Our 2023 Jacques Maritain Prize Winners!
Dappled Things is pleased to announce the winners of our 2023 Jacques Maritain Prize for Nonfiction, named for the 20th century Thomist philosopher and Catholic convert whose work covered a wide range of topics, including metaphysics and epistemology, ethics and politics, and—significantly for us—literature and art. Each year, the three best nonfiction essays appearing in the pages of Dappled Things are awarded this special recognition. This year, our winners examine the physical suffering of the body and spiritual struggle of art through the lens of faith. The resulting narratives are powerful both in their beauty and challenge for the reader to hope. Thanks to this year's guest judge, current associate editor and past Maritain Prize honoree Brian Prugh, for selecting this year's winners.
First Place: Maria by Sharon Rose Christner Mary Queen of Angels 2023
Here is tight and engaging writing in service of an attentive description of a lived variety of devotion that opens out onto deep and thought-provoking spiritual vistas. It’s a vision of spiritual poverty through the eyes of the poor in a voice fitting to the dignity of poverty and to what it can reveal about spiritual realities.
Second Place: This Sickness is Not Unto Death by Joshua Hren Pentecost 2023
This moving essay about the author’s struggle with Lyme disease works its way up to a compelling self-confrontation about how authentic his faith really is, a question that it’s so easy not to ask in times of good health and good fortune. Its serious and probing questioning prompts a moving reflection on the authentic quirks of embodiedness.
Third Place: Writing as an Occasion for Grace by Oso Guardiola Mary Queen of Angels 2023
More argumentative than narrative, this essay offers a thought-provoking meditation on the nature and vocation of being a writer. The author does good work feeling out the contradictions lurking in that innocuous-looking crack between well-crafted writing and good writing, cutting the problems in current thinking on this topic very nearly at the joints.
Congratulations to our winners, and we look forward to what 2024 brings forth in the best nonfiction you share with us!
