Cathleen Falsani

Cathleen Falsani (25 September 1970-) is the popular religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

She was the 2005 Religion Writer of the Year, as awarded by the Religion Newswriters Association, a professional society of reporters, editors and producers who cover religion for the secular media in the United States and Canada. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed book, ', a collection of 32 spiritual profiles of famous "culture shapers" such as Bono of U2, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel, author Anne Rice, professional basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon, President George W. Bush's speechwriter and policy advisor Michael Gerson, cult-favorite author Tom Robbins, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame, Studs Terkel, Iyanla Vanzant, hip-hop impresario and entrepreneur Russell Simmons, authors Laura Esquivel and Sandra Cisneros, Chicago Cubs mananger Dusty Baker,Blue Note jazz man Kurt Elling, singer-songwriters Annie Lennox and Melissa Etheridge, directors David Lynch and Harold Ramis, choreographer Mark Morris, author Jonathan Safran Foer, playwright John Patrick Shanley, iconoclast and Kabblah devotee Sandra Bernhard, Tony- and Emmy-winning actor John Mahoney, the Rev. Al Sharpton, leading forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, economist Jeffrey Sachs and crusading death penalty attorney Barry Scheck. ', Falsani's first book, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux on March 14 2006, to critical acclaim, launching Sarah Crichton Books, the newest imprint at the venerable New York publishing house. The paperback edition of "The God Factor" was published in June 2007. Falsani's debut was named among the best non-fiction books of 2006 by the Christian Science Monitor.

In early 2007, Falsani left the Chicago Sun-Times as its religion reporter after 10 years on the news beat in Chicago (though she continues to write for the paper as its religion columnist) and signed with the publishing giant Zondervan for two new non-fiction books: — a spiritual memoir/travelogue published September 1, 2008 — and , to come in April 2009.

In the spring of 2007, she also began writing as a columnist for the nationally syndicated Religion News Service and for the Huffington Post. She has twice been a finalist for the prestigious Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year Award, most recently in 2007, where she took second place.

Since 2004, Falsani also has been the author of a popular, irreverent religion-and-popular-culture blog called "The Dude Abides."

A Connecticut native, Falsani is an alumna [1992] of Wheaton College in Illinois, and holds master's degrees in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and in theological studies from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. She is married [October 18, 1997] to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune investigative reporter and author ("" and "The Brown's Chicken Massacre") Maurice Possley and lives with him in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park (Ernest Hemingway's birth place).

[http://falsani.blogspot.com/ The Dude Abides]

[http://www.suntimes.com/news/falsani/index.html Falsani at the Chicago Sun-Times]

[http://www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com/Speakers/Default.aspx?AMCSD=2&CSId=1&SpId=274 Falsani at HarperCollins Speakers Bureau]