor Farjeon, Rumer Godden, Caroline Gordon, Clotilde Graves, Caryll Houselander, Sheila Kaye-Smith, Jane Lane, Marie Belloc Lowndes, Alice Meynell, Kathleen Raine, Pearl Mary Teresa Richards, Edith Sitwell, Gladys Bronwyn Stern, Josephine Ward, and Maisie Ward.
Haley Stewart, author of Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life and The Sister Seraphina Mysteries, will join the editors on their panel to discuss the Catholic women writers she has featured in her Word on Fire Institute course, including Sigrid Undset and Muriel Spark.
Additionally, we want to feature readers as much as writers at this conference, so we have invited the Well-Read Moms founder Marcie Stokman and her VP Colleen Hutt to present during lunch about the ways that they call Catholic women to read great literature. Well-Read Moms read renowned Catholic authors such as Flannery O’Connor as well as lesser known treasures, such as Mother Veronica Namoyo Le Goulard, whose memoir was published by Ignatius Press, A Memory for Wonders.
If you feel like your booklist is increasing from these emails, just wait until you meet the authors! Purchase these books and bring them to the Sept 30-Oct 1 Catholic Imagination Conference where you can get them signed and discover more titles to add to your shelves. But do not merely become a collector; read these beautiful works. Grow in truth, goodness, and beauty. See you in the fall!