My personal vision of Zion is neither glossy nor hippie-ish. And I certainly don’t believe that being pure of heart = lacking in individual preference. But Zion won’t include any of the antipathy, resentment, or envy that I have witnessed and experienced on either side of the stockade fence.

Bring on the radical middle.

I’m not saying things will be exactly the same. But being pure of heart probably doesn’t mean the removal of preference. Jonathan just posted a message to the AML-List that touches on this rather well, imo.

I think it’s important to remember that the AML, in its inception, was essentially a place for those faculty members who were interested in Mormon literature to talk about it in the way that literature professors talk about literature. (At least, that’s my perception.) The organization only started to grow with Ben Parkinson’s founding of AML-List, in ways that I believe were entirely accidental and not always welcomed. It’s also my perception that this marked the beginning of a shift toward a more writer-oriented organization–and, so far as I know, the first time science fiction and fantasy were ever welcomed within the organization.

I’m not speaking against that broader direction for the organization. In fact, I’ve been one of its active proponents, over the years. But we have to recognize that the “big tent” idea was itself quite foreign to AML as it was originally founded.

I think it makes sense from several perspectives that the Covenant/DB authors (the ones you’re calling LDS authors) haven’t been an integral part of AML. There’s a fairly natural alliance between literature professors and “literary” fiction. There’s also, I think, a sense that those who are publishing with Covenant/DB already *have* the support of an active community, simply by virtue of being published by Mormon publishing powerhouses. In a sense, AML is (I think) meant to provide a substitute for what the publishers could offer. If you publish with DB, you get a paycheck. If you publish with one of the Mormon literary presses, pretty much the most you can hope to get is a few good reviews and pats on the back from people you respect. AML, to the degree it’s about writers, is a place that can happen–and where people who might want to read books that aren’t in the local Seagull Book, might actually find out about them.

I guess that part of what I’m saying is that the dichotomy you’re presenting between LDS and Mormon in terms of self-perception, standards, and orthodoxy may be accurate–but it also runs into the whole cash-versus-kudos cultural problem.

What I think would be really interesting is to talk about what members of these different groups think literature is *for*. I suspect we’d be startled at the differences that arise, and how they do (or don’t) align with the type of fiction people prefer to read and write. But I’m not sure exactly how to explain what I mean, so I suppose I ought to stop there…

I pretty much agree. And that paper of yours is excellent — it definitely influenced my thinking about the market a lot. Pity it’s not easily available.

I think this issue deserves some further exploration. I have over the years here at AMV tried to come up with some alternative models in terms of genres/projects/marketing. But I’m not sure any of those can really gain traction because the economic models just aren’t there. Mormons are still very small scale. And even the alternative Christian models (and a revision of your paper might be interesting to take account some of the counter-models in the Christian market that have arisen over the past few years) aren’t doing that hot.

In terms of the Mormon/LDS divide (and if you’ll note, I’ve hedged quite a bit about the form it takes — however, I think from a definitional point of view, it’s clear that people are signaling something with which term they use), I agree that I don’t this is something that most people have held closely to. And yet, the descriptions that I am sure about — the stuff that’s publicly available — definitely do indicate a divide. Although I prefer my messy extended metaphor above to simple divisions. And that’s really part of my point: LDS/Mormon isn’t a binary. It’s a very odd definitional situation that we find ourselves in, but it is one that has had an impact on the field.

I’ll be here!

But more on that in part 3 where I solve everything for everybody and we all go home happy.

I agree with you on pretty much every point — the way the field is split and the way the groups treat each other, et cetera. My beef is that it seems like I am being forced to choose. I’m not interested in picking a banner. It doesn’t seem very . . . Ziony.