Wm congratulates the winners of the Mormon Lit Blitz, thanks those who made it happen, ruminates a bit on the experience, and makes a plea for submissions to Everyday Mormon Writer.

You know how the pragmatic version (as opposed to the philosophical, sociological or aesthetic versions) of why LDS writers don’t produce great art includes the fact that we tend to be so busy that we don’t have a ton of peak energy time to devote to artistic creation? As in: between work and parenting and [...]

Sarah Dunster talks about her YA historical fiction novel Lightning Tree, which was recently published by Cedar Fort.

This month female members of the Church will be gathering in countless cultural halls with casseroles, crockpots of soup, and rolls in hand–all to celebrate a very special birthday: the anniversary of the founding of the LDS Relief Society. A required Church activity (it’s described in the Handbook of Instructions) this evening which seeks to [...]

I’m sure you had good intentions. Maybe you read two or three of the entries at the beginning of the contest. Or perhaps you came in at the end, but didn’t quite make it back to the earlier entries. And you really did mean to get around to it. But what if you haven’t read [...]

“…[E]ssentialism, usually regarded as dead in contemporary cultural studies, has survived and is thriving, having gone incognito under the rubric ‘authenticity’” (9) writes Jeff Karem in the introduction to The Romance of Authenticity: The Cultural Politics of Regional and Ethnic Literatures. Karem goes on to show how that plays out in the reception of the [...]

All 13 Mormon Lit Blitz finalists have been posted and voting is now open. Please do read the finalists (if you haven’t already) and cast your vote, which involves selecting your top five favorites and ranking them.
Note that I’m not asking you to vote for my story. I’m much more interested in the friends of [...]

I am an assimilated American. I shop at Trader Joe’s, Target and Costco. I play fantasy football and love watching NFL games. I have degrees from two of the most diverse, liberal, meritocratic universities in the nation. I listen to punk, post-punk, electronica, pop, heavy metal and several associated subgenres. I saw every episode of [...]