Friday Links, July 9, 2021
+ When woefully underappreciated writer Betty Wahl Powers was mistaken for Flannery O’Connor.
+ Jennifer Fulwiler, former atheist, now well-known Catholic writer, talk show host, and mother of six sparks a new stand-up comic routine in her garage—using her blue flame.
+ An attractive opportunity for a visual artist at Portsmouth Abbey School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
+ Fr. Damian Ference, at “Word on Fire” writes to answer the question, “Are Modern Men Permitted the Gift of Tears?”
+ Little Gidding Press—Publisher of Poetry and Prose.
The Woman Who Was Mistaken for Flannery O'Connor
Dappled Things Editor in Chief, Katy Carl, and I were lamenting via Facebook comments on a birthday post for J. F. Powers about the lost writing career of his wife, Betty Wahl Powers—when I came across this article by a Cassandra Nelson, a PhD candidate in English at Harvard.
“What were the odds that the woefully underappreciated subject of my MA thesis — a twentieth-century American writer named Betty Wahl, now chiefly remembered as the wife of J. F. Powers, when she is remembered at all — had been mistaken for the canonical subject of my first dissertation chapter?”
Catholic Stand-Up Comic Jen Fulwiler on the True, the Good and the Beautifully Hilarious
Jennifer Fulwiler went from atheist to popular Catholic writer, daily talk show veteran, mother of six, and stand up comedian in fourteen years. Her conversion story Something Other Than God was published by Ignatius Press, and her two other books were published by HarperCollins. In this National Catholic Register interview. staff writer Peter Jesserer Smith asks Fulwiler about the genesis of her stand-up career and about her most recent book, Your Blue Flame: Drop the Guilt and Do What Makes You Come Alive.
Q: What is your “blue flame,” and what is the message that you’re trying to share with people
A: . . . '“[I]t was important for me to get the message out there that God has given each one of us “a blue flame” as just a way to add love to the world. . . . What I found — and I had six babies in eight years — is that when I engaged in my ‘blue flame,’ not only did it not detract from my vocation as a wife and a mother, but it enhanced it; it gave me more energy, more life and more love to share with my family.”
PORTSMOUTH ABBEY SCHOOL SEEKS A FULL-TIME ART TEACHER
Recommended by Katy Carl, “For Friday links, from our partners at the Collegium Institute, an attractive opportunity for a visual artist.”
ARE MODERN MEN PERMITTED THE GIFT OF TEARS?
Katy Carl also writes, “A good piece from friend of the magazine Fr. Damian Ference, at “Word on Fire.”
“[L]et me close with a little story about St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. He had the gift of tears. He cried a lot. One day, a man approached him and said, ‘Fr. Vianney, why do you cry so much?’ The pastor responded, ‘Because you don’t cry enough.’
“May we, the Church, cry enough–even (perhaps especially) the men.”
Little Gidding Press—Publisher of Poetry and Prose
Recommended by Katy Carl.
