Angela Alaimo O’Donnell

Dr. O'Donnell has served as Associate Director of Fordham's Curran Center for American Catholic Studies for two decades. She has taught courses in the English Department and in the Honors Concentration in American Catholic Studies since her arrival at Fordham in 2005. 

In keeping with her research and writing interests, she teaches interdisciplinary courses that explore the relationships between art, film, music, literature, gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. There is a special emphasis on the ways in which classic and contemporary Catholic writers & creatives pervade American art & culture. She also incorporates opportunities for creative writing in her courses.

Courses she teaches include the following:

• "The Writing Irish: The Celtic- Catholic Imagination" (AMCS  3320)
• "American Catholic Fictions " (AMCS 3333)
• "Seminar in American Catholic Studies II: The Catholic Imagination " (AMCS 3982)
• "American Catholic Women Writers" (AMCS 3349)
• "American Catholic Poetry" (AMCS 3350)
• "Labor, Leisure, and God," (AMCS 3251)
• "Ethnic & Catholic Literature" (AMCS 3360)

In addition to her scholarship and teaching, O'Donnell is also a poet, essayist, and memoirist, giving her the opportunity to teach literature from the vantage point of a practitioner as well as a reader and critic. 

PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, English Language & Literature
M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, English Language & Literature
B.A., The Pennsylvania State University

O'Donnell's areas of interest include American Catholic writers and artists (with special emphasis on Flannery O'Connor), contemporary poetry and literature, women's poetry, and religion and literature. She is founding editor of the series published in partnership with Fordham University Press, Studies in the Catholic Imagination: The Flannery O'Connor Trust Series. O'Donnell's biography Flannery O'Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith received a Catholic Press Association Award in 2015 for Best Biography. Her monograph Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O'Connor (Fordham University Press 2020) is the first book-length study of Flannery O'Connor and race. 

In addition to her scholarship, O'Donnell writes poetry and creative non-fiction. Her memoir Mortal Blessings received a Catholic Press Association Award for Best Memoir.  She has published 13 collections of poems and hundreds of poems in literary journals. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Web Award, the Christianity & Literature Book of the Year Award, and the Arlin G. Meyer Prize in Imaginative Writing. She is a recipient of The New York Encounter poetry prize, and her book Holy Land was awarded The Paraclete Poetry Prize in 2021. O'Donnell is a former columnist and current contributing writer at America magazine.

O'Donnell is a frequent invited speaker at colleges and universities, conferences, churches, and other religious and literary organizations. 

The View from Childhood: New & Selected Poems
Paraclete Press 2026

Dear Dante: Poems 
Paraclete Press 2024

Poor Persis: Poems
Art Book, limited edition, produced by Holly Trostle Brigham (2023)

Holy Land: Poems
Paraclete Press (2022)

Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O'Connor
Fordham University Press (2020)

Andalusian Hours: Poems from the Porch of Flannery O'Connor
Paraclete Press (2020)

Still Pilgrim: Poems
Paraclete Press (2017)

Fiction Fired by Faith: The Life & Work of Flannery O'Connor
Liturgical Press (May 2015)

Lovers' Almanac: Poems
Wipf & Stock Press (March 2015)

Mortal Blessings: A Sacramental Farewell
Ave Maria Press (Sept 2014)

Waking My Mother: Poems
Word Press (Sept 2013)

Saint Sinatra & Other Poems
Word Press (May 2011)

Moving House: Poems
Word Press (Oct 2009)

The Province of Joy: Praying With Flannery O'Connor
Paraclete Press (March 2012)

Waiting for Ecstasy: A Chapbook of Poems
Franciscan University Press (April 2009)

Mine: A Chapbook of Poems
Finishing Line Press (August 2007)

"The Superabundance of the Catholic Literary Imagination," The Catholic World (Routledge World Series 2026)

"My Forty Years of Friendship with Thomas Merton," America, December 10, 2025.

“Flannery O’Connor: The Road to the Province of Joy.” Essay in The Power of the Word Project: The Call of Literature.  (Routledge/Taylor and Francis 2025)

“Karin Coonrod & Flannery O’Connor: From the Page to the Stage.” Essay in Karin Coonrod’s Transnational Theatre (Bloomsbury 2025)

“Welcome to Hell: Denzel’s Othello and Jake’s Iago,” Church Life Journal, May 9, 2025. 

“Here Comes Everybody: A Very Short (and Personal) Introduction to the History of Catholic Literary Studies in America.” Journal of American Catholic Studies, Fall 2024. Reprinted in Church Life Journal, October 17, 2024. 

“Flannery O’Connor’s Incarnational Fiction.” Essay in Women of the Catholic Imagination. (Word On Fire 2024)

“In Praise of Resurrection.” Introduction to Yellow Roses by Elizabeth Cullinan. (Fordham University Press 2024)

“Elizabeth Cullinan’s Yellow Roses.” Journal of American Catholic Studies, Winter 2023.

“Pope Francis Loved Literature, Art, and Film—and Artists Loved Him for It,” America (April 25 2025).

“At the Metropolitan Museum, Art Communes with the Saints in ‘Siena: The Rise of Painting,’” America (December 6, 2024).

“Bronx bluesman and self-proclaimed ‘ferocious Catholic’: Dion DiMucci considers his legacy,” America (May 28, 2024).

“Ethan Hawke’s New Biopic ‘Wildcat’ Gracefully Captures Flannery O’Connor’s Complex Attitudes on Race, Writing and Faith,” America (October 31, 2023).

“Confessions of a Coal Miner’s Granddaughter,” Italian Americana (Summer 2023)

“Talking Back to Dante: A Tribute in Verse,” America (March 31, 2022)

“The Secret Catholic Life of Andy Warhol,” America (June 30, 2022)

“’The Banshees of Inisherin and the Dark Catholic Imagination of Martin McDonagh,” America (December 16, 2022)

“Ernest Hemingway Was a Brilliant Writer and a Terrible Person,” America (April 9, 2021)

“Dante Is The Elephant in the Room,” Church Life Journal (October 12, 2021)

“Ernest Hemingway’s Dark Night of the Soul,” Church Life Journal (July 31, 2021)

"The Moment in Race Relations That Keeps Repeating Itself." Essay in Church Life Journal (May 12, 2020).

"Has Literature Regained Its Faith?" Essay in Church Life Journal (October 2, 2019).

"The Catholic Art of Frida Kahlo." Article in America (April 19, 2019).

“The Epistles of Flannery O’Connor.” Article in America (Aug 20, 2018).

“Life & Death in the Afternoon: A Meditation on Bullfighting.” Article in America (October 2, 2017).

“The Fall of Ernest Hemingway.” Article in America (September 21, 2017).

“They Are Not Themselves: The Lives of the English Queens.” Article in America (April 3, 2017).

“Louise Erdrich: Poetry, Fiction, & the Art of Mythmaking.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal (Fall 2017).

“Altars to the Unknown God: Poetry’s Religious Impulse.” Essay in Transcending Orthodoxies: Reclaiming Academic Freedom in Religiously Affiliated Universities, ed. Kenneth Garcia (Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2017).

“Poetry, the Power of the Pen, & the Redemption of Time.” Christianity & Literature (Spring 2016).

“Mary Karr & the Poetics of Conversion.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal (Spring 2015).

“Poetry, Friendship, and the Communion of Saints: Thomas Merton & Czeslaw Milosz.” Essay in The Merton Annual (Spring 2015).

“Race and Grace: Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Everything that Rises Must Converge.” Article in America (May 18, 2015).

“This Blessed Place: The Work of Marilynne Robinson.” Article in America (April 27, 2015).

“Everyday Sacraments.” Article in America (December 8, 2014).

“The Sonnet Sequence & the Three S’s : Story, Symbol, & Song.” Essay in Wingbeats II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, 2014).

“Conjure.” Essay in Spiritus (Fall 2013).

“Ordinary Glory: The Art of Breaking Bread with the Dead.” Christianity & Literature (Fall 2013).

“Anna Swir and the Poetics of Embodiment.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal (Fall 2013).

“A Tale of Two Thomases.” America (April 22, 2013).

“Denise Levertov: A Poet’s Pilgrimage.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal (Spring 2013).

“Poetry and Catholic Themes.” Essay in Teaching the Tradition, ed. John Piderit, SJ, and Melanie Morey. (Oxford University Press, 2012).

“Marie Ponsot and the Difficult Art of Ease.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal. (Spring 2012).

“Seeing Catholicly: Poetry and the Catholic Imagination.” Essay in A Catholic Studies Reader, ed. James T. Fisher and Margaret McGuinness. (Fordham University Press, 2011).

“Living in the Crevice of Time: The Catholic Art of Josephine Jacobsen.” Essay in Mezzo Cammin Journal (Spring 2007)

“William Everson, The Veritable Years: Poems 1949-66.” Essay in Encyclopedia of Catholic Literature, Mary R. Reichardt, editor (Greenwood Press 2004).

“Tennyson's ‘English Idyls’: Studies in Poetic Decorum,” Studies in Philology, 85 (Winter, 1988): 125-44.

“A Great and Harsh Beauty.” Column in America, October 31, 2016.

“The Saints of Southwest Baltimore.” Column in America, September 12, 2016.

“Interrogating Grace.” Column in America, June 20, 2016.

“Hamilton: It’s About Rhyme.” Column in America, April 18, 2016.

“Hating February.” Column in America, February 15, 2016.

“A Poet’s Corner.” America, February 9, 2015.

“A Litany for Flannery.” America, March 23, 2015.

“In Our Sons’ Names.” America, May 18, 2015.

“Finding the Sacred Self.” America, August 17, 2015.

“Where Were You?” America, October 12, 2015

“The Mystic of Morningside Heights,” America, November 30, 2015.

“Lost in the Bronx.” America, November 27, 2014.

“The Bells of St. John’s,” America, August 8, 2014.

“Gathering Paradise,” America, April 14, 2014.

“Goodbye to the Catholic Writer?” America, January 20, 2014.

“The Sacrament of Story,” America, November 25, 2013.

“The Country of Mercy,” America, October 28, 2013.

“Finding Melville at Woodlawn,” America, July 28-August 5, 2013.

“Mother Love,” America, May 20, 2013.

“Saints in the City,” America, March 5, 2013