Dialogue Book Report #23: Lost Generation Authors

Vardis Fisher and Virginia Sorensen were two of the leading lights in a golden age of Mormon literature, which occurred from the late 1930s through the 1950s. Two of leading lights of the current generation of Mormon cultural commentators, Stephen Carter and Michael Austin, decided that Fisher and Sorensen are worthy of renewed attention, and wrote biographies and literary critiques about them. 

Stephen Carter, the author of Virginia Sorensen, Pioneering Mormon Author (Signature Books), is the editor of Sunstone, a position he has held since 2008. He is the author of the essay collection What of the Night?, he co-wrote the iPlates series of Book of Mormon graphic novels, and edited the multi-author anthology Moth & Rust: Mormon Encounters with Death, each of which won an award from the Association for Mormon Letters.

Michael Austin, the author of Vardis Fisher, A Mormon Novelist (University of Illinois Press), is the executive vice president for academic affairs at the University of Evansville. His many books include Rereading Job: Understanding the Ancient World’s Greatest Poem. His books have won two AML awards for religious nonfiction and two awards for criticism, and he received the AML 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award. He is co-founder and press director at BCC Press.