Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680), an ascetic known to French settlers as "Lily of the Mohawks," lived in the woods in what is now upstate New York and Quebec. After her conversion to Catholicism at age 20 — over the objection of family members — she had a friend whip her almost daily so she could experience Christ's suffering on the cross. She slept on a bed of thorns, shunned men and sex, walked barefoot in ice and snow and put burning coals between her toes.

At the end of her penitent life, sick with fever, she continued to fast and minister to the other sick and elderly. After her death, admirers traveled to her grave, celebrating her as a "magic virgin."

On Dec. 19, more than 300 years after her death, Pope Benedict XVI recognized miracles attributed to Kateri's intercession, clearing the way for her to be canonized next year.

Four days later, Byliner, a fledgling website and digital publishing company partly based in Santa Fe released The Secret World of Saints, a look inside the Roman Catholic Church and the process of anointing the "Holy Dead" that focuses on Blessed Kateri.

Portland, Ore., author Bill Donahue, who investigated the 2006 miracle attributed to her, interviewed Jake Finkbonner, the Lummi Indian boy who was 6 when diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis. A flesh-eating bacteria was "crawling across his face with frightening speed," Donahue writes, and doctors told his parents the disease was likely fatal.

The family priest suggested the couple pray to the Blessed Kateri, whose severe smallpox scars (the disease killed her parents and brother and badly disfigured her own face) miraculously disappeared after her death, according to witnesses.

Special prayer sessions were held at the reservation's Catholic church, the boy's Catholic school and at Kateri circles around the country. A Catholic nun from Montana even brought a relic from Blessed Kateri — a sixteenth-inch-long sliver of wristbone, reportedly chipped from her skeleton in 1972 when her corpse was last exhumed — to the boy's hospital room and, by one account, placed the relic on the boy's body. The same day, the infection stopped, and the boy recovered.

Donahue, who's still not sure the story unfolded as the nuns described, interviewed family members and the church investigator, or postulator, who is an expert in canon law. Raised a Catholic, Donahue also delved into such weighty standard reference books as Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages by French historian André Vauchez.

Donahue said his original goal was to explain the process of becoming a saint, which he described as similar to a bill becoming law. "That involves K Street lobbyists and back-room deals, and the making of saints does, too," he said.

Kateri didn't emerge as a popular icon until the late 19th century, when Catholic bishops gathering in Baltimore decided they needed a saint who could "symbolically root the Church in American Soil," Donahue writes. He quotes Allan Greer, author of a biography on Kateri, describing her as "a perfect candidate: an innocent Indian from the distant colonial past."

The prolonged and expensive lobbying campaign for sainthood — as they all are — bore fruit in 1943 when she was finally made venerable; in 1980 she was beatified. Native people, particularly in the Southwest, embraced her. As an indigenous woman, she afforded them a way to bring their traditions into the church. The number of her followers continued to grow, and today some 800 people attend the week-long annual gathering of the Montana-based Tekakwitha Conference, which features traditional dancing, drumming and adoration of both Kateri and Jesus Christ.

Donahue, who describes Kateri as having an "anguished Kurt Cobain-like vibe," said he came to admire her. "She was intense about what she did and I have respect for people, no matter how twisted their behavior, because they're devoted to what they do," he said.

After the pope's announcement, Byliner considered reworking Donahue's manuscript, which was already finished, but decided to go ahead and publish in December — the season of miracles — with a new author's note acknowledging what had happened.

The Secret World of Saints is the 16th manuscript to be published by Byliner. The company has also published new work by writers Amy Tan, Jon Krakauer, Mark Bittman, Taylor Branch and others.

Byliner's website, which went online in June, is geared to fans of magazine narratives, back when more magazines published them. It helps readers identify, read and discuss new and classic work. They can click on the recommended title on byliner.com and are directed to the original source, usually a magazine website, where they can read the entire article. "It operates like Pandora does for music," said co-founder Mark Bryant.

Then there is Byliner Originals, a platform launched last April, for new nonfiction (such as The Secret World of Saints) and fiction of between 8,000 and 35,000 words. Each piece is somewhere between a magazine article and a full-length book — by well-known writers as well as those who are up-and-coming. Each is "readable in a single sitting," Byliner promises.

In some case writers have approached Byliner (New York Times food writer Mark Bittman and former New Yorker fact-checker Rachel Corbett, for example) and in other cases, Bryant and his partners commission stories as they did in their previous careers.

Some writers are looking for a break from book projects, while others are experimenting with stories they want to expand into full-on books, Bryant said.

Next year, Byliner hopes to up production to three or four pieces of nonfiction and two pieces of fiction each month and feed the growing demand for ebooks by owners of tablets such as the Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle Fire and Motorola Xoom. In the works: a manifesto for the Occupy movement and a piece on the rise and fall of Penn State University.

All the original works are available from Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble, and are delivered to the reader's computer or mobile device. The costs start at under a dollar (holiday sale price for all those who found Kindles under their Christmas tree). Most works are $1.99 or $2.99.

Byliner pays authors a story fee up front. The digital bookstores take one third of the sales revenue, and Byliner and the author split the other two-thirds. Writers can track their sales online. Down the road, the stories might also be available via print on demand, Bryant said. And Byliner might also eventually sell them through an app on its own website.

A number of the pieces published so far have become best-sellers.

For example, an editor persuaded writer Amy Tan to submit a piece, her first fiction in six years, to Byliner. Rules for Virgins is a story about a washed-up courtesan who is instructing a young protégé in the art of love, business and life in 1912 Shanghai. The writing may or may not show up in a future book.

Jon Krakauer's piece, Three Cups of Deceit, examines inaccuracies in Greg Mortenson's book Three Cups of Tea and its sequel, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as financial irregularities at Mortenson's nonprofit, the Central Asia Institute.

Krakauer insisted on allowing readers to download the piece free from the website for three days after publication, Bryant said. Seventy thousand people did that. It later became an Amazon best-seller.

Bryant's partners include: John Tayman, founder and CEO, a former deputy editor of Outside magazine and author of the 2006 best-seller The Colony; and Ted Barnett, co-founder, chief operating officer and former product manager for Apple. They work out of San Francisco, where the technical and website staffs are located. Bryant, Byliner's editorial director, is the former editor of Santa Fe-based Outside, Men's Journal and Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine. He lives in Santa Fe and works with editors located around the country.

Bryant said that he and his partners don't buy into the idea that nobody's reading anymore. "Our feeling is that people do in fact read. But there is such a torrent of information. They need help deciding what they might really want to read. We figure some of that out for them," he said.

Referring to the collapse of so many newspapers and magazines, he added, "People say it's a terrible time for writers. But I'd argue that maybe there's never been a better time."

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.


BYLINER ORIGINALS & FICTION

Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan

A Killing in Iowa by Rachel Corbett

Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer

The Cartel by Taylor Branch

The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett

Cooking Solves Everything by Mark Bittman

Into the Forbidden Zone by William T. Vollmann

Sleeping with Famous Men by Elizabeth Kaye

Joan by Sara Davidson

Lady with a Past by Elizabeth Mitchell

The Fearless Mrs. Goodwin by Elizabeth Mitchell

Planet Killers by Tad Friend

The Baby Chase by Holly Finn

I Hope Like Heck by Michael Solomon

And the War Came by Jamie Malanowski

Prayer to Kateri: Kateri Tekakwitha, Noble Turtle, Mother Earth gathers her people, east, south, west and north. Mohawk Algonquin Lily filled with love, grateful woman, we honor you.