Convent Wisdom

This self-help book by two scholarly BFFs is full of wisdom gleaned from the lives of 16th and 17th-century nuns like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Saint Teresa that is applicable to your most modern quandries. The cheeky and insightful volume is also brimming with fascinating historical details, like the penchants of some nuns for side hustles and eating spiders – Melissa Febos * Marie Claire *Nuns have long peppered my own writing because that’s exactly what they are. Incendiary stuff. I tout this book madly because this is the back story that explains the inquisition we are now living through as well as revealing the fact that sixteenth-century nuns had the internet. I am panting with joy. And it’s a wormhole into the elaborate, interior museum, sex club, library, bakery, community space and in diaspora the convent always was. Carmen and Ana, I thank you mightily for this profoundly useful and pleasure-seeking book – Eileen MylesWhen it comes to advice on life and love, where else would you turn besides sixteenth century nuns? Convent Wisdom is here to help us get in the habit of learning from the past – Nicole Tersigni, bestsellng author of MEN TO AVOID IN ART AND LIFEPlayful and inventive, Convent Wisdom is a delight for the intellectually curious reader. A pair of witty scholar-storytellers, Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita, share stories of their devotion to each other and of the 16th-century nuns whose lives parallel ours in surprising ways. Through some alchemy they’ve transformed what could have been a survey course in historical religious figures into a treasure chest of revelations and nuggets of self-help – Duchess GoldblattAn invitation to sit at the cool nuns’ table, Convent Wisdom is for anyone who longs for more sisterhood, solitude, or sapphic drama (who doesn’t?). It’s at once juicy and funny and meticulously researched, an educational deep dive that’s also a fizzy joy to read. I’m already planning to gift it to several of my honourary sisters this year. I loved it! – Betsy Cornwell, author of RING OF SALTA wonderfully entertaining book… Convent Wisdom shows us that monasticism is not an anachronism, but rather a deep well from which we can draw guidance and comfort. The lives of the sisters and saints in Convent Wisdom are as relevant today as they were in their own time – Sister Monica Clare, author of A CHANGE OF HABIT

Ana Garriga is a scholar of early modern Spain and Latin America. She earned her PhD from Brown University in 2024. Prior to joining the Department of Hispanic Studies at Brown, she received a prestigious Fulbright scholarship and completed a PhD at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, where she wrote her dissertation on the letters of Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–82).