In this episode of the Making Every Class Catholic podcast, I’m joined by Dominic de Souza—web designer, writer, and founder of the Legend Fiction community—for an in-depth conversation about stories, imagination, and the cultural importance of fiction. Dominic is the man behind the beautiful Making Every Class Catholic website, but his deepest passion is helping writers create stories that can help “heal the culture.”

We begin with the crisis of meaning facing many young people today and the role stories play in helping human beings make sense of their lives. Dominic proposes four key pillars for healthy storytelling—meaning, myth-making, magic (an enchanted view of the cosmos), and moral good—and argues that the stories that endure in the culture almost always draw on these deeper truths. Along the way we reflect on why stories operate at the level of the soul rather than merely the intellect, why children instinctively hunger for them, and why a rich “diet” of stories helps people interpret and navigate the world.

Dominic shares more about his writing community, Legend Fiction, which brings together storytellers who want to explore meaning-rich fantasy and sci-fi worlds while developing their craft in community.

Music by Braden Kuntz