• Home
  • Blog
  • Current
  • Archives
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Subscribe
  • Contests
  • About
    • Contact
    • Submit
    • Media Kit
    • Resources
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

DappledThings.org

A quarterly journal of ideas, art, and faith

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

About Us

Dappled Things is a literary magazine dedicated to providing a space for emerging writers to engage the literary world from a Catholic perspective. The magazine is committed to quality writing that takes advantage of the religious, theological, philosophical, artistic, cultural, and literary heritage of the Catholic Church in order to inform and enrich contemporary literary culture.

Letter from the Editor

“Glory be to God for dappled things,” writes the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins in the poem “Pied Beauty,” first naming things literally colored with contrasting speckles and patches: streaked skies, spotted trout, great fields sectioned and ploughed and planted. He then extends his definition of “dappled” to mean

“…[a]ll things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim…”

According to Hopkins, dappled things are those things we find irregular and surprising that are in fact lovelier and more lovable for their being irregular and surprising. We can think of an infinite number of such strangely beautiful things: the patches on an overripe fruit, a sudden slow and sad passage in a song, even the inexplicable peace that comes of suffering. These “dappled things,” things at once “swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim,” confound our human love for safety, thwart our wish to see unblemished fruit, to listen to music that does not carry us away, to live a life without challenge. How can it be that we grow to love things that once made us uncomfortable, that we rejoice in things we once found imperfect? How is it that the things, the events, and the men that the world finds weakest and worst often give rise to the greatest joy? It is a mystery, in the fullest sense of the term, and “Pied Beauty” delights in it.

We at Dappled Things delight, too: in that mystery, and in the genius of Gerard Manley Hopkins, that he can muse in a poem on “skies of couple-color as a brinded cow” and yet through that poem hint at the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For surely that is the most dappled thing in all human history, the strangest and the most beautiful, at once “swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim.”

The Psalmist invites us, “Come, let us sing to the Lord, and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us!” We the editors of Dappled Things invite you, our Catholic brothers and sisters, to sing and shout in our pages about our dappled world. Write about spotted trout and brinded cows, or write about the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We ask only that your work be inspired by your love for Him and His Church in the fullness of her Scripture and Tradition, her sacraments, and her communion of saints.

Mary Angelita Ruiz
Founding Editor-in-Chief (now Editor Emeritus)

Masthead

Bernardo Aparicio García
Founder & Publisher
dappledthings.aparicio at gmail.com

Katy Carl
Editor in Chief
dappledthings.carl at gmail.com

Meredith McCann
Poetry Editor

Natalie Morrill
Fiction Editor

Fr. Michael Rennier
Web Editor
michaelrennier at gmail.com

Patrick Callahan
Book Review Editor

Ann Thomas
Managing Editor
dappledthings.ann at gmail.com

Christina Vazquez
Social Media Editor

Katherine Aparicio
Business Manager
dappledthings.katherineaparicio at gmail.com

Mary A. Kenneally
Editor Emeritus

Associate Editors
Katherine Aparicio
Andrew Calis
Rosemary Callenberg
Sarah DeCorla-Souza
Cristina Espinas
Barbara Gonzalez
Kent Lasnoski
John Liem
Josh Nadeau
Christopher Petter
Michael Rennier
Terence Sweeney
Ellen Toner

Art Advisor
David Harman

Art Director
Meg Prom

Webmaster
Rhonda Ortiz
dappledthings.web at gmail.com

Mary, Queen of Angels 2020

Purchase Featuring nonfiction from Joshua Hren, fiction from Jennifer Marie Donahue and Rob Davidson and the winners and honorees of the Bakhita Prize in Visual Arts.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Newsletter

Sign up to receive the latest news from Dappled Things.
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Have you enjoyed our content online or in print during the past year?

Dappled Things needs the support of its readers over and above the cost of subscriptions in order to continue its work.

Help us share the riches of Catholic art and literature with our impoverished culture by donating to Dappled Things.

Archives

Home
Blog
Current
Shop
Subscribe
About

Copyright © 2021 Dappled Things · Staff Forum · Log in

Graphics by Dominic Heisdorf · Website by Up to Speed

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.