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I found the whole conversation about Signature very interesting. I do have something that will help. This is a list from the Mormon Literature Database of Signature-published books: http://mormonlit.lib.byu.edu/lit_publisher.php?p_id=29

I can’t speak for every work on there, but out of the novels:

Heresies of Nature, The Conversion of Jeff Williams, The Marketing of Sister B, Vernal Promises and Falling Toward Heaven are all well-written, broadly appropriate (to borrow a term from Irreantum) works.

I have concerns about Signature on several levels, but they have published *some* works that should be read and cherished regardless of their source. I think the sad thing is that these novelists had to go to Signature to get their works published. Thus why I hope Zarahemla Books succeeds.

But seriously, although there may be some reasons why Doug Thayer published The Conversion of Jeff Williams with Signature; however, it’s criminal that Deseret Book didn’t swoop in and pick it up. Or at least try to. I mean — come on! It’s Doug Thayer.

I also think that Vernal Promises deserves more talking up. Here’s a link to my review.

“I hope our very own Patricia is not too annoyed with me right now about my possibly hair-splitting posts I’ve placed under her recent essay.”

“Our very own Patricia.” Cute!

I haven’t been annoyed into silence, just Internetless, as explained on the Birds of Summer thread. Couldn’t have happened at a more frustrating time. I was anxious to see where these conversations might go.

For anyone who might be interested: I submitted my book to Signature because I had this idea (probably false) that they would allow me to keep in some of the book’s artsier parts, parts I feared publishers like Desert Books or Covenant might find irrelevant or even distracting and so edit out. Since one of my biggest motivations for writing is trying to write language of good report, and since I considered those passages to be some of the best reports I could make, I didn’t want to fight with an editor about them. I was fairly sure Signature wouldn’t put up a fuss about that sort of artsy writing, and they didn’t. I do wonder now if I stereotyped Deseret Book or Covenant and thus limited my choices unnecessarily.

Mahonri, always the gentleman. I hope we get a chance to meet finally, maybe even at the AML conf coming up in November. In fact, I’m hoping to meet up with all AMVers. T’would be nice if William could come.

Thanks for the intrigueing message, I will definitely follow your recommendation and obtain a copy of “Pictograph Murders.” And I hope to be able to read or see your play when it is written and, hopefully, produced. Of course, living in southern Arizona, seeing it may prove difficult.

I hope our very own Patricia is not too annoyed with me right now about my possibly hair-splitting posts I’ve placed under her recent essay.

It is a great treat to be able to interact with people who take literature and fiction seriously. I hope to be able to interact meaningfully in this forum without being an unwelcome personality. And while enjoying myself, I have to beware of suffering the fate of one of my best and oldest friends who belongs to the Association of Mormon Letters. He appears to enjoy that group’s company and esteem so mcuh that he is unsatisfied with intellectual intercourse with those who interpret life more simply.

I hope to make your personal acquaintance, Mr. Stewart, it seems we might have much to talk about. And Mr. (Shawn?) Bailey, please accept my goodwill; I hope to see and perhaps respond to more of your posts as more topics accrue here.

Your comment on my lack of exposure to LDS literature is uninformed. I have not read any LDS books from back to back for some time, but I’ve read portions, a lot of reviews, had recommendations and testimonials made to me, and not been completely out of touch.

I stated that my most in-depth opinions on LDS fiction are out of date, a statement that you take advantage of to accuse me of making uninformed and sweeping accusations. This despite the fact that I’ve said I perceive a positive change in the air, based on my knowledge of Zarahemla Books and a sample reading from Brother Brigham, and statements made on this page.

Let me explain how I first got introduced to Signature Books. In 1996 a gay retired U of U professor living in the beautiful Salt Lake avenues tried to recruit me to be his personal assistant and lover. Carefully working toward the issue, he engaged me in a lengthy and deep conversation, and kept urging a book on me put out by Signature on the subject of sexual identity. I can’t remember the title, but he kept urging me to read that book and anything else by Signature because he thought I would find its works enlightening.

When I expressed no interest in exploring my gender identity he found me unfit to be a personal assistant, and it was only in retrospect that my naivete dissolved and I realized what I’d actually been getting auditioned for.

Now, you and others may latch on this detail and say to yourselves that I started out with a strong bias against Signature, and you would be correct, but I don’t think that bias was without basis. My exposure to Signature materials has caused me to do moderate my original impression, but not dismiss it.

It was my strong interest in academics and my desire to work with a distinguished professor that brought me my first and rather unflattering contact with Signature, and while there may be plenty of great stuff put out by that publisher, no one can contradict the fact that its controllers are friendly to movements that are abhorrent to the orthodox.

Regarding my lack of recent investment in fictional LDS books, the fact that I’m following these postings indicates my continuing interest. But that interest grew less active after several years of hopefully following the latest deliveries at various books stores, in spurts between the Army and a mission (I read with initial delight the first volumes put out by Hatrack River) until I read The Angel of Armageddon.

The fact that Robert Marcum was still getting radio ads in 2003 for his latest literary excretions was a benchmark I believed boded ill for the overall state of things. Since then I have only paid attention to anecdotes and benchmarks, waiting to see something that would indicate a product worth investigating. Unfortunately, the only out-of-breath testimonials I heard were on behalf of bohemian works I knew I would find distasteful.

I’m surprised that you criticize me for my condemnation of LDS literature, when I am clearly showing my delight that it appears to be improving; while you sweepingly descry the lack of sophistication in the LDS audience, and contemptuously dismiss my criticisms of your perceived contemptuousness.

My replies to your criticisms of the audience are not substantive, in the sense that I don’t dissect and deal with them seriously. I dismiss them as irrelevant, but I also explained why.

You dismissed my comments as uninformed and boring, ignoring the explanations that show they were neither thoughtless nor uninformed.

Part of my point, as already alluded to, is that it’s the job of the author to reach the audience, and if he wants to reach what he thinks is a less sophisticated audience, he needs to work hard, employ great talent and skill, and find inspiration. If he doesn’t think the audience is worthy of his genius, he exposes either smallness of genius or smallness of soul.

For those who want to win the applause of people who already agree with them they should be satisfied writing for a publisher that serves a small group of like-minded readers. For those who want to reach a broader audience but also want to affect some people’s points of view, you have first to satisfy the demands of the market, at least in the sense of writing someting that a lot of people might enjoy. Deseret Book publishes novels that bomb despite the supposedly proletarian readership they are targeted to, and no book is going to be wildly successful without being enthusiastically chatted up by the first readers.

I appreciate your sentiment of hope that I’ll remain active with AMV. I will continue so long as I find new and helpful things to learn here and people who will not shy away from engaging in challenging discussion.

If my positions are wrong you can debunk them, but instead you prefer to withdraw and cast an insult over your shoulder. I hope you will reconsider the manner of your exit.

However, I must protest that you have given my prior comment an exceedingly unfair reading. I do not know what you mean by \”amused contempt for the overall LDS culture.\” (Do you have a substantive response to any of the issues I raise? Simply slapping big labels on those with whom you disagree is a bad habit.)

Anyway, I assure you that I entertain no such contempt. On the contrary, I am optimistic (extremely, perhaps irrationally, so) about present Mormon cultural production and its future prospects. Your accusation seems particularly ironic because I was objecting to your prior sweeping (and pessimistic) condemnation of all Mormon cultural production as too Deseret Book (read: low quality) or too Signature (read: elitist) for you.

Yet given your admission that \”it’s been quite a few years since I read any LDS fiction,\” I doubt both the factual basis of your claims and your standing to make them. (Even so, I do not think that your stance is uncommon. I frequently hear people tell me how bad Mormon literature is. When pressed, some of these people acknowledge that they have not actually read a novel by a Mormon author–or even a thoughtful review of a novel by a Mormon author. They just have a gut feeling that X is too smarmy and Y is too risky. Not a particularly thoughtful way of assessing one\’s own culture.)

My point in my prior comment (and indeed in all of my comments on this thread) is simply this: uninformed judgments and sweeping condemnations are not productive. (Thus, the emphasis on reserving judgment, actually reading, and appreciating good works instead of dwelling on any work\’s lack of perceived greatness.) I will add in this comment a corollary insight: arguments about uninformed judgments and sweeping condemnations are boring. (Respectfully withdraws.)

You have to reward the readers, give them a reason at their current level for reading the book. Most readers don’t read in order to have a profound anthropological experience. With elitist authors so concerned about thrusting their great thoughts before others, they of all people should not blame others for considering their own way of thinking worhty of respect.

The notion of not buying a book until a great Mormon novel comes out is new to me; I’d settle for a good one, and am insterested in several I have heard of recently. I suspect many have been waiting to read LDS fiction for the same reason. The most popular LDS books when I was young were the execrable Storm Testmant series, and they could put you off LDS literature for a lifetime.

I can’t agree with you in leveling so much blame at the audience for the failure of LDS literature to have a wider readership. That’s a very easy refuge for people who overestimate the greatness of certain books, and it is that attitude of amused contempt for the overall LDS culture that I find bothersome in the Signature mentality. My contact with that mentality has impresed me as being elitist. I’m sure there are non-elitist authors whose works have been published in that camp, but your own remarks only reinforce my point of view in that respect.

As alluded to earlier, I find certain writers great because they simultaneously challenge superstitions and false assumptions, but also include profound observations and philosophy, as much as possible filling the voids they create.

The world has no shortage of authors who write what they consider “challenging” works, but we are very short on profound authors. Poking fun at people’spresumptions or depicting things they may find offensive is the easiest thing in the world, but most authors can’t balance their careless challenges with the philosophical or analytical greatness of a Tolstoy or Dostoeyevsky. Hence their work doesn’t sell well, so to prop up their fragile egoes the authors denounce the peasants for their failure to appreciate the author’s self-declared greatness.

If you want to write to a broad audience, you must write to meet broad tastes. This means either cranking out familiar boilerplate, or doing something so original and so excellent that you break new ground. Much virtuosic writing is actually boilerplate, but written for a smaller audience. Both the popular and the academic markets contain a few works of true genius; the rest is imitation that falls under Sturgeon’s Law (95 percent of everything is crap).

I am a news writer because I not only want to write, I also want to make a living writing. I dream of writing great stuff, and I try to always write useful stuff. I am blessed that every week I get to test my abilities on an audience and learn if I’ve been an effective communicator. When a story doesn’t get its point across, I blame myself, not the audience.

I am dependent on my readers, and if I want to reach them I have to accommodate myself to their communication style. It’s my own challenge to write in a way that reaches the pedestrian reader while still offering insights helpful to a more discerning reader.

If you want to be appreciated by a broad audience, accommodate the needs of the audience. Carping about their failure to accommodate self-perceived greatness is the Signature of an elitist (pun intended).