Coffee & Writing

Submitting a manuscript is no small feat. They want just about as much of the book as they do with an application. When in Juarez is out there and has already been sort of turned down by one company. It’s all good, I love getting rejection letters, I don’t know what I’d do if someone said yes. I know that sounds strange, but it isn’t, because I know I’m in a really big club.

One of the large companies that I submitted to which is like the Random House of Catholic book companies wanted so much stuff, including a hard copy along with a digital copy. I’m sure they have a reason, but I like to be pessimistic and blame them for deforestation. I wrote them a cover letter and I gave them, as they specifically requested, a “CV (curriculum vitae)”. Now, if you have to define CV, perhaps you should be using the word, resume, instead.

This is what I wrote to them:

Cover Letter

To Whom It May Concern,

            I’m fairly certain you will turn my book down. It doesn’t meet the 100-page minimum, but it promotes vocations. “When in Juarez” talks about great faith and love which has gotten lost in the violence Juarez carries.

When you mention Juarez, people think of violence and drugs and corruption. I did not see that. I saw love and poverty and faith. There is a neighborhood near El Manantial that is very poor; the houses are sitting on hills of dirt with tires and garbage neatly piled around and barbed wire like you would see around prison walls. In the middle of this extraordinary poverty there was hope, laughter, and faith. Christmas decorations adorned the houses, images of Our Lady of Guadalupe lined the street, and one house had a large simple wooden cross.

“When in Juarez”

            When I was in the early months of being a postulant in a small order in Kentucky via France, I was sent to our mission in Juarez in 2012 that helps special needs youths and adults. Each day in Juarez was a month’s education in America.

            You may also turn me down because I’m not going to follow all your requirements for submitting. I fee like submitting a hard copy is unnecessary in this day and age and I think Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si” would back me up on this.

[T]he ecological crisis is also a summons to profound interior conversion…Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience. (#217)

I urge you to read it and give it a chance, despite the fact I haven’t followed the rules. I’m not a Galileo breaking the rules, but I’m also not as stubborn or as impertinent as this cover letter makes me seem.

Blessings,

Miriam Kavanagh

CV (curriculum vitae)

You asked for a CV, and since the Latin meaning of Curriculum Vitae is “course of life” that is what you will get because you cannot picture a person with bullet points.

CV of Miriam Kavanagh

Born on Veteran’s Day in 1975 and baptized on Thanksgiving two weeks later, the best part of my life came to be. I grew up on a farm in Central Virginia with my two sisters and three brothers (I was the fifth of the six) and my parents who were married by Father Hesburgh (who was a last minute substitute) in a log chapel on Notre Dame in 1964.

When I was about four, I asked God the question, “Why do we call our parents Mom and Dad when You are our Father?”

We went to midnight Mass at our small church of no more than a hundred parishioners, even though I was excited for Santa Claus, I was five and bored at Mass. However, when I looked up as the priest was consecrating the host, I saw this amazing bright light.

That is how my life has always been, visits with Jesus, angels, God.

On the more boring side, I went to St.Anne’s-Belfield school in Charlottesville, Virginia; it has consistently been ranked one of Harvard’s top 100 private schools in the country. I finally got my college degree from Western Kentucky University in 2017; I studied Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in humanities. Along my route of colleges, I was on the student programming board, the college bowl team, and I won an award for public speaking.

Sometime in the middle of all the cobblestone twists and turns to getting a college degree, I was a journalist for two different small town weekly newspaper. My primary beat was education, but I had the great opportunity to cover human interest, business, the NAACP, and several other topics. While I was at one of the newspapers, I won first place in some high up newspaper organization for a photo I took.

I had to go on disability a while ago and during that time I volunteered at the Salvation Army and my church. For many, many years I had a strong urge to become a nun for about two weeks out of the year and that was it, but now my zeal had grown stronger. A friend of mine found the order I joined, the Sisters of the Lamb of God. Unfortunately, I had to leave mid-way through my canonical year because I became ill, and I couldn’t juggle my duties and my illness at the same time.

I have moved from Owensboro, Kentucky where the sisters were located to Covington, Kentucky to be closer to my brother who lives in Cincinnati, about 15 minutes away.

Now, I write because that is what I have always done.

My love and my blessings are with you always.    

I know that I will get turned down but hopefully I will get a lovely email regarding my cover letter and CV.