I realized the other day when I heard the last five minutes of Terry Gross’s interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their musical The Book of Mormon that for all the times I’ve listened to Fresh Air, for all the interviews about Big Love and Angels in America and such, the closest she’s come to interviewing an actual Mormon is Warren Jeffs’s nephew or Dustin Lance Black. Now, I’m not saying a Mormon should be interviewed just by virtue of being Mormon or that anything is owed us, but when that point was raised to me I was able to generate a list of worthy names off the top of my head, but regardless of how worthy these folk are—are they Terry’s taste? I’m not sure they are.

But I got to thinking about it, and for all Ms Gross’s openmindedness on putting together shows about Mormons and evangelists and Muslims and big African cats, she does not do shows on those topics in which an actual Mormon or evangelist or Muslim or lion is interviewed.

I mention lions because, apparently, Mormons et al are about the same as lions. An interesting subject for art and journalism but ultimately too alien to speak with directly. And, you know, when a lion-penned novel hits the bestseller lists, we might interview a critic about the book’s success, but not the actual lion about his book.

I don’t know. Too cynical?

And so because Twitter is terrible  at archiving, I grabbed screenshots of all the additional #GadiantonSelfHelpTitles posts that happened in the two hours after I started it. To view them, visit the motleyvision flickr set. I’ve posted the first screenshot below — there are ten screenshots in total and more than 40 punchlines contribute by more than 10 Twitter users. Many thanks to all those who participated — you all amused me greatly. If I missed one or you have one to add, give us a shout in the comments below.

Sunstone writing contests

The deadline is Oct. 31*. Winners will be announced no later than Feb. 28, 2011. Full details on Sunstone’s Facebook page. One of the great things about this contest is that it includes a prize for short-short story (less than 1,500 words) in addition to short story (fewer than 6,000 words). I heartily applaud Sunstone’s commitment to the short-short form.

LDS Film Script Contest

The LDS Film Festival has also announced its contests, and this year there will be a Feature Script Contest.  R. Don Oscarson has also put up $600 in prize money (three scripts will win $200 each). Scripts are due Nov. 15.

AMVers in Dialogue

Dialogue has been very good to AMV-associated folks the past few years (and I guess you could say vice versa). I’m pleased to report that S.P. Bailey has two poems in the Fall 2010 issue, which also features reviews of Jonathan Langford’s novel No Going Back ( Amazon ) and Theric Jepson and co’s collection The Fob Bible ( Amazon ).

Narratives of Family exhibit

Art History student Emily Larsen and BYU faculty member James R. Swensen have curated the exhibit “Nature and Nurture: Narratives of Family” for the B.F. Larson Gallery at the Harris Fine Arts Center. Here’s what Emily says about the exhibit:  ”The exhibition … explores the complexity of familial relationships through the art of ten artists with connections to BYU or Utah (8 of the 10 are BYU alumni). The exhibition features the art of well known LDS artists such as Brian Kershisnik and Lee Udall Bennion as well as lesser known LDS artists.” It runs Oct. 5-28 so if you are in the area, do check it out.

Poetry in song from Mormon Artist Group

Song/Cycles is the latest project from the NYC-based Mormon Artists Group. Featuring the work of 6 LDS poets (including Lance Larsen) set to music by LDS composers, the project comes in both a limited edition and a trade paperback. The limited edition version includes audio recordings of performances of the song cycles.

*This post originally had the deadline as Oct. 15 for the Sunstone contests; it’s actually Oct. 31.

Mormon Artist Magazine Literature editor and fellow AMVer Katherine Morris suggested I post here at AMV questions and answers cut from the interview.   So, for your reading pleasure:

There also seems to be an underlying theme of agency in your writing: “[I]t enables those who read or hear it to create choices for themselves”. How does the concept of agency inform your writing?

The “It” here refers to “sustainable language.”  Sustainable language is creative, proactive, productive language that effectively sparks others to create their own risk-choice spectrums and generate possibilities for themselves.  It’s the language of life. Sustainable language goes out on its faith in others’ creativity, creative drive being a far more commonplace phenomenon in all levels of society than is popularly supposed. Good language—sustainable language—allows for that creativity and invigorates human agency.

Bad language runs the other way.  Through fear, guilt, shame, and other devices of control it prods people in the direction it wants them to go, dismissing agency as counterproductive and undependable.

I believe language and human agency to be intimately bound up together. I depend on readers’ native creativity and tendency to exercise choice to make something meaningful for themselves (within reason) of the words I put out there.  The question of language—what it is and what it does to and for us—lies at the heart of my novel The Pictograph Murders.  At a critical moment the protagonist catches wind of a key element of the villain’s philosophy—he “perceived himself as having the power, and so he could make things mean what he wanted them to”—a version of the might makes right stance, which shows as clearly in rhetorical acts as it does in physical ones.

What role does religious symbolism play in The Pictograph Murders?

I think what symbolism comes across depends on what symbolism readers bring to the story.  Since The Pictograph Murders seems to sell in a steady trickle in non-LDS bookstores on the tourist circuit here in southeastern Utah, like the local museum gift shop where people visit from all over the world, readers may well find a wider range of symbolic elements in the book than I can anticipate. To my thinking, that’s perfect.  My hope is that even readers who distrust religious symbolism will find archetypal appeal in the story’s spiritual elements.

When I read your essays/posts on language, I feel your gentle urging for awareness and watchfulness in the use of language.  In “The Downstream Principle” your concern is with the rhetoric of those with two different perspectives on the use of a canyon. “But given the weighty importance of what I don’t know about this place, I’m cleaning up my language”. Could people be substituted for place and what suggestions do you have for cleaning up language?

“Could ‘people’ be substituted for ‘place’?”  Yes.  Practices that result in exploitation and manipulation of or damage to the natural environment or that display carelessness or unawareness are only extensions of our behavior in the human environment. In other words, if I’m doing it to nature, I’m doing it to people, too, at one level or another.  I don’t think we can improve our behavior in the natural sector without improving behavior in the human one. I said earlier that spirituality is a quality of character, not of place, and so carries across in person from home to church to field to canyon.  Furthermore, human language now exerts tremendous influence upon the world. It creates experience for others and can affect them powerfully, for good or for ill, with some effects extending beyond sight. That suggests that how I behave in language is a deeply spiritual concern.

Characteristics of human language make it a wilderness in its own right, chock full of wild beauty and miraculous realms where fabulous adventures unfold and heroes and villains choose their parts.  It contains a wealth of cultural and natural resources. Whenever I act to clean up my language, I examine it for unfortunate or wrongful intent, looking for evidence that I’ve relied on anger, fear, guilt, etc. to assert myself.  I also look for shortsightedness.  To me, the question of bad language reaches beyond what’s commonly considered off-colored or offensive—it goes to usual words thought clean as a whistle that are spoken in common conversations but carry the interest to control, exploit, or harm.

But really, my hope for my language is not just to clean it up but to find ways to apply the common dictum many outdoor websites and camping brochures contain: Leave the environment better than it was when you found it.

LDS Cinema Online and the new Prop. 8 documentary

Kevin has posted an in-depth review of “8: The Mormon Proposition” that actually finds a few things to like among all the preaching to the choir.

Earth day musings from Patricia

And they’re not quite what you think they would be. But you still get the fantastic writing and insightful commentaries on how we use language and relate to difference and the natural world that one has come to expect from Patricia.

Jonathan Langford at King’s English July 13

Jonathan will be reading from his novel No Going Back at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 13, as part of the King’s English Bookstore’s local author showcase. The bookstore is located at 1511 South 1500 East Salt Lake City, UT 84105.

Mormon criticism of a non-LDS film

Theric recently sent to me this link to a column by Davey Morrison that does a Mormon reading of “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Davey summarizes the field of Mormon criticism and then takes the approach that “Mormon film is any film as seen by a Mormon” and attempts to prove it. The result is quite interesting.

Zarahemla Books new releases two-fer

Hopefully you’ve already read my interview with Stephen Carter about his new collection of personal essays. But that’s not the only Zarahemla Books summer title. Chris has also published a collection of short stories by Darin Cozzens. Currently you can buy both titles for $19.95 (35% savings off of the cover price).

Ask Mormon Girl on the Great Mormon Novel

Joanna Brooks takes on the whole Great Mormon Novel question. Note that the discussion takes place both at Mormon Matters and the Ask Mormon Girl blog. See Wm get all snippy and whiny! See the same attitudes play out all over again! But anyway, Joanna makes a great point about how the discussion often ignores female authors (although, you know, the Shakespeares and Miltons come up with Whitney for a specific reason, which I’ve already discussed. Short answer: they are the founding geniuses of English language literature. When authors to emulate gets brought up in all seriousness it’s almost always Chaim Potok and Flannery O’Connor. And as I mention, many of the most celebrated and widely read authors of Mormon-themed literary fiction are Margaret Young and Angela Hallstrom. But I digress) and makes the claim for Terry Tempest Williams.

Vuissa: LDS Film Festival founder Christian Vuissa is featured in the Summer 2010 issue of Marriott Alumni Magazine (HT ldsfilm.com).

Sweater Friends: Mormon singer-songwriter duo The Sweater Friends have been blogging about their new album-in-the-making The Ghost and The Guest. They will be playing June 25 at the Utah Arts Festival.

Mormon Media Studies: Papers and panel proposals for BYU’s Mormon Media Studies Symposium are due June 30. The symposium will be held Nov. 11-12.

Amri’s Finds: So my cousin Amri Brown (who most of you may know as a BCC blogger) sent me a couple of Mormon-art-related links recently. Not that neither she nor I are necessarily endorsing these, but she (and now I) thought they might be of interest 1) Photographer Zachary Taylor’s portfolio of portraits of Mormon Ex-Convicts 2) The book trailer for Mike Wilson’s new novel Zombie (Amri says that Mike is an Argentine author who lives in Chile and that he was born and raised LDS).

I’d like the thank all the gracious poets who contributed to the Spring Poetry Runoff not only for participating beautifully but also for exceeding my expectations for the number of poems submitted.    There really was a great turnout of celebrants and a good show of high-quality poetry.

The poll to determine the winner of the Spring Poetry Runoff Popular Poem Award will close Friday. May 7, but winners of both the popular vote and the Admin Award will be announced Monday, May 10th.   So keep an eye on WIZ to see how matters settle out.  Also, clean off your reading glasses.  Twenty-one poems qualified for the voting, any one of which can cause you to linger.   Another matter to consider: Each voter can vote for his or her three favorite poems!  Instructions on how to access each poem are available in the post–please read instructions there carefully.

To vote, click here.

The winner of the Popular Vote Award and the winner of the Admin Award will receive as prize his or her choice of either Lance Larsen’s Backyard Alchemy or Warren Hatch’s Mapping the Bones of the World.

Spring Poetry Runoff

If you haven’t yet made it over to Wilderness Interface Zone for the second annual Spring Poetry Runoff, you should check it out. At last count, Patricia has 23 poems from 13 different poets lined up. The runoff is going to go well in to late April this year.

Looking for the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Conference?

It’s not being held at BYU this year — but it will be held. Check out the For Young Readers website for details. In brief, it’s going to be June 14-18 at the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah. The high number of active Utah-based writers and illustrators who focus on work for young readers means that you are going to get great panels and good networking opportunities so if you have an interest in the field, check it out.

Flickering hits the stage

Melissa Larson’s next play “A Flickering.” will have performances April 8-19 in the Provo Theatre. Here’s how Mel describes the play: “The play is set in New York in 1916. Max is a young woman trying to break into the infant movie industry while her best friend Samantha is on her way to a successful theatrical acting career. But controversy fuels the success of Max’s first film, at the risk of Samantha’s reputation — and their friendship.” Ticket info and show times at ProvoStage.org.

Island of Bali is Littered with Prayers paperback

Remember the excellent interview and awesome excerpt AMV ran a few months back about BYU musicologist Jeremy Grimshaw’s The Island of Bali is Littered with Prayers? Well Mormon Artists Group has sold out of the limited collector’s edition of the book and so has now brought it out in paperback.

BYU Studies reviews Thayer’s latest

Philip A. Snyder has posted an in-depth look at Douglas Thayer’s latest novel The Treehouse over at the BYU Studies website. Snyder does an excellent job of situating the novel in the context of Thayer’s body of work. He also notes that Zarahemla Books (which has published Thayer’s last two works) will be coming out with a collection of new short stories later this year. And Snyder ends the review with a sentiment I very much agree with: “With Thayer in his eightieth year and contemplating retirement from BYU, now would be a perfect time to reissue his work so general readers, as well as scholars, could review the very fine career of a pioneering writer of Mormon and other western fiction. Thayer and his writing deserve no less than that.” The Treehouse is available from the Zarahemla Books website.

Segullah on the Whitney finalists

Emily M. and Shelah discuss their favorite finalists in each of the Whitney Awards categories over at Segullah. Although I don’t agree with all of their picks (more on that later), on the whole, I think their sensibilities are well in line with those of most AMV readers and am in awe of their ability to read every single finalist. If you are looking to dip your toe in to LDS fiction, Emily and Shelah’s picks are a good place to start.

And that’s all for now. I will continue to post a links roundup from time-to-time, but the best way to receive timely info on the cool stuff that crosses my transom is to follow AMV on Twitter.

AML Awards + Annual Meeting: Here’s a link to the AML Awards for 2009, including the award citations; Tyler has write ups of several sessions at chasing the long white cloud. I’ll reserve my take on this year’s awards for the comments section.

LDS Publisher’s Book of Mormon YA fiction contest: The results are in! Congrats to David and all the other winners. Here are the entries by AVVers and friends of AMV. Speak up in the comments if I missed you (and my  apologies if I did):

• Song of Saphir and Covenant of the Scalp by David J. West
• Two Thousand Sons and One Daughter by Emily M.
• Young Hagoth Plays it Safe by Theric Jepson
• Gideancum’s Revenge by William Morris

Wm may be a Whitney Awards voter: So Rob twisted my arm (amazing how forceful he can be in spite of the shards of glass injected in to his heart [kidding, Rob. I hope the treatment works.]), and I’m in a LDS-Fiction-y mood so I’m going to try and hit two or more categories as a Whitney Awards voter. Historical Fiction is my best bet, and I may be able to do Speculative Fiction as well. Sadly, General Fiction will likely not happen because of a lack of review copies and the fact I need to do put my time over the next 29 days in to categories where I’m going to be likely to contribute (you have to read all 5 finalists in order to vote). If you are interested in what I have to say about the finalists as I read them, check out my GoodReads account and friend me if you haven’t already or subscribe to the RSS feed if you don’t have/don’t want an account.

More Stuff You Should Check Out

1. Gideon Burton is open sourcing his sonnets
2. The Up Beat, a documentary on the Utah/LDS Ska scene, is now available on DVD (updated 3/3 — forgot to HT The Mormon Left for this item)
3. This March 20 Mormon Artists Group concert looks like a not-to-be-missed event for anyone who can make it to NYC
4. Yes, it went straight to DVD, but the New Yorker makes a case for (and provides a weird Mormon gloss on) Jared Hess’s Gentlemen Broncos
5. Here’s a way to view all the Mormon fiction titles BYU Bookstore is currently selling

Also, February 24th is WIZ’s birthday.  We’ll be one year old.  Yay!  If you have ideas about how to celebrate this important milestone, please e-mail your suggestions or swing by and drop them into the comments.

Spring is definitely on the way.  February is a good month to warm things up.  If you have “Shall I compare thee to a summer day?” work you’d like to share, please consider submitting it to WIZ.