Comments on: The Best of Mormonism 2009: An interview with its editor

By: Tyler

Tyler — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:39:41 +0000

Guess my kids distracted me and I missed something in the essay. Oops. Time to re-read (he says sheepishly).

By: Th.

Th. — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:04:11 +0000

Tyler—

Re: 2)

That made me laugh out loud! It was part of the essay! Check it out again with that in mind. (That essay, by the way, was my favorite of the collection.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:31:55 +0000

I’m happy to see this happening, like the others who have commented here, and was excited to get my copy in the mail. (I got it at the beginning of December, but I’ve been very digitally slow this holiday season.) I particularly enjoyed the poetry—though (of course) I’d like to see more, but that’s likely for a different anthology—and it’s great to see what other writers are publishing outside of the Mormon market. It gives me a standard to pursue for myself.

And while I’m happy to see such great writing coming out of the LDS tradition, I have two quibbles with the book’s formatting:

1) The stanzas are messed up in Neil Aitken’s poem. The six-line stanzas in the middle of the poem should be three-line stanzas (as in Aitken’s collection). It was kind of disappointing to see the mix-up in the book’s opening piece.

2) I’m wondering why there’s a page “left intentionally blank” right in the middle of the book. I know printing sometimes requires strange things of formatting, but I just thought the blank page was in a really strange place.

Despite my quibbles, I have plans to include the book in a Mormon lit course I’m drafting and will propose to teach at Idaho State in the coming year. I think it provides a good sense of what’s going on in contemporary Mormon letters and I’m excited to share it students.

By: Jon Ogden

Jon Ogden — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:14:08 +0000

Sounds terrific. Looking forward to getting a copy.

By: Jonathan Langford

Jonathan Langford — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:28:15 +0000

So the question I’m wondering: Who paid for it? Especially all those free copies?

By: Th.

Th. — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:58:06 +0000

I agree with James. A fluid discovery time is one of the innovations I admire in the project.

By: Th.

Th. — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:38:17 +0000

. I botched making that obvious, didn't I? You can order it directly from the link Stephen gave above: bestofmormonism.com.

By: James Goldberg

James Goldberg — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:36:17 +0000

I am very excited for my own copy to arrive and will start spreading the word to friends to let you know when they see anything stellar.

I also think your decision to keep a three-year eligibility window in future editions is a great move, since the biggest struggle seems to be finding stuff that could have appeared anywhere. It’s good to keep the publication open to new finds of older material.

By: Kathryn Lynard Soper

Kathryn Lynard Soper — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:19:36 +0000

Thanks for the anthology, Stephen, and for the interview, Theric. Did I overlook a purchasing link in the post?

By: Wm Morris

Wm Morris — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:57:37 +0000

Agreed.

This kind of curation work is very important – anything that can cut through some of the noise is much appreciated and the act of anthologizing also tells us something about the ideological and aesthetic preferences of those involved. And I don’t mean that in a negative way — products that help define the field (or sectors of it) are very useful.