As every author knows, the blurb on the dust cover of a book is of vital importance, because many reviewers read nothing else. I found the blurb of Thy Kingdom Come invaluable after reading every…
When I saw that Joyce Ellen Davis’ newly published novel, Chrysalis, dealt with a young mother’s experience with cancer, I was disappointed—but only temporarily. The theme seemed to be perhaps too obvious in its dramatic…
In the summer of 1979, the Modern Language Association, with financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, sponsored a five-week institute on “non-traditional writings of women.” The institute was held at the University…
This study seeks to look analytically at the reorganization of sex roles and sexual expression in three of the most controversial religious movements of nineteenth-century America—the Shakers, who practiced celibacy; the Mormons, who introduced a…
In his History of American Socialisms (1870) John Humphrey Noyes emphasized the equal importance of revivalism and socialism to the communitarian movement. “The Revivalists,” he wrote, had for their great idea the regeneration of the…
Is it the product of a single mind or a conspiracy? I wonder as I slide into the waxed church pew. I have been force-fed a breakfast of eggs scrambled with Cool Whip (they thought…
In the midst of life we are in the midst of death, so the old church fathers tell us, and so we realize every day as a baby dies in childbirth or a friend succumbs…
Beth knew as soon as Wendy answered the phone that it was a boy on the other end. Wendy’s eager young “hello” was followed by silence and then a furtive, whispered, “Just a minute.” Wendy…
Laurie had wanted for a long time to visit Jen. When Mama took David, the baby, to visit their favorite aunt she and Carol complained. “I know you want to see her,” Mama explained, “but…
I did not just sit down and say, “This is going to be a dance in eight parts.” It evolved. When I was finishing the choreography, I visited Josephine Withers (no relation), an historian of…