Jenny Snarski
Catholic Herald Staff
Boulder Junction is “the friendliest town in Wisconsin” according to its website. One Catholic author agrees the town—and its Catholic Church, St. Anne’s—are the perfect setting for fiction.
“The Funeral Ladies of Ellery County” takes place in the fictional town of Moose Junction that Wisconsin author Claire Swinarski affirms is loosely based on the town her parents call a second home.
This multigenerational story about the roles and relationships of community and faith even has a parish church named St. Anne’s. It also has humor, heartache and the narrative touches on Catholic belief and practice in easily relatable ways.
Swinarski’s second adult fiction book, “The Supper Club Saints,” was released this May. It also has a “Northwoods-y feel,” as the author told the Catholic Herald. Having recently participated in an author’s event at the Rhinelander Public Library, she said how “really happy” she feels to have two books set in the Upper Midwest, celebrating the area and its people.
Born and raised in the Madison area, Swinarski’s love of the Northwoods—”such a unique, special place”—is based in real life. It’s a place she praises in social media posts for its peacefulness and where she makes memories with her own children.
A journalist major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Swinarski’s dream was always to write fiction, although she took a roundabout path in that pursuit.
Swinarski’s Catholic parents had “a huge impact” on her. While they took their four children to weekly Mass and guided their development in “Christian, natural law virtues,” she commented that they “weren’t super involved in the church” outside of that and admitted part of her felt that “church-stuff was boring … lame … not interesting.”
Then she arrived at UW-Madison in 2009, where her involvement at the St. Paul’s Student Center on campus showed her a new side of Catholicism.
“I saw people really living the faith in a way that seemed so exciting and joyful,” she said.
One of the campus’ FOCUS missionaries had such an impact for her faith and spiritual growth, that she “wanted to do the same for other people.” Swinarski spent two years after her 2013 graduation with FOCUS, one at Tulane University in New Orleans, and the second in Columbia, Missouri.
Unstimulated and stuck in her first “real” job’s cubicle, Swinarski felt the need to stay deeply connected with her faith and continue sharing it; in 2017 “The Catholic Feminist” podcast was born.
The idea originated from her lifelong sense of value for her womanhood alongside a renewed understanding of the church’s teachings on what women have to offer the world. She had always been pro-life but felt that many Catholic women didn’t have a full sense of the appreciation the church had for their feminine genius, both at home and in society.
Her conviction that “the family is the most important foundation of society” is something most people could agree on.
She feels motherhood should be promoted first over careers, but Swinarski wishes men’s vocation to work and provide for their families was framed in the greater context of “fatherhood first” as well.
Swinarski’s first book was nonfiction, published in 2019 by Ave Maria Press. It received a second-place award from the Catholic Press Association in 2020.
The introduction of “Girl, Arise!: A Catholic Feminist’s Invitation to Live Boldly, Love Your Faith, and Change the World,” immediately addresses the “confused looks and raised eyebrows” Swinarski received calling herself a Catholic feminist.
Most people imagine being a feminist means being socialist, pro-choice and men-hating, but she holds none of these opinions.
Jesus and the Catholic Church have defended and promoted women’s beauty, equality and dignity longer than any other institution, Swinarski argues, but even Catholic women who all value motherhood may disagree on whether or not Catholicism and feminism can hold any goals in common.
St. Pope John Paul II’s 1995 “Letter to Women” offers the blueprint Swinarski believes can help Catholic women answer God’s invitation to holiness and uphold the irreplaceable value of motherhood without denying their own God-given gifts and personalities.
“Your goal is to be holy. It’s not to live out a certain stereotype or set of expectations,” she reflected. If women are growing closer to God, “you’re going to be discerning … open to what he’s asking of you.” You’re also going to grow in spiritual maturity, which leads to personal coherence and, at the same time, the ability to “cheer on” someone else, even though God’s will for them looks different.
It was just such a discernment process that prompted Swinarski to sunset her podcast despite its popularity and the disappointment of her followers. By then married and mom of three, once opportunities to write fiction began cropping up, she knew something had to give. She stepped away with no regrets, grateful for the technology to continue a minimal engagement with women through a weekly newsletter.
Fiction was always her life goal. “That was the dream I had in my heart,” Swinarski assured, adding, “I truly do believe that fiction can be evangelistic; it can lead people closer to God.”
She pointed out how Jesus valued stories as an evangelizing tool: “He knew that was a way to really get to people’s heart, to help them imagine things and see themselves differently and point them towards truth.”
Acknowledging the “great, rich tradition of that in the Catholic world,” she values carrying that forward.
“Stories really are a place where we can explore bigger truths in a way that feels exciting and adventurous on the one hand, but also safe and comfortable on the other,” she added.
Visiting local schools and regional bookstores for readings and presentations, Swinarski enjoys engaging with the written word face-to-face.
Since “What Happens Next” was published in 2021, Swinarski has written four more fiction books for middle-grade audiences. “Each and Every Spark,” released in February, presents World War II history to teens in a way that they can learn what life was like, but also what it means to be courageous, virtuous and faithful to the truth.
“Funeral Ladies” was released for adults in March 2025 and recently “Supper Club Saints.” The first has been well-received as a book club favorite. The second will likely follow suit, as it touches on women’s understanding of their mothering role and the role of mercy and forgiveness in relationships.
Swinarski’s goal is to write “great stories that will really stick with us … that help us think deeply about the world and our place in it.”
Her world for the time being is a tiny town northwest of Milwaukee, where she’s grateful for her husband’s job flexibility allows for parenting teamwork on the days he works from home. She knows firsthand how easy it is to get too busy, to feel preyed upon by cultural expectations of what “good parenting” looks like.
“We’ve exchanged God’s design of leisure for entertainment,” she said, commenting on the common question she gets about how to make time for the pleasure of reading fiction in a world that praises productivity and progress.
Swinarski responded: First, “fiction is going to improve you and deepen your spiritual life… Sometimes it can do more.” She shared how she has learned more about grace and mercy from Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” than from reading St. Augustine.
Second, leisure is important.
“God rested on the seventh day. He told us to do that – and we do not. We ignore him,” she observed. “There’s actually something right about taking a pause and doing something enjoyable.”
Third, audio books are a very good and reasonable alternative to fit fiction into busy days.
Fourth, she challenges people who say they don’t have time for fiction, or other healthy forms of leisure, to check their screen time and see what apps and media they are spending that time on instead.
“Let’s be real,” she added. “How much time are we wasting and not prioritizing?”
With mental health problems skyrocketing among her children’s Generation Alpha and the negative effects of digital addiction on adults, Swinarski advocates reclaiming a culture of creativity over one of convenience.
Another topic she is often asked about is Artificial Intelligence and its benefits versus toll on learning and creativity. Swinarski encourages AI’s use “as little as possible.”
“Encourage kids to fall in love with their own creativity so that they don’t feel as drawn to AI,” she emphasized. Another key for this, she believes is “shifting to a culture in our homes that really appreciates wonder, stands in awe of the beauty of God’s creation and partakes in it.”
Admitting that she and her husband are “loosey goosey” about kids being outside and playing in their neighborhood but are “very strict” about limits with technology and digital entertainment, she advises, “Make sure kids have other things that they want to do more.”
A former FOCUS missionary and mom of three, Wisconsin author Claire Swinarski recently released her second adult fiction book set in the Northwoods. The setting is loosely based on the Boulder Junction area, where she enjoys spending time at her parents’ lake cabin. (Submitted photo)
