If you look at Mormon Literature in terms of how many church members interacted with it—i.e., how many members were involved either in its production or its consumption—one literary form was likely the King of Mormon Literature from the 1930s through perhaps 1970: Drama.

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When we left off yesterday, we were segueing from the couple-creators portion of this interview to talking with Ben Abbott about the new one-man show he has written and is starring in this weekend (with, of course, some additional insights from his wife Barbara). If you will be in the Bay Area, click on the [...]

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When Ben and Barbara moved into our ward last year as newlyweds, I knew I wanted to interview them even though they are still at the beginning of their careers and less established than other artists I’ve interviewed for Couple-Creators. I thought a) it would be nice to get a sense of how my questions get [...]

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Warning: this is less a review than a piece of literary criticism. There be small spoilers ahead.
It is probably not surprising that so many of the nationally-published, succesful YA novels by Mormon authors are about agency — Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, Dan Wells’ I Am Not A Serial Killler, James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. Not only [...]

Ángel Chaparro Sainz recently received summa cum laude marks for his dissertation “Contemporary Mormon Literature: Phyllis Barber’s Writing” from University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco – Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea) in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. He was kind of to answer some questions about his dissertation and Mormon literary studies in general.
How did you first come [...]

Recently on Facebook I linked to Mahonri’s post about The Book of Mormon Musical over at Dawning of a Brighter Day. The conversation that ensued was awesome and a few really good moments came out of it for me.
The first moment came when I wrote this in response to a friend (who is not [...]

So just for the record, here is a (probably incomplete) list of my literary and cultural interests:

canon formation and promulgation (especially as presented by anthologies, syllabi and awards
the intersection of literary and genre fiction, especially literary speculative fiction (slipstream, weird) and speculative literary fiction (allegory, magic realism, folk realism)
indie/DIY publishing and marketing
narrative theory, especially point [...]

Wm says: Ben Christensen was kind enough to submit this review, which takes a look at another entry in the interesting sub-genre of “Mormon literature that is also gay literature.” And what’s really interesting is that he does so by comparing it to John Bennion’s novel Falling Toward Heaven, which is about sexuality, but that [...]

The Vernal Equinox arrives Sunday, March 20.  To celebrate spring’s arrival last year, Wilderness Interface Zone ran a Spring Poetry Runoff Contest and Celebration that had fantastic participation–a veritable cascade of sparkling poesy–and was lots of fun, too.  So beginning March 20, WIZ is running its Second Annual Spring [...]

The story of the once forgotten LDS film Corianton may be familiar to many readers of A Motley Vision. The few who knew that the film had been made probably assumed that it had been lost until, as I understand it, Orson Scott Card found the only extant copy in his grandfather’s barn. I’m told [...]

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.
Every minute of every day, each of us has to choose what he or she will do next.
Okay, maybe not every minute of every day. Practically speaking, most of the time we’re in the middle of tasks we’ve already started, and so not really actively [...]

The program for this year’s Association for Mormon Letters Conference is up. Themed “Liberating Form,” it’s a joint venture with Mormon Scholars in the Humanities (which appears to be a vibrant organization, even if their homebase on the web is a bit drab). MSH is themed on Mormonism and embodiment. And, my, does this family [...]

I’ve been following Stephen Carter’s career for several years — from his participation on the AML-List during it’s heyday, to his graduate studies in creative writing, his work on the Sugar Beet and then as editor of Sunstone. I like Stephen, and I like his essay collection What of the Night? (Zarahemla Books — note [...]