Stephen Carter

STEPHEN CARTER {[email protected]} is the editor of Sunstone magazine and Moth and Rust: Mormon Encounters with Death (Signature Books, 2017). His books include Mormonism for Beginners, the iPlates graphic novel series, and The Hand of Glory (a YA horror novel about polygamous ghosts). He has a PhD in narrative studies from the University of Alaska–Fairbanks and spends a lot more time than he ever thought he would managing his daughter’s dance schedule.

Articles

Three Sealings

My mother made spiral-bound books for the first few of her nine children: pastel-colored accounts (which she wrote, illustrated, and laminated) of how we had made our way from the spiritual realm to the mortal;…

Scared Sacred: How the Horrifying Story of Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Can Help Save Us

Dialogue 49.3 (Fall 2016): 75–88
Probably the most destabilizing piece of historical information most Mormons come across is Joseph Smith’s polygamy.

The Trail

The world was divided into three. Three shards of sagebrush and sky. That’s how it looked to Emma as she blinked through the thick wooden wagon spokes next to her head. She winced at the…

A Brief Tour of England: My Year with Gene

We in Utah Valley State College’s Center for the Study of Ethics were sardines, but we were happy sardines. Our office (formerly a mythical beast called a “faculty lounge”) housed the chair of the humanities…

Last Supper

“Have you heard the really bad news?” my editor, Doc, asked almost off handedly as he wound the film in his camera.

Then came that pause.

The Weight of Priesthood

I was eight years old one March Sunday. The chapel curtains were bright with the springtime sun, as if angels were standing outside. The church itself was new, built only a year or two before…

“Slippery”

The sun streamed unimpeded through the kitchen window, warming Jake’s back as he ate a bowl of cereal. It was a pleasant feeling, but also strange. Usually the light couldn’t get in. His RV blocked…

Stephen Carter, AML Smith-Pettit Foundation Award

Stephen Carter, one of Mormonism’s great authors and cultural commentators, was presented with the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters during the 2023 Association for Mormon Letters Virtual Conference, on April 29.… Read more

Humor in Mormon Literature with Theric Jepson and Stephen Carter

In this episode of Dialogue Book Report, Andrew talks to Theric Jepson and Stephen Carter about humor among the Mormons, specifically in Jepson’s collegiate novels Byuck and the newly released Just Julie’s Fine. Read more