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  "Thomas Merton's MY ARGUMENT WITH THE GESTAPO:" ITMS Sixteenth General Meeting at Santa Clara University in California, June 27, 2019, by Ron Hansen.

  Ron Hansen is the author of screenplays, two collections of stories, a book of essays, and nine novels, the most recent being The Kid, which is based on the life of the outlaw William H. Bonney. Ron graduated from Creighton University in Omaha and went on to the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop and Stanford University where he was a Wallace Stegner Creative Writing Fellow. His novel Atticus was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. His novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. Mariette in Ecstasy won the Gold Medal in Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Ron’s writing has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is currently the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University and a permanent deacon for the Diocese of San Jose.
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  "The Reality of Personal Relationships Saves Everything:" Presidential Address—ITMS Sixteenth General Meeting at Santa Clara University in California, June 27, 2019, by Mark C. Meade.

  Mark C. Meade is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Merton Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and 2017-2019 President of the International Thomas Merton Society. Since coming to the Merton Center in 2003, he has created online finding aids to the Merton Collection, which include a full index of over 20,000 letters and nearly 40,000 manuscripts and published materials by and about Merton. He has delivered lectures on Thomas Merton in the United States, England, and Argentina. His essays on Merton have been published in the United States and Spain. His satirical essay on Merton appears in We Are Already One: Thomas Merton’s Message of Hope. His poems, essays, and reviews have been published in The Merton Seasonal and The Merton Annual. Mark is active in the movement to abolish the death penalty in Kentucky. He has lectured and published papers on Merton's reflections on Albert Camus and both writers' opposition to the death penalty. He has contributed articles on visiting Kentucky's death row to Fellowship magazine and U.S. Catholic.