Lesbian Nuns, Punk Rock, and God with Margot Douaihy

What this episode covers

Fr. Shannon is joined this week by author Margot Douaihy (@NeonMargot), and this is very exciting for him since he is a huge fan of her Sister Holiday series! Margot is a professor of creative writing at Emerson College as well as the author of the award-winning, nationally bestselling Sister Holiday series, as well as the poetry collections “Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, and Girls Like You.” Her debut mystery, “Scorched Grace,” won The Pinckley Prize in Crime Fiction and was named a Best Crime Novel of the Year by the New York Times, Guardian, and others. In this conversation, Margot reflects on her Maronite Catholic upbringing, her queerness, and how those threads come together in her noir mystery series, which features a devout, tattooed, riot-girl lesbian nun navigating crime, desire, justice, and faith in New Orleans. She discusses subverting the crime genre, queering narratives of law and order, desire and celibacy, found family, and the sacred possibilities of storytelling. There is so much holiness in storytelling, and Margot’s work shows why art and community matter more now than ever.   Resources: Learn more about Margot at https://www.margotdouaihy.com/  Buy her books: https://www.margotdouaihy.com/scorched-grace  Learn more and join the Community at https://www.queertheology.com/community/   This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions. (10s): Welcome to the Queer Theology Podcast. I’m Brian G Murphy. And I’m father Shannon, T l Kearns. We’re the co-founders of Queer Theology dot com and your hosts from Genesis, revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how Tuning each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here. Hello and welcome back to the Queer Theology Podcast. This week we have a special guest, Margot Dhe, And I cannot wait for you to hear this interview. Margot is the author of one of my favorite trilogies of books, the sister holiday series. It’s an incredible, incredible series, and we’re gonna talk a lot more about that on the podcast this week. (54s): And in general, I just think you’re gonna love this conversation with Margot. So here is Margot’s official bio, and then we will jump into the interview. Margot dw, he lives in North Hampton, Massachusetts and is a professor of creative writing at Emerson College. She’s the author of the award-winning nationally bestselling Sister Holiday series. In addition to the poetry collections Bandit Queen, The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace and Girls Like You, Her debut Mystery Scorched Grace, won the Pinkly Prize in crime fiction and was named a Best Crime Novel of the Year by the New York Times Guardian and others. Welcome, Margot. Welcome to the Cariology Podcast. I am so, so thrilled to have you here. (1m 36s): It’s gonna be so fun. Thank You. Thank you so much. I am just a huge admirer and fan of yours and thank you. The community that you nurture and care take with and among and co-create. I just think we need more, more community and kind of affirmation of Queer Theology and just expansive ways of thinking about the structures that give us comfort and grace Yeah. In life. And I’ll say it, especially now. Yeah. So yeah, I’m, I’m just very grateful for the work that you do, Shea. Well, Thank you. Appreciate that. And likewise, likewise. (2m 17s): And we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about the, what do we do now a little bit later, but I, I would love to maybe start out with, for folks who are not familiar with you and your work, we’re gonna talk about the sister holiday series here in just a minute. But I, I’m wondering if you can maybe just share a little bit about your life and also maybe, maybe a bit about your spiritual journey, howe