(Note: I didn’t plan for this to be a Halloween post but it works as one … so Happy Halloween!)
(Part II discussed how language is action and how dangerous words may threaten others’ wellbeing and cause harm in the same way as do dangerous acts. Such “spells” work on a surprisingly simple and commonplace principle: [...]

Disclaimer: It is not my desire to bring any of the many piles of refuse from the fall of Banner of Heaven within the pristine walls of A Motley Vision. If you want to read or comment on the ethics of the situation, you can do so here. (Or here, here, here, here, here, here, [...]

This is the first in a three-part series on the role of Deseret Book in the LDS Market. As the largest player in the market and because it is owned by the LDS Church, it occupies a unique, but problematic, in my view, position.
The LDS publishing industry has an 800-pound gorilla — Deseret Book. I’m [...]

Here’s what the back cover of Leaving Moscow says:
“Eddie has a problem — several of them in fact. Drugs and alcohol are fogging his mind, while death and war are depleting his soul. Now, in 1969, he wanders his college campus, relying on his student deferment to keep him alive while he sorts it all [...]

For more on Stephenie Meyer and her work, visit Reading Until Dawn.
——
Stephanie Meyer made waves in the world of Mormon culture when she mentioned in the Amazon.com interview for her young adult vampire novel Twilight that the Book of Mormon is the book “with the most significant impact on [her] life.” A Mormon writing a [...]

(Part I introduced the idea that in the course of exerting control some persons may use manipulative language, including language formed up as narrative, to achieve their ends. Language framed to control another blinds its target to everything except what the attacker wishes him/her to see. Such “deadly words” may trap, bring a range of [...]

The primary problem in dealing with a film like The Work and the Glory: American Zion is its episodic nature. Kind of like the second of The Lord of the Rings, American Zion has neither a real beginning nor a real end. After quick introduction to the characters and back-story, the film begins with the [...]

Some brief notes from all over:

(Note: This is the first post in a five post series about harmful and healing language. The original paper, written for a folklore class taught by N. Scott Momaday at the University of Arizona, has been edited for space and content. Works cited will appear at the end of the last post. Part II may [...]

AMV’s own Patricia Gunter Karamesines will be reading from her award-winning novel The Pictograph Murders at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, at the new South Jordan Library (10673 South Redwood Road, West Jordan, UT). Patricia says that this will probably be the last reading she does in awhile so tomorrow is your last chance to [...]

The New York Times is reporting that eminent literary critic and theorist Wayne C. Booth has died (free registration required). He was 84.
Booth was raised Mormon and served a mission, but he struggled with his faith and later grounded himself in secular humanism, basing his worldview on skepticism, rhetoric and ethics. However, he continued to [...]

Ben Huff wondered here why so few of his fellow Mormons felt as drawn as he did to peak-of-season blackberries growing wild where his stake center’s parking lot ended and the forest began.
I remember blackberries: we had snarls of them on our land in Virginia. The berries grew plump and shiny on generousities of the [...]

A Motley Vision has recently suffered several attacks of comment spam. This has necessiated activation of Blogger’s only spam defense — a word verification system.
However, activating the word verification means that the Metempsychosis hack doesn’t work as smoothly as intended. Commenters can still use the form at the bottom of each post, but when they [...]

The Ogden Standard-Examiner has posted a clip of Layton native Darren DeFrain reading from his debut novel The Salt Palace. Unfortunately, although the paper calls it a “Podcast,” it’s a streaming clip.
The Salt Palace will be published this month by New Issues Press.
Here’s what they have posted by way of marketing copy:
“‘If you think we [...]

A cliché about fiction, popular even among LDS authors, holds that all fiction is a lie, which means, roughly, that all fiction is doubtable. This suggests that to one degree or another all stories are disreputable and misleading, some perhaps harmfully so while others merely require the willing suspension of disbelief. While there’s value in [...]