Dorothy Cummings McLean
Dorothy Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer living in Scotland. Her first novel with Ignatius Press is Ceremony of Innocence. She has been a regular contributor to The Catholic Register (Toronto). Her first book, Seraphic Singles: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Single Life, is a popular work of nonfiction.
Ignatius
Novels by
author
Posts from this author at the Novel Thoughts blog.
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An Inner Soundtrack
March 11, 2014 9:45 am Leave a Comment
I had an email from a reader who greatly enjoyed my Ceremony of Innocence and found it very gripping. “One question,” he added. “What is a ‘trance club’?” Well, Dad, I’m not sure how to answer that. I’d better start with the music. And unlike my brothers, I am not… Read more »
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Theology and Literature
March 5, 2014 9:48 am Leave a Comment
I once hoped to study Catholic novels in a doctoral program, and so went to theology school to bump up my grades and, as I rationalized it to myself, get the theological background for the works I wished to study. In hindsight that was naive, for the novels I wished… Read more »
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Who Is My Reader?
February 26, 2014 10:11 am 5 Comments
I read my first “Christian novel” this week. That is, I read a novel aimed at the “Christian fiction” market. Christians have written novels for as long as there have been novels. Fyodor Dostoyevsky is the first who comes to mind, but of course the Western Canon is overwhelmingly populated… Read more »
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Selling Your Wares
February 19, 2014 10:09 am 1 Comment
Yesterday I was in the North York Passport Office explaining what I claim to do for a living. “So you’re a novelist,” said the passport examiner. “Yes,” I said, blushing modestly. “And a freelance writer.” “So you’re self-employed.” “Um, yes.” “How long have you been doing this?” “Um…Over in the… Read more »
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Colo(u)rs of Home
February 12, 2014 9:06 pm 3 Comments
I’m still in Canada, visiting family and friends and preparing for the University of Toronto launch of Ceremony of Innocence at my beloved Crux Discount Theological Books (Feb 24, 4:30 PM). I had a wonderful weekend in the French Canadian countryside, and now I am back in Toronto, cultural capital… Read more »
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Wisdom! Be Attentive!
February 4, 2014 11:13 am 3 Comments
I am visiting my native Toronto after almost a year away. Having lived in Scotland for over four years, I am beginning to find remarkable aspects of Toronto life I never found remarkable before. The first, now most obvious, one is that every box, bottle, bag, jar and can in… Read more »
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The Smell of Writing
January 28, 2014 9:33 am 5 Comments
Nike is most beautiful at the moment in which she hesitates, right hand as beautiful as a command. She leans against the wind, but her wings tremble. When I taught writing at a community college in Hamilton, Ontario, I enjoyed asking students to write down which of their five senses… Read more »
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The Catholicity of Catholic Literature
January 21, 2014 7:32 am 4 Comments
When I was last in Fetrinelli’s bookshop in Rome, I was astonished to see there the novels of Jacek Dehnel, a young Polish writer, in Italian. And when I was last in an Empik in Wrocław, I was delighted to find there Graham Greene’s The Quiet American in Polish. Naturally… Read more »
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Transfiguration of the Commonplace
January 15, 2014 3:00 am 1 Comment
“Transfiguration of the commonplace” is not a phrase coined by the English Catholic Rumer Godden but by the Scottish Catholic Muriel Spark. It is engraved on a stone in Lady Stair’s Close in Edinburgh to memorialize Spark among Scotland’s other great writers. Nevertheless, the phrase is a good description of… Read more »
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A Gently Gripping First Page
January 7, 2014 10:30 am 3 Comments
Happy New Year! I spent last week in a country cottage with neither internet nor television signal. Although this made for a quiet New Year’s Eve, it certainly gave me a chance to read. Among the books I brought with me from Edinburgh was an early edition of Rumer Godden’s… Read more »