Okay, I’m going to let the cat out of the bag, so if you don’t want the single, major twist of this novel spoiled, please walk away now. … For those of you still here,…
Steven L. Peck has long been seen as a pioneer in the field of Mormon letters, because of his ability to move beyond the usual clichés and expectations that often come with fiction about the faith. In two of his previous novels, The Scholar of Moab and A Short Stay in Hell, he successfully moved the genre into the twenty-first century because of his willingness to push boundaries, embrace the unorthodox, and explore difficult themes. His latest contribution, Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats, follows this same vein by branching out into even newer territory, but unfortunately, it often gets lost along the way.
For Doug Thayer There was a knock at the apartment door. My companion, Carr, slouched at his desk, tinkering with a delicate butterfly he’d just formed from a piece of thin copper wire he’d retrieved…
Ephemerist, n.: (1) after the Greek word for day, a journal keeper; (2) a collector of ephemera (see archivist); (3) an inventor of ephemera (see capitalist); (4) a devotee of ephemera (see nudist); (5) one who privileges ephemera (see nepotist); (6) a scientist whose subject is ephemera (see mycologist).
What follows is a lecture on three samples from a known ephemerist.
Third Wheel: Peculiar Stories of Mormon Women in Love brings together two plays by award-winning playwright Melissa Leilani Larson: Happy Little Secrets and Pilot Program. The plays are presented chronologically by premier year. Happy Little…
When Dennis Cormier arrived on the fifteenth floor of the Church Office Building in downtown Salt Lake City, his first appointment was already waiting. The visitor was fleshy, jowls and hips, about Dennis’ age, and…
Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother is a collection of poems written by Rachel Hunt Steenblik and illustrated by Ashley Mae Hoiland. Divided into four sections and armed with nearly thirty pages of notes, the work of this book appears to be two-fold: first, to enter into a discoveratory conversation about the nature of Heavenly Mother, and second, an outcropping of the research Steenblik conducted for the scholarly article “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven.”
Judith Freeman’s The Latter Days: A Memoir is a remarkable memoir of an unremarkable life. The American novelist ticks all of the standard boxes when recounting her childhood—abusive father, distant mother, disowned sibling, youthful indiscretion—none falling…
In historic accounts of Mormonism’s founding leaders, Amasa M. Lyman is often absent. However, despite this absence, Lyman is noteworthy for the many roles he played in the formative years of the Church. He was…
I was nineteen years old when I first learned about the essay form. I was enrolled in an introductory survey of creative writing, sitting in a middle row of pocked and drab desks in a…