Go to Slate and read MFA vs. NYC, which is an essay by Chad Harbach from the journal n+1. It draws heavily from the excellent, even tour-de-force work of literary criticism and history The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing ( Amazon ) by Mark McGurl, which we discussed a bit [...]

Michael pitched me his debut novel The Rogue Shop as “a coming-of-age romantic comedy that … is a little off the beaten path for LDS genre fiction.” I liked the sound of that so I invited Michael to tell us more. The official release date for his novel is Dec. 10, but you can preorder [...]

The following is from a rejection I received  a short short story I wrote for a contest:
“Among judges’ general comments are:
Undeveloped characters, clever dialogue, weak plot, preachy tone, rhythmic prose, well-presented conflict, predictable resolution, nicely-established scene, unbelievable narrator, argumentative style, lyrical voice, little action, problematic point of view, entertaining.”
I wasn’t expecting to get any feedback on the [...]

Robert Goble’s novel Across A Harvested Field (Amazon |  Parables) won the Marilyn Brown unpublished novel award earlier this year. Before we get to the interview, here’s the back cover blurb so you have a sense of what the novel is about (and also note its spiffy new cover art):
“To Jordan Fairchild, the dark-haired girl [...]

I have written two LDS History plays, one called Friends of God (about the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom) the other called The Fading Flower (about the conflict surrounding the LDS/ RLDS schism about polygamy, especially as it related to Joseph and Emma Smith’s family). I was criticized by [...]

It seems the “15 authors in 15 minutes” meme is making the rounds again on Facebook. Most, if not all, of my Mormon friends listed the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith as one of their fifteen. Some even went so far as to identify Moroni or Isaiah or Paul as an author. A few [...]

I’ve had a bit of fun showing this book to friends at Church since it arrived a couple of weeks ago. I ask them to guess both the language the book is in, and the alphabet used in the last two lines of the title. So far, no one, not even those who speak [...]

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The Berkeley Ward of the Oakland Stake of Zion here in California’s East Bay just celebrated 75 years since the dedication of our beautiful building. As part of the commemoration, my wife was asked to assemble and beautifully present some of the photographs and other paraphernalia related to the building’s history.
The Berkeley Ward Building is noted in [...]

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In yesterday’s post, I introduced Song/Cycles from New York’s Mormon Artists Group. Today we will read an excerpt from a roundtable discussion from the contributing composers (available in full at the front of the book).
But before we get to that however, residents of Utah should remind themselves that “on Monday, November 8, a performance of [...]

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Mormon Artists Group is at it again. In case you didn’t hear about their latest release, it is poetry set to music. The poetry is of high quality (some of them, I will admit, are among the best poems I’ve read in the last few years) and the music also ranges from the good to [...]

I’m pleased to report that Theric and I are making progress with our reading and decision making for Monsters & Mormons. And we are proud to announce another round of admits. As with our early admit class, these aren’t the four that are the most awesome to the exclusion of all other stories (they are [...]

This conference I found more references to books and outside materials than any of the previous five conferences that I’ve tracked. While I suspect that I’ve gotten a bit more thorough in what I find, it still seems like the printed talks have more references than in the past. On the other hand, three years [...]

A Motley Vision’s sister blog Wilderness Interface Zone seeks submissions of poetry, prose, fiction–any of the kinds of nature writing listed in its submission guidelines.  If you’re interested in submitting work, please glance at our About page, too.  Photographs that take  nature as subject matter are also welcomed.  WIZ finds especially interesting works that illustrate [...]