Wm uses recent podcasts with Elna Baker and Brandon Sanderson to discuss assimilated-ness and uneasiness when it comes to Mormons and Mormonism.

Whether it’s Malcolm Gladwell’s 100,000 hours or Anne Lammott’s Sh**** Rough Drafts or the proverbial million bad words, Ira Glass wants you to know something:

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.
This will probably come as a (not) startling confession, but I am one of those writers. The one who has a [...]

Saturday began the ALA’s annual Banned Books Week, its effort to call attention to censorship and attempts to censor books in the United States. The good news is that the number of challenges (attempts, usually unsuccessful, to restrict or make a book unavailable at an institution–library, school, etc.) has hit its lowest level in 20 [...]

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I know, I know. I’ve already waxed hyperbolic about this book and recently even. It’s easy to do. Who can question that this book Tyler Chadwick has edited is of enormous cultural significance? It’s astonishing how many excellent poets he found and convinced to participate.
But here’s the thing. Even though I saw most of the [...]

More than a year ago I wrote about the possibility of a mashup of Mormon literary works a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Now, this past week I came across an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that not only argues for “repurposing” other works, but advocates using these techniques in education.

Things are happening here at Monsters & Mormons headquarters. A quick update:
1. The manuscript is complete, is being copyedited and will soon be ready for layout. Our authors did an excellent job on the rewrites. Th. and I are very pleased with the final results. Also: the graphic novels look great.
2. Terryl Givens, the James [...]

Some quick, subjective reactions to the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Irreantum…
Favorite review: “Modern Mormon Family: Angela Hallstrom’s Bound on Earth” by Scott Hales. I find Scott’s writing style quite winning and charming in this review.
Favorite essay*: “Wrestling with God: Invoking Scriptural Mythos and Language in LDS Literary Works” by James Goldberg. His other essay is [...]

Kent emailed me last week with the observation that AMV was at 998 posts. I had noticed last June that we were inching closer to quadruple digits, but hadn’t thought about it since then. The pace around here has been languid of late. It snuck up on me.
1,000 posts is as good a milestone as [...]

I’m sure that by now you’ve seen the winners of the 2011 Irreantum writing contests which were announced last week. But have  you also read Lisa Torcassso Downing’s post about this year’s fictioncontest? It’s very much worth checking out.
AMVer Tyler Chadwick won on honorable mention for his poetry. I hope that means that it will [...]