STOP ME IF YOU THINK THAT YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE: (a.k.a. “He talks about you in his sleep, and it’s all that I can do to keep from cryin’ when he calls your name, Jolene.”)

Themes you return to again and again?

Queer Catholics/Christians. Either or (esp.) both.

Fatalism vs. hope, a.k.a. Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam, a.k.a. the sin of despair. Frequently disguised as other sins, e.g. substance abuse, lust.

Cultural conformity vs. capitulation to self vs. defining oneself through love of some other. Who you are vs. who you think you are vs. who other people think you are. The against-the-odds attempt to maintain an identity that can be strong enough and constant enough to promise–and, therefore, to love.

The desire for justice–even in the absence of a belief in mercy. A.k.a. my personal policy brief in favor of bad Catholics.

Beauty as an arrow toward meaning; things in the world as words spoken by God.

Doing the right thing can feel like and appear as betrayal. (This actually comes up much less in my fiction than I would expect, given the prominent role it plays in my twisted psyche.)

In this order: pride (= despair–they’re really the same thing), wrath, lust, vanity, gluttony, envy, avarice.