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Sunday Lit Crit Sermon: Jedediah Grant on Learning

By Kent Larsen | 4.01.12
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Jedediah M. Grant

One frequent and misguided claim about Mormons is that we are anti-intellectual; that somehow we reject learning. While I can’t agree with that characterization, I do think that there is a complexity to the issue. Theologically, mormonism is actually highly supportive of intellectual pursuits—but tempers that with an overriding constraint; spirituality. In addition, Mormon culture adds its own wrinkles to this attitude, with clear anti-intelectual elements that are justified by the theological constraint.

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Categories: Sunday Lit Crit Sermon | 3 Comments » |

Whitney Youth Fiction General Finalists 2011

By Jonathan Langford | 3.30.12

Welcome to Jonathan Langford’s second installment of Whitney finalist reviews. As noted in my last installment, some of these reviews include story spoilers. All represent only my own opinion, which all will agree is eminently fallible. Thanks to the publisher of Pride and Popularity for making a PDF version available for members of the Whitney Academy. And please feel free to chime in with your opinions, whether they agree with mine or not.

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Categories: Reviews, YA Fiction | 4 Comments » |

Liner Notes: Speculations: Oil & Wine

By Wm | 3.29.12

“Speculations: Wine” and “Speculations: Oil” appear in the Spring 2012 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. They are companion pieces to “Speculations: Trees,” which was published in Irreantum. Several of the pieces in “Speculations: Oil” come from the same flurry of writing that led to “Speculations: Trees.” When I finished Oil, I decided to submit it to Dialogue. It was accepted. And then it fell through the cracks. Kristine Haglund, the editor, was very apologetic about that when I finally decided to ask about it. But to be honest, I was kind of glad that it had because in the meantime I had come up with some ideas for “Speculations: Wine” and asked if I could finish that and then resubmit the two works together. Kristine agreed. This was in the spring of 2011. Because of Monsters & Mormons, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to work on Wine, but then in the fall of 2011, I felt the urge to procrastinate other tasks, and went ahead and wrote most of it. I’m glad I did because just a couple of weeks later, Kristine emailed and asked if I could have things ready for the next issue. I’m lucky she was proactive about it because who knows how long I would have waited around before finishing it and resubmitting. Here’s a tip for my fellow writers: if an editor expresses interest in an unfinished piece, don’t let too much time go by before you finish it.

I really enjoy writing the Speculations series, but I also find it to be the most difficult writing I do because I’m trying balance several different tones (they’re all supposed to be funny and serious and sincere in varying degrees) in each section and across the entire piece. And then I’m also trying to balance each section against the others in the piece. And I’m trying to do that without repeating myself. It was certainly tempting for “Speculations: Wine” to just use some of the same forms/concepts that I used for Trees or Oil. I tried to resist that. Hopefully I succeeded.  (more) »

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Categories: Authoring | No Comments » |

WIZ’s 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff Competition and Celebration is underway

By Patricia Karamesines | 3.28.12

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Wilderness Interface Zone’s 2012 Spring Poetry Runoff Competition and Celebration opened its post pages for spring-themed poetry on March 26.  Please come join the fun, either by submitting your best vernal verse in competition or non-competition categories or by reading and voting for your favorite poems.  Prizes will be awarded for the Most Popular Poem and for an Admin Award.  WIZ will also have other activities for fun and enjoyment, including its customary haiku chain and a WIZ Retro Review giveaway to interested participants of an old-timey movie, Come Next Spring–an intelligent flick about second chances.

If you’d like to add your poetry to the flow, please go here and read the rules.

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Categories: Announcements, Elsewhere, Nature/Science Writing, Poetry | No Comments » |

Bright Angels & Familiars:
“Windows on the Sea” by Linda Sillitoe">Bright Angels & Familiars:
“Windows on the Sea” by Linda Sillitoe

By Theric Jepson | 3.27.12

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Linda Sillitoe, who passed away recently, will undoubtedly be best remembered for her nonfiction, her journalism and her history. But she was also a poet and a writer of fiction, including two novels and today’s story (a quick read) about a woman who has lost her face saving her daughter from fireworks. She’s approaching the final skin graft of her hospital stay when she is approached by a troubled team with blue and orange hair, who needs a friend of a mother or something of her own.

Sillitoe’s prose is a nice blend of poetry and journalism. Listen to the first paragraph:

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Strange that the world looked reassuringly the same although Lora Starkham would never look the same to the world. From the stocking-lined mask fitted over her face like a cat burglar, her gray-green eyes observed the traffic around the sunny atrium on the hospital’s seventh floor. She was newly grateful for her sight, for the fact that her eyes opened easily. She had been afraid for a time that her eyelids had melted, just as she knew the flesh over her cheekbones and chin had—we are, she observed wryly, clay after all.

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Categories: Literature, Reviews | 6 Comments » |

Luisa Perkins on her novel Dispirited

By Wm | 3.26.12

Luisa Perkins new novel Dispirited was recently published by Zarahemla Books. It’s a work of supernatural fiction or maybe “contemporary dark fantasy” (that a term Luisa uses on her about page). You can read more about Luisa and her work on her author website Kashkawan.

She is also a frequent commenter here at AMV and other Mormon blogs and an active Twitter user. When I heard about the publication of Dispirited, I had a few questions for her…

The synopsis for Dispirited on the Zarahemla Books website is a bit on the vague side. Could you tell us more about what the novel is about?

A boy named Blake teaches himself how to get out of his body in order to go looking for the spirit of his dead mother. One night when he comes home, he finds that another being has taken over his body in his absence. For years, he watches an impostor live his life. Then his father remarries, and Blake hopes to get help from his new stepsister, Cathy, who has some unusual gifts. (more) »

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Categories: Interviews | 3 Comments » |

Sunday Lit Crit Sermon: John Taylor on Religious Freedom

By Kent Larsen | 3.25.12

Whenever a Mormon in the U.S. complains about religious freedom today those of the 19th century must smile like parents do when children complain about difficult tasks. Worries about minor infringements and technical lines are nothing compared to what they passed through. The violence of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois eventually evolved into church-government conflict over polygamy, which boiled down to large numbers of Mormon men spending months and years in prison. And John Taylor may be an example of a Mormon who passed through both the early violence and the later police action.

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Categories: Sunday Lit Crit Sermon | 1 Comment » |

If Mormons are fun, are we doing this?

By Kent Larsen | 3.22.12

So I saw the TED talk below today:

So, I thought, are we doing that?

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