Gary James Bergera’s book, Conflict in the Quorum, is a well written and fascinating account of Orson Pratt, one of Joseph Smith’s original Twelve Apostles, that highlights some of his disagreements with Church leaders (including…
I had a very strange experience once in which Richard Bushman was indirectly involved. This experience took place when I was in an interview with the chairman of a graduate program at a well-respected university.…
Dan Vogel has written an extensive volume on the controversial Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, focusing on his creation of the Book of Mormon as “the making of a prophet.”[1] Vogel has done impressive research, not…
When teaching argumentative writing, a wise instructor will often introduce her students to what is called the principle of charity, or the realization that problematic arguments were composed by intelligent people who faced rhetorical constraints…
I sense someone beside me
and see Emily’s eyes on my hands
and the knife in the sink.
She asks, What are you slicing?
If I were the neighborhood bishop
There’d be lots of things I couldn’t really help with
No rolling up sleeves to fix Brother Nielsen’s car
No driving some new tractor to plow snow
Blake’s angel, for all his winks and nods,
Wouldn’t have it, though it hangs for having:
Drop of down and blush quavering on the rim
Of ripeness, playing at a fall.
The water was black around our knees. Bamboo surrounded and overlooked us. It was so quiet in the mist and the dark green stalks that the sound of our legs moving was an intrusion. Water…
I wanted to lift the glass-framed lid and hold the big German brown trout. He was smooth, beautiful, all shining gold—darker gold on top and lighter gold underneath. The gold had black, orange, and red…
I wrote “Getting Out” as a somewhat naive twenty-four-year-old. Now I return, in theory a wise and mature twenty-five-year-old. Inevitably, I’ll find whatever I write here equally naive a year from now. I don’t know…