Levi S. Peterson
Levi Savage Peterson (born 1933) is a Mormon biographer, essayist and fictionist whose best-known works include a seminal biography of Juanita Brooks, his own autobiography, and his novel The Backslider, "standard for the contemporary Mormon novel." He was born and reared in the Mormon community of Snowflake, Arizona and is an emeritus professor of English at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Denmark. He edited Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought from 2004 to 2008.
Bode and Iris
Articles/Essays – Volume 52, No. 2
Listen to the piece here. It may seem odd that an experienced fornicator like Bode Carpenter would get the girl pregnant in the first place—particularly because he carried a condom in the watch pocket of…
Read moreThe Shyster
Articles/Essays – Volume 51, No. 1
Arne met Leanne Holburn at church during his final year in an MBA program at the University of Washington. He found her very attractive. Of medium height, she had sculpted cheeks, an aquiline nose, and…
Read moreKid Kirby
Articles/Essays – Volume 49, No. 2
His name was Reeves Kirby and he was eighteen that summer. He was small of stature and unlikely to grow bigger. Moreover, he had a mild temperament, blond hair, bland blue eyes, and a downy…
Read moreRoad to Damascus
Articles/Essays – Volume 11, No. 4
At evening Paul contemplated two trees on a distant ridge. They were both firs, one tall, straight, conical; the other curiously warped midtrunk into a great bent bush of a tree. The crippled tree troubled…
Read moreThe Gift
Articles/Essays – Volume 15, No. 2
On a snowy evening, Gerard de Valois stepped from a tram near Quai Marcellis in the Belgian city of Liege. He positioned his hat more firmly, tucked his scarf tightly into the collar of his…
Read morePanorama, Drama, and PG at Last | Orson Scott Card, A Woman of Destiny
Articles/Essays – Volume 17, No. 4
This novel comes in glossy green and gold paperback with an embossed title and a blurb announcing it as “the epic saga of a woman who dared to search the world for love.” Such commercial…
Read moreThe Third Nephite
Articles/Essays – Volume 19, No. 4
Shortly after sunrise Otis Wadby was driving to work in Circleville. He stayed nights with his son in Junction, his wife having expelled him from his home in Circleville because he had taken up with…
Read moreJuanita Brooks’s Quicksand and Cactus: The Evolution of a Literary Memoir
Articles/Essays – Volume 20, No. 1
Juanita Brooks holds an undisputed place among Mormon historians. Her landmark and still definitive history of the Mountain Meadows massacre was first published by Stanford University Press in 1950 and reprinted by the University of…
Read moreIn Defense of a Mormon Erotica
Articles/Essays – Volume 20, No. 4
Despite my title, I do not intend to defend pornography, Mormon or otherwise. But I do intend to discuss Mormon attitudes toward erotica and suggest that a dearth of sexuality in Mormon literature may be…
Read moreTwenty Years with Dialogue: A Tribute to Dialogue
Articles/Essays – Volume 21, No. 2
I could justly praise DIALOGUE for many qualities . But for the sake of brevity I will concentrate upon a single overriding virtue. DIALOGUE makes my religion interesting. When I was a boy, I believed…
Read moreEternity Be Damned? The Impact of Interfaith Vows: Eternity with a Dry-Land Mormon
Articles/Essays – Volume 23, No. 2
Plight and Promise: Windows on the Sea and Other Stories by Linda Sillitoe
Articles/Essays – Volume 23, No. 4
Lavina Fielding Anderson and the Power of a Church in Exile
Articles/Essays – Volume 29, No. 4
My College Years: From the Autobiography of Levi S. Peterson
Articles/Essays – Volume 33, No. 3
Remarks at the Memorial Service for Eugene England, Provo, Utah. August 25, 2001: Salvaged for Mormonism
Articles/Essays – Volume 35, No. 1
Brothers
Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 2
About a year and a half after Mitch fell, he decided on a comeback climb. Understandably, his wife was less than enthusiastic about it. Everyone agreed the fall should have killed Mitch or, worse, made…
Read moreThinking Globally: Explorations into a Truly International, Multi-Cultural Church
Articles/Essays – Volume 38, No. 4
Editor’s Introduction: Celebrating Forty Years of Dialogue
Articles/Essays – Volume 39, No. 1
“Astonished Each Day”: An Interview with Richard J Van Wagoner Utah Artist
Articles/Essays – Volume 39, No. 2
Badge and Bryant, or, the Decline and Fall of the Dogfrey Club
Articles/Essays – Volume 43, No. 1
Badge and Bryant Braunhil were first cousins, but they could have passed for fraternal twins, having—both of them—bright blue eyes, big grins, and unkempt blond hair. They lived in Linroth, a Mormon town in northern…
Read moreThe Dream
Articles/Essays – Volume 44, No. 1
Niles awoke from a strange dream to find that his snoring had once again driven his wife from their bed. On his way to the bathroom, he peered into the darkened living room and, as…
Read moreSandrine
Articles/Essays – Volume 45, No. 4
These things happened fifty years ago. It was 1962, the year of the World’s Fair in Seattle. I was twenty-one and had just finished my junior year at Utah State University in Logan. My forestry…
Read moreJesus Enough
Articles/Essays – Volume 47, No. 4
1886 When Darby turned fifteen, his mother Cora said if he didn’t make up his mind to accept Jesus pretty soon, it would be too late. She said he had to make the choice either…
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