Cassandra Nelson joins us today, and I think our listeners have seen her byline in the magazine a few times.

She is a fellow at the Lumen Center in Wisconsin and at the University of Virginia's

Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. She had an essay in First Things a while back that has come

out in a separate book published by Wiseblood. Wiseblood Press, wonderful little press,

with the same title, A Theology of Fiction.

That's our topic today.

Welcome, Ms. Nelson, or rather Dr. Nelson, as you have a PhD in English from Harvard

University.

Thank you, Mark.

Thanks for having me here today.

So your subject here is an individual, really, I mean, her ideas, her work,

Sister Mariela Gable.

You know, before getting to the specifics of her,

how did you come to learn about her?

Because in my English career,

I don't think I ever encountered her name.

That's a great question. And I think the short answer is Providence. One funny thing about this

book is from the first page to the last page, one of my former advisors, Christopher Ricks,

he's kind of there on every page. And he's not a person of faith. He's not

religious at all, though he exudes grace and he exudes charity, and he's a wonderful person.

Anyway, Christopher knew when I was looking for a master's thesis subject in 2005, 2006, he knew that I was a churchgoer,

and he rummaged around in his desk drawer, and he pulled, you know, he said, you should look

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