Alice Lesperance

Profile Photo

Alice Lesperance is a 27-year-old writer based in North Carolina, where she lives with her wife and their cat, Stevie Nicks. She writes about trauma, (pop)culture and politics. Find her at alicelesperance.com and on twitter @ayelesperance. 

Stories

Cover Photo: Illustration by Elizabeth Haidle for Catapult
How a Puzzling Medieval Text Taught Me More About God Than Going to Church Ever Did

I tried to put the institution of religion aside to better understand God, but the two were so inextricably linked where I grew up, it felt impossible.

Jan 28, 2019
Cover Photo: My Year with Julian of Norwich by Alice Lesperance
My Year with Julian of Norwich

In the midst of terrible isolation, reading Julian’s feverish words about her visions helped me feel sane. Here was another woman, enclosed.

Dec 12, 2018
Cover Photo: Photograph by Peter Gasston/Flickr
Why Canterbury Tales Is the Ultimate Road Trip Story

How do we pass the time while traveling from Point A to Point B? What stories do we tell one another, and how do those stories connect?

Oct 30, 2018
Cover Photo: Author's great-grandmother Rose (left) with family members. Photo courtesy of the author.
Manhattan’s Vanished Little Syria, and the Work of Preserving My Family’s History

Raji Lian, my great-grandfather, came over from Syria in 1899.

May 02, 2018
Cover Photo: From left: Evelyn Simak via Wikimedia Commons, Cameron Macauly via Wikimedia Commons, freestocks-photos via Pixabay
Freeing Myself from Grad School, I Rediscover Flannery O’Connor and the Medieval Mystics

I try to use my master’s thesis as a way to find myself in women’s writing—the mystics, Flannery—but, ultimately, I fail.

Feb 12, 2018