Margaret Blair Young

MARGARET YOUNG has published several novels and short story collec￾tions including Salvador, House without Walls and Love Chains. She cur￾rently teaches creative writing at BYU. She has authored the play I Am Jane (The Story of Jane Manning James), which was recently staged for the Genesis Group in Utah.

Articles

Patience, Faith, and the Temple in 2019

Dialogue 52.1 (2019): 169–178
Young shares her testimony of temple work even though she found some wording in the endowment ceremony sexist.

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In Memoriam: Douglas Heal Thayer (1929–2017)

This is how Douglas Thayer often greeted me when we met in the hallway of the Jesse Knight Building, where both of us taught for years. I wonder if I was the only person who got such a greeting from his rich supply of poems. I was still in my twenties, newly married to Bruce Young, when he first greeted me this way—in 1985. I had taken advanced creative writing from him in 1978, but I’m not sure he remembered that. 

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In Memoriam: Neil Longo

Neil Longo, a lover of nature and of thought, ended his life on November 29, 2017. He was my student five years earlier and kept in touch with me. I had picked up hints of…

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Miguel Aju

Dust-whitened sandals kicked dirt into Miguel Aju’s mouth as he lay by the side of the road. He spat it out and groped for his bottle. Clutching it to him, he closed his eyes and…

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Doing Huebener

Everyone is insecure in some way. But only a schizophrenic or a Theatre Person would alleviate that insecurity by becoming someone else. As a Theatre Person I had been a queen, a bitch, an unwed…

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Grandma’s Dying

My ex-grandmother-in-law is dying upstairs. Her being with me was my ex-husband’s idea. He said I could have the house if she stayed in it. I reminded him that Gran hated me. He said, “She…

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Essay for June 9, 1998

Today is June 9, 1998. I have been forty-three for two days. My father, Robert Wallace Blair, is teaching spring term; he will retire when the term ends after thirty-four years as a linguistics professor…

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Elijah’s Calling: 1840-41 (from This Could Be the Dawning of That Day)

The following chapter is excerpted from One More River to Cross, the title of the first novel of a trilogy to be called Standing on the Promises being published by Deseret Book beginning in August…

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Sanctuaries

It’s been ten weeks since Liz (my mother) came to collect me from the islands and pack me back to Michigan. She wanted me to tally my losses and get on with things. Liz has…

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Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons–Script

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“Let the Truth Heal”: The Making of Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons

This script, with punctuation, capitalization, and formatting standardized, is published here by permission of Darius Aiden Gray and Margaret Blair Young. 

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Podcasts

Dialogue Book of Mormon Gospel Study with Margaret Blair Young on 3 Nephi 8–11

Margaret Blair Young is an American writer and the president of the Congo Rising Corporation, a foundation focused on initiatives on the Democratic Republic of Congo, including film. Read more