Conversion Stories – James K. Hanna

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James K. Hanna

rem litteris mandare (to put a thing in writing)

Tag: Conversion Stories

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Interesting Characters, True crime

The Death Row Conversion of Ruth Snyder

3 Mar 2022 — 0 Comments

email jimhanna52@comcast.net

Books available on Amazon here.

Visit and subscribe (free) to my Substack Newsletter "The Obscure, Forgotten, and Undiscovered" at JamesHannaWriter.substack.com where you'll find characters and stories you'll likely not find elsewhere. Always a nice, brief diversion—rarely more than a two-minute read.

James K. Hanna is the author of The Remarkable Life of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick: Exile, Redemption, and a Gas Station (Serif Press, 2022) and three other books available on Amazon here

He has written for OSV Newsweekly with essays in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, New Oxford Review, Beatdom 25: The San Francisco Renaissance, on DappledThings.org, and in the academic journal Marian Studies and in Dorothy Day & the Church (Solidarity Hall, 2015). He holds an MA in Theology from Duquesne University, is Vice President of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, and a former instructor for the University of Notre Dame's Satellite Theology Program (STEP) from 2014-2022.

NOW AVAILABLE: For God and Our Country: The Remarkable Life of Edward Vattmann, Priest and Patriot. Among the first four chaplains to attain the rank of Major, he was acquainted with six U.S. presidents, a confidante to four, and an intimate friend to two - William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Find it on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/cJhvgWE

Check out Serif Press here

LINKS TO PUBLISHED ESSAYS, ARTICLES AND CONFERENCE PAPERS:

Malcolm Cowley and Jack Kerouac essay in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette December 14, 2025.

"A Soon to be Famous Writer's Drunken Pittsburgh Summer" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 7, 2025

"Jack Kerouac's Creedal Moment'' New Oxford Review, May 2024

"No Room at the Inn" A Christmas Day essay on Dorothy Day's wisdom of hospitality - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 25, 2022

"Did McKinley Die a Catholic?" New Oxford Review, June 2025

"Kerouac and What Might Have Been" Dappled Things February 2022

"The Conversion of Ruth Snyder" New Oxford Review March 2022

"A telegram changed the course of literature" Dappled Things, February 2026

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The Patristic Pre-History of Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (presented at the 2016 Mariological Society of America at the Franciscan Retreat Center in Colorado Springs) in the academic journal Marian Studies The Patristic Pre-History of Devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (udayton.edu)

Detachment as a Hallmark of Dorothy Day’s Spirituality (presented at University of St. Francis University, Fort Wayne, IN in 2015) in "Dorothy Day and the Church: Past, Present & Future" (Solidarity Hall Press: Valparaiso, IN, 206, pp. 83-95) Dorothy Day and the Church: Past, Present, and Future: Lance Richey, Adam DeVille: 9780692625194:Books (amazon.com)

The following links are to my recent articles in the Duquesne Scholarship Collection appearing in Gathered Fragments, the journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania:

Decker's Chapel and Monsignor Michael Decker

Father Bertin Roll Champion of Christian Mothers

Reporting on Dorothy Day and The Church

History of Immaculate Heart of Mary Collegiate Seminary in Gathered Fragments Gathered Fragments: The Journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania | Vol 27 |Iss 1 (duq.edu)

The Many Missions of Father Richard F. Wersing, CSSp in Gathered Fragments Gathered Fragments: The Journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania | Vol 25 |Iss 1 (duq.edu)

A Brief History of Saint Anne School in Castle Shannon in Gathered Fragments Gathered Fragments: The Journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania

The First Fathers of the Mother Church of the South Hills in Gathered Fragments Gathered Fragments: The Journal of the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania | Vol 29 |Iss 1 (duq.edu)

Pittsburgh Pioneers of Abstinence (2023)

© 2026 James K. Hanna

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