Which I\u2019m doing a year late, apparently, because I didn\u2019t bother before. Anyway this is my attempt to assess what I\u2019ve written since 2010. This list is only articles, not blog posts, but if you\u2019d like a couple shots of my weirder writing I still enjoy Famous Authors\u2019 Texts from Last Night<\/a> and that post where I got sort of galumphingly poetic about figure skating<\/a>. Oh, and actually, this post about the mysticism of Story of O<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Top 10 Articles by Me Since 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n 10. \u201cThe Botany Club: Gay Kids in Catholic Schools<\/a>.\u201d Listed here not because it\u2019s my best work in the Gay Catholic Whatnot realm (my recent Washington Post<\/em> piece<\/a> has better priorities and does more in a shorter space) but because it\u2019s the first place I articulated the need for something more than \u201ca vocation of \u2018no,'\u201d and that was important for pretty much all of my later work on this subject. As well as, like, my life!<\/p>\n 9. \u201cOut of Line: \u2018Sticking It to the Man\u2019 and the Pulp Revolution<\/a>.\u201d A fun piece that includes several of my favorite refrains, inc. \u201cWhat we call \u2018literary realism\u2019 is just the experiences of the safe and privileged,\u201d \u201cOrder is chaos,\u201d and, \u201cDon\u2019t write about the politics or pop culture of the \u201970s \u2013 \u201990s until you can draw a graph of the homicide rate freehand.\u201d<\/p>\n 8. \u201cLove That Goes Unnamed<\/a>\u201d (which I wanted them to call, \u201cBlue Moon\u201d). A tribute to Desert Hearts<\/em> (never let anybody tell you there are no good lesbian films!) and also an attempt to identify the religious failures that produced it.<\/p>\n 7. \u201cOrder, Chaos, Peace<\/a>.\u201d A postmortem for a conservative movement; possibly worth reading in tandem with my essay on Ravelstein<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n 6. \u201cNotes from the Gift Shop of the Dead<\/a>.\u201d I don\u2019t usually think this scathing tone is good for the character of a journalist or her readers but every now and then you should break the glass and get the axe. Anyway, I went to the Museum of Crime and Punishment, for my sins.<\/p>\n 5. \u201cUrsula de Jesus and the fortress of patience<\/a>.\u201d I write a lot about the places where humility and self-hatred bleed into one another. Those places appear more often, I think, in the lives of Christians who suffer oppression at the hands of other Christians\u2013as with this Franciscan mystic, who was held in slavery by Franciscan nuns.<\/p>\n 4. \u201cIntimacy, joy, and relief: A painting reveals the heart of penance<\/a>.\u201d All of my top five articles are basically just the same article over and over, purity of heart is to say exactly one thing, but this piece is a short and v. v. artsy and heartfelt version.<\/p>\n 3. \u201cWhat memoir reveals.<\/a>\u201d Or, Can there be a feminism of humility? Whose life is it, anyway?<\/p>\n 2. \u201cIs Everybody Female?<\/a>\u201d Not yet, but they should be!\u2013or, reading a queer-theory agent provacateuse and comedienne in the company of St. Bernard.<\/p>\n 1. \u201cThe value of public penance in the age of clerical abuse, mass incarceration, and #metoo<\/a>.\u201d An argument that you and I should be acting more like medieval penitents. Some of the earlier pieces on this list have better prose but this one is the service journalism that asks some questions I\u2019m still exploring. Not my first<\/a> venture into these waters<\/a> and won\u2019t be my last, as peace through humiliation continues to be my only policy brief.<\/p>\n Since 2010 I\u2019ve also published one nonfiction<\/a> book, one edited anthology<\/a>, and two<\/a> novels<\/a>. I\u2019m saying this in part because when I was desperate to quit drinking I was also terrified that I wouldn\u2019t be able to write sober. Instead, in my first year of sobriety I drafted what became Gay and Catholic<\/em> <\/a>and Amends<\/em><\/a>, and have followed them up with the other two books, plus a sequel to G&C<\/em> which is much better than its predecessor and is scheduled for publication next fall, and a third novel draft currently passing through the many stomachs of the editorial cow. (To be\u2026 excreted onto delighted readers later? This was not the metaphor with which to prove my writing ability.) Anyway, I\u2019m grateful that I was able to reach a point where I said, I will quit drinking even if it ends my ability to do something I love<\/em>. That no-expectations mindset will get you through a lot. But I\u2019m also very grateful that sobriety gave me what I feared it would take away.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Which I\u2019m doing a year late, apparently, because I didn\u2019t bother before. Anyway this is my attempt to assess what I\u2019ve written since 2010. This list is only articles, not blog posts, but if you\u2019d like a couple shots of my weirder writing I still enjoy Famous Authors\u2019 Texts from Last Night and that post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,10],"tags":[339,79,1265],"class_list":["post-13505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of","category-self-obsessed","tag-best-of-2","tag-moral-memories-of-the-past","tag-self-obsessed"],"yoast_head":"\n