DiaBLOGue
Unnatural History | Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
April 12, 2018Sometimes when I go to readings given by Nature writers, that new and popular set exploring their private, half-mystical genre, I think for a moment that I’m listening to LDS general conference talks—the histrionic intoning…
Celebrations | Emma Lou Thayne, Things Happen: Poems of Survival
April 12, 2018The publication of a new book of poetry is an occasion for celebration, particularly when the poetry is by such a generous and great-hearted soul as Emma Lou Thayne. But the title of this volume,…
The Survival of New Religious Movements | Timothy Miller, ed., When Prophets Die: The Post Charismatic Fate of New Religious Movements
April 12, 2018The unifying thesis of the twelve essays contained in When Prophets Die: The Post Charismatic Fate of New Religious Movements is that most new religious movements, though heavily dependent on a single dominant personality, usually…
I Laugh, Therefore I Am | Elouise Bell, Only When I Laugh
April 12, 2018A student of Zen Buddhism meditated daily on koans assigned by the Zen master. None of his insights impressed the master until one day, after years of thought about these puzzles, the student timidly began…
Reappraisal of a Classic | Thomas G. Alexander, ed., Great Basin Kingdom Revisited: Contemporary Perspectives
April 12, 2018In May 1988, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University and the Mountain West Center for Western Studies at Utah State University jointly sponsored an interdisciplinary symposium to reappraise, on its…
Ziontales: An Excerpt
April 12, 2018I wrote this story under a spell. I was living in Salt Lake City, not in the sprawl of the new suburbs, nor even in the politically correct neighborhoods of the East Bench or the Avenues near the university, but in the Marmalade District. Gentrification has since remade the area, but at that time and for much of its history, it was a backwater of decaying pioneer dwellings and odd apartments made from broken Victorian homes, squeezed onto the foothills below Ensign Peak.
When I Swam for the Utah Valley Dolphins
April 12, 2018My mom could sleep each night
without waking except
when my ear ached so much
I became a nightmare
Glimmers and Glitches in Zion
April 12, 2018An eight-year-old Mormon can tell you a lot about Zion. At least I could. In response to Sister Jensen’s questions in Targeteer class, I’d raise my hand to give my rote answer: “Zion is a…
Because I Was a Sister Missionary
April 12, 2018I am a female returned missionary. A decade has passed since I returned from my mission in Germany. Since then I have finished graduate school, lived in Korea for a while, married, had two children.…