Diane Scharper is the author or editor of seven books, including Reading Lips and Other Ways to Overcome a Disability, winner of the Helen Keller Memoir Competition. She teaches memoir and poetry for the Johns Hopkins University Osher Program.

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Book Review

Novel explores Hispanic Catholic family's search for redemption

Book Review: In Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel, 'The Five Wounds,' the 33-year-old protagonist believes that Jesus is a living witness to his sins — of which there have been many.

Book Review

Poetry collection celebrates love for nuns, punctuation and 'everything feelable'

Book review: In a new poetry collection, Heather McHugh recalls old friends and nods at death as well as worries about its approach. She writes fun, punch-drunk poems laced with Catholic insights.

Book Review

Meet Catholic revolutionary Grace Holmes Carlson

Book review: Catholic activist Grace Holmes Carlson is relatively unknown today. But she made headlines in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s for her social activism, as well as her pro-union, anti-capitalist and anarchist views.

Book Review

Sue Monk Kidd's new novel imagines Jesus' life and fictional marriage

Book review: In her fourth novel, The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd embellishes the Gospel story of Christ by giving Jesus a wife named Ana. But her book, just out in paperback, should not scandalize most readers. Nor has it been banned by the Catholic Church.

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