Aspiration
March 28, 2018Wind, shorn from the sky by glass
and concrete, whistles down the face
of the casino tower, flings the naked
branches of a sidewalk tree, and pours
DiaBLOGue
A History of Dialogue, Part Three: “Coming of Age” in Utah, 1982-1989
March 28, 2018By 1982 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought had been publishing for sixteen years and had operated at both ends of the U.S. under three different editorships. It was born, flourished for several years, then…
Lucy’s Own Voice | Lavina Fielding Anderson, ed., Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir
March 27, 2018In the winter after the martyrdom of her sons, Joseph and Hyrum, Lucy Mack Smith dictated a history of her family to Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, a sympathetic schoolteacher in Nauvoo. Two copies were made…
Book of Mormon Stories | Mark D. Thomas, Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Narratives, and Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New Religion
March 27, 2018After decades of neglect by scholars, theologians, and even rank and-file Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon may be finally getting its due. Recently, several books have under scored the importance of this controversial work…
Friendly History | Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise
March 27, 2018Glen Leonard’s long-awaited history of Nauvoo is friendly history at its finest. It gently questions some deeply held beliefs about the Saints’ tumultuous sojourn at the fringes of western Illinois. The writing is read able…
Wars of Preemption, Wars of Revenge
March 27, 2018Americans may be on the eve of a preemptive attack on a foreign country, ostensibly to protect ourselves from potential future attacks. Our nemesis, Saddam Hussein, is known to be evil, having gassed his own…
Why I Can’t Write My Joseph Smith Play
March 27, 2018In April of 2001 I directed ten of my students in an hour-and-fifteen minute workshop production of the rough beginnings of a play I’d writ ten. I’d been immersed in research and writing for eight…
Would Joseph Smith Attend the New York Stake Arts Festival?
March 27, 2018Recently, Latter-day Saint artists and writers in New York City have been searching for ways to recognize one another. I don’t mean recognize in the sense of honoring, but recognize as in encountering one another’s…
My “Affair” with Fawn McKay Brodie: Motives, Pain, and Pleasure
March 27, 2018Over the course of some thirteen years I was involved in an intense “affair” with a woman other than my wife. My long-term affair with Fawn McKay Brodie, literary in nature, involved the research and…
Sestina of the Martyrdom
March 27, 2018On the long tether of a day in June
Beyond the Zion swamps, the prisoned palms
Of four men opened toward a promised land.
And yet, below the shadows of limestone
Joseph thought again, I am going
Like a lamb to the slaughter.