Award-Winning Short Stories include

“Death in Naples”, 2004, Pushcart Prize
“The Deacon,” 1999, O. Henry Award 3rd Prize
“City Life,” 1997, O. Henry Award 1st Prize
“Safe,” 1985, New American Stories Editor’s Choice
“The Only Son of the Doctor,” 1983, O. Henry Award 1st Prize
“Cleaning Up,” included in Snapshots: 20th Century Mother-Daughter Fiction, ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Janet Berliner, 2000
“The Dancing Party,” included in Ms. Magazine’s best of 30 Years of Fiction

Poetry Includes

“Prayers for those who are not Usually Prayed For,” The Furrow, June 1998,
Reissued in Best Spiritual Writings for 2000, ed. Philip Zaleski
“Prayers for those whose Work is Never Seen” and “Prayers for those who Have Devoted Their Lives to Sex” set to music by The Roches
“After Milosz,” Salmagundi, Fall 1996
“On the Death of Laurence Sterne,” Laurence Sterne Trust at Shandy Hall, Limited Edition Broadside, 1984
“Reading Auden while Nursing my Daughter,” New Statesman, June 18, 1982
“Wedding Photograph: June 1921,” Times Literary Supplement, December 25, 1981
“To a Cow,” The American Review, No. 16, 1972

Recent Articles

“Howards End,” Salmagundi, 2004
“Flannery’s Kiss,” Michigan Quarterly Review, Summer 2004
“Mysteriously Woman: A Feminist View of the Rosary,” The Furrow, Spring 2004
“Is Flannery O’Connor a Catholic?”, The Flannery O’Connor Review, Vol. 2, 2003-2004
“Women of God,” Atlantic Monthly, January 2002

Recent Reviews:

The Darling, by Russell Banks, New York Times Book Review, October 24, 2004
“Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ”, New York Times, February 28, 2004
Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal, by David France, New York Times Book Review, January 25, 2004
The Magdalene Sisters, directed by Peter Mullan, New York Times, August 3, 2003

Honorary Doctorates

Skidmore College, 1997
Siena College, 1997
St. Xavier University, 1994
SUNY New Paltz, 1989
Assumption College, 1988
Belmont Abbey College, 1984

Other Awards

American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction 2006
Election as Member of Academy of Arts and Letters 2007
The Story Prize 2007
New York State Author,2008
Radcliffe Institute Fellowship, 2004
O.B. Hardison Award for the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies 2002
“Rome: the Invisible City,” included in Best American Essays of 2000
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1993
Lila Acheson Wallace-Readers’ Digest Award, 1992
Barnard Woman of Achievement Award, 1990
Literary Lion of the New York Public Library, 1985
Janet Heidegger Kafka Award for the Best Novel written by an American Woman 1978 and 1981