Kaya Oakes, Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics (Part Two)

Encountering Silence

The conclusion of our conversation with writer Kaya Oakes. Click here to listen to part one.

Essayist and journalist Kaya Oakes is the author of The Nones Are Alright: A New Generation of Believers, Seekers, and Those in Between, Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, and a book of poetry, Telegraph. Her next book, Medieval: How Women who Don’t Fit in are Changing the World, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in 2021.

Kaya’s essays and journalism have appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Sojourners, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, Tricycle, On Being, America, and many other publications. She was the co-founder of the award-winning arts and culture magazine Kitchen Sink, and is currently on the editorial board of the ground-breaking religion website Killing the Buddha.

She teaches creative nonfiction, narrative journalism, expository and research writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

You can find her online at www.oakestown.org.

Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:

• Kaya Oakes, The Nones Are Alright: A New Generation of Believers, Seekers, and Those in Between
• Kaya Oakes, Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church
• Kaya Oakes, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture
• Kaya Oakes, Telegraph
• Kaya Oakes, Medieval (forthcoming)
• Elizabeth Johnson, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God
• Pádraig Ó Tuama, Readings from the Book of Exile
• Isaac Bonewits, Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic
• Nancy Klein Maguire, An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order
• Philip Gröning, dir., Into Great Silence
• Jon Sweeney, ed., What I Am Living For: Lessons from the Life and Writings of Thomas Merton
• Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
• Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
• Richard Rodriguez, Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography
• Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (foreword by Kaya Oakes)
• Christiana N. Peterson, Awakened by Death: Life-Giving Lessons From the Mystics
• Hildegard of Bingen, Essential Writings and Chants
• John of the Cross, Collected Works of St. John of the Cross
• Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Episode 124: Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics: A Conversation with Kaya Oakes (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Kaya Oakes
Date Recorded: November 30, 2020

Featured photo (University of California, Berkeley) by Eden Rushing.