The diagnosis that my daughter Mattea had been born with severe brain injuries arrived in tandem with a dire prognosis for the future of my family. Doctors volunteered the “fact” that 95% of families to which highly involved children were born failed under the strain of caring for them. Other interested parties fleshed out this [...]

I flunked out of first year piano. By no means, shape, or shading could I be considered an authority on music. But recently I happened upon a disc I enjoy thoroughly and I thought many AMV readers might enjoy it as well—if they can find it.
Stan Bronson’s two-volume single disc Storysinger (2000) contains songs from [...]

. . . and hopefully a little fun. It’s been a rough week at Casa Karamesines, with illness ruling the household and PGK’s disabled daughter requiring much care day and night, and when PGK has a hard week she likes to put up something on AMV she enjoys doing, something that lightens her mind.

This [...]

One of my Christmas presents from my parents was a copy of The Man Who Ate Everything, a collection of essays by Vogue food critic Jeffrey Steingarten. It’s a fantastic read. Steingarten mixes personal essay with food, science, travel and recipe writing in a way that’s informative, provocative, sensual and hilarious.
I had read several of [...]

Last week I visited Michael Olson’s AP English high school classes in Spanish Fork, Utah. Michael, who also runs The Payson Chronicle, asked that I discuss “the writing process” with his students and talk about tensions that may exist between what the reader got from a story and what the writer intended in writing it. [...]

In honor of Mormon pioneer day — July 24 — a pioneer song collected by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers that appears in the 1960 edition of History of Kane County:
THE PIONEERS
Tune (Keep the Home Fires Burning)
O’er the prairies came the pleading
Of a people sore distressed,
Who sought refuge in the mountains
Of the sunny, golden [...]

The following untitled song appears in the 1960 edition of History of Kane County. It is listed as being “composed by ‘Roughnecks’ of former days.”
A — is for Nate Adams, who lived by the store,
B — is for Brig Riggs, who rode the range o’er.
C — is for John Cram as long as a rope,
D [...]

Writing about Neal Chandler’s “The Last Nephite” reminded me that I have a Three Nephites/John the Beloved story to tell. It’s a story that was told to me on my mission in Romania. I have changed the name of the person involved for reasons that will soon become obvious. The story goes like this:
During my [...]