This Week in Mormon Literature, May 25, 2013

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Andrew Hall

The Mormon Lit Blitz is going on this week. The New York Times produced an in-depth article on the BYU Animation program, its success in placing graduates with Hollywood studios, and the issues of how Mormon values play in the entertainment world. There was also a notable article about gay Mormon characters in recent theatrical pieces. BYUtv presented its first scripted dramatic television series. Brandon Sanderson’s new YA series got starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, as well as some less enthusiastic reviews. Richard Paul Evans has a new bestseller, and Laura Andersen and Rachel Whipple debuted with national novels. TC Christiansen’s latest movie will be opening, and Mahonri Stewart’s Mormon theater anthology is now available. Please send any news or corrections to mormonlit AT gmail DOT com.

News and articles

The Mormon Lit Blitz is going on now, at James Goldberg’s Mormon Midrashim blog. So far there have been stories or poems by Jonathon Penny, Scott Hales, Sarah Dunster, Ben Crowder, Hillary Stirling, Merrijane Rice, Steven Peck, Marianne Hales Harding, Emily Harris Adams, and Katherine Cowley. There are separate posts to comment on each work.

When Hollywood Wants Good, Clean Fun, It Goes to Mormon Country. New York Times article about the BYU Animation program and its success in placing graduates with Hollywood studios. Continue reading →

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in verse # 29 : of the devil’s party

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Dennis Clark

William Blake was Milton’s son.  But it was no easy birth.  In his fine article on Milton’s prosody, John Creaser describes how Milton was able to work so well within the conventions of blank verse.  Creaser begins by summarizing the description by Derek Attridge of “the prevailing norms” of verse rhythm in English:

Fundamental to the rhythm of English speech are (1) isochrony — the tendency, allowing for sense “breathings,” to perceive stressed syllables as falling at equal intervals of time; and (2) duple movement — the tendency for stressed and unstressed syllables to alternate.[i]

These are our Anglo-Saxon heritage, the stresses of our Germanic past, lingering in English only in the rhythms of our speech, reflecting the stripping away of most inflections in our grammar, yet the retention of that old 4-beat prosody irrespective of syllable counts.  Of the iambic foot, Creaser describes Attridge as concluding that “in lines of any rhythmic complexity, the foot cannot be felt as a unit.”[ii]  This is what makes the later Shakespeare plays so wonderfully adaptive to the actor’s voice.  I would argue Continue reading →

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Justifying the Cut: The Plays of Saints on Stage

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Mahonri Stewart

SaintsOnStage-Cover.inddWith the publication of Saints on Stage: An Anthology of Mormon Drama, I’ve been thinking a lot about Mormon drama and how it currently stands as it own niche genre. The whole reason I pitched the idea of the anthology to Chris Bigelow at Zarahemla Books was because of the.impact that Mormon drama and its playwrights had made upon me when I was younger. I wanted to honor that powerful influence of a genre I loved and the Mormon playwrights who I owe so much to.

In high school, I attended a number of Mormon themed plays at BYU which inspired me…Eric Samuelsen’s The Seating of Senator Smoot and Gadianton; Elizabeth Hansen’s A String of Pearls; James Arrington’s Farley Family Christmas. My own youthful writing before that had largely been non-religious or, if religious, of a general Christian variety (my interest in C.S. Lewis in high school jump started this kind of writing). But it was Mormon drama that really made me investigate my own specific faith, artistically. Seeing my faith on stage, in the spotlight, drew me even deeper into a desire to more deeply investigate my closely held spiritual beliefs.  

So this month I want to go into why the plays I chose made it into the anthology—what I think they contribute to Mormon drama and what impact they had on me personally: Continue reading →

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The Cranky Curmudgeon: I Got Nothin’

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Scott Parkin

Something weird happened to me recently. After reading two different books by two different authors I found myself at an utter loss for something to argue with them about. In both cases, I closed the book, set it down, and felt no particular need to argue with much of anything that the author wrote.

That’s unprecedented for me. I always want to argue—even when I agree. There’s always something in the theme or the character or the setting to quibble with. There’s always an understated (or overstated) point that I think I could have offered better using a different structure or through a different conflict. There’s always something I want to steal wholesale and make my own.

Not this time. Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, General | 4 Comments

Interview with alternate history author Laura Anderson

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Eric James Stone

Orson Scott Card has delved into the alternate history genre with his Alvin Maker series and Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. But the former is fantasy (there’s magic in it), and the latter is science fiction (there’s time travel in it); I don’t think he’s written what might be considered a pure alternate history novel: one that simply imagines what might have happened if a particular historical event had happened differently.

LDS author Eric Swedin’s novel When Angels Wept: A What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis is a pure alternate history that won a Sidewise Award a couple of years ago. Other than that, I can’t think of any other LDS authors who have published pure alternate history novels — with the exception of my interviewee this month, Laura Anderson, whose novel The Boleyn King was released yesterday by Ballantine Books.  (If you know of any other alternate history novels by LDS authors, pure or not — by which I mean the purity of the alternate history, not the authors — please mention them in the comments.)

I had the pleasure of reading an early draft of The Boleyn King a few years ago, back when Laura and I were in an online writing group together, so I’m particularly pleased to see it finally get published.  Laura will be reading and signing this evening (May 15) at 7:00pm at the King’s English bookstore (a particularly well-named bookstore for this particular book) in Salt Lake City, so if you have a chance to swing by an pick up a copy, I recommend it.

Here are my questions for Laura and her responses: Continue reading →

Posted in SF&F corner | 5 Comments

Children’s Lit Corner

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Kathryn Poulter

I love a good guessing game. So for today’s blog entry, I have gathered together some of my favorite children’s books and written their first lines here. See if you can guess which book each quote comes from.

1. “‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”
2. “Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything, except…getting a bath.”
3. “Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were looking for a place to live.”
4. “Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.” Continue reading →

Posted in Children's Lit corner, General, YA corner | 2 Comments

This Week in Mormon Literature, May 11, 2013

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Andrew Hall

The LDStorymakers Conference is going on, with the Whitney Awards to be announced at the Gala dinner tonight. I have lots of Whitney book reviews and wrap-ups. Plan-B Theatre’s 2013-14 season will be dedicated to the work of Eric Samuelsen. The BYU Center for Animation won its 12th Student Emmy in 10 years.  Josh Hanagarne’s memoir The World’s Strongest Librarian  is released. Please send any information or corrections to mormonlit AT gmail DOT com.

News and blog posts

The LDStorymakers Conference is this weekend at The Provo Marriott Hotel. Anne Perry was the keynote speaker. The Whitney Awards will be announced at the Gala dinner on Saturday.

UPDATE: Here are the Whitney Award winners:

Lifetime Achievement: Lael Littke

Outstanding Achievement: Carol Lynch Williams

General; Camron Wright for “The Rent Collector”. First Whitney.

Historical:  Carla Kelly for “My Loving Vigil Keeping.” Second Whitney award in a row.

Mystery/Suspense: Traci Hunter Abramson for “Code Word.” First win after being nominated five times previously.

Romance: Julianne Donaldson for “Edenbrooke.”

Speculative fiction; Dan Wells for “The Hollow City.” Fourth Whitney award, he has won something every year since 2009.

General Young Adult: Lisa Mangum for “After Hello.” First Whitney.

Speculative YA: Brodi Ashton for “Everneath.” First Whitney.

Middle Grade: Jennifer A. Nielsen for “The False Prince.” First Whitney.

Best Novel By a New Author: Julianne Donaldson for “Edenbrooke.”

Best Youth Novel of the Year: Jennifer A. Nielson for “The False Prince”

Best Novel: Camron Wright for “The Rent Collector.”

Tweets about Anne Perry’s keynote address: “What we are here to do is learn to empathize with others.” Stories increase empathy as we live more lives than our own.            I think Anne Perry’s message at this keynote is to write w your heart-only she said more beautifully.        The best thing about Anne Perry’s speech was her conviction that writers do something beautiful and important.     “Dante’s Inferno is a raging good story. And darn good yarn.” -Anne Perry :)       We only live once, but if you read well you can taste a little bit of others’ lives. — Anne Perry on writing        Hearing Anne Perry read “The Good Samaritan” with her accent makes it seem even more profound. Continue reading →

Posted in This Week in Mormon Literature | 3 Comments

A Live Reading, the Lit Blitz, and our Master Class Application

Posted on May 9, 2013 by James Goldberg

Confession: I have mixed feelings about writing as a technology.

On the one hand, I’m amazed by how abstract marks on a page or screen can evoke the voice of a person thousands of miles–or years–away. Writing does a wonderful job at expanding the range of minds a given reader can interact with.

But it does so at a cost. I get to transmit my voice further through letters by sacrificing tone, gesture, body language, the energy of physical presence. And in listening from a distance, you lose the possibility of immediate response and the presence of the rest of the audience. That’s a high price to pay. We get distant connection at the risk of some immediate isolation.

What can we do to make up for the costs of writing? Last month, Jonathan Langford posted about communities of Mormon readers and writers and suggested that fans and scholars have a richer, more natural experience of story when they engage in further conversation with each other. Discussion groups, blogs, and live gatherings help counteract the necessary narrow experience of text. He also noted that many great written stories were products of live conversations and relationships between writers.

Today, I’m going to talk about three of my own current efforts to help make Mormon Lit a richer, more communal experience for writers and readers alike: the Mormon Lit Blitz, a reading with Steven Peck at Orem Library, and the upcoming (June 27-29) Mormon Writing Retreat/Master Class. Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, Storytelling and Community | 6 Comments

Whitney Finalists 2012: Final Thoughts

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Jessie Christensen

Three months ago I wrote a post with some of my initial thoughts on the 2012 Whitney Award finalists. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to read 25 books in three months and I wondered whether or not reading them all at once was a good idea. I have the same dilemma every year: read fiction by LDS authors all year in the hopes of catching at least some potential Whitney finalists (and to have the chance to nominate some books as well), or focus on a mix of LDS-related fiction, national-market fiction, and nonfiction like I usually do. Unfortunately there are just too many books in the world to ever be able to read everything I would like to, but reading choices and priorities are a topic for a different post. This year I read most of the finalists for the adult categories (I skipped both youth categories this year) within the short space of a few months, and while I think that this runs the risk of problems like burnout or a lack of perspective from reading so many similar books, I think I will stick to this strategy again next year. Well, actually next year’s plans for Whitney reading are still nebulous since I am starting a graduate degree in the fall. This may be my last Whitney-related post for a while. Enough blathering—on with the discussion! Continue reading →

Posted in Community Voices, Mormon LitCrit | Tagged | 11 Comments

This Week in Mormon Literature, April 29, 2013

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Andrew Hall

Sorry to post right after Jonathan, but I have been dragging this around unfinished for over a week, it is time to get this giant hunk of info dumped so I can go to bed. The Whitney Awards ballots are due today. Scott Hatch won the 2013 Marilyn Brown Unpublished Novel Competition, from his own university. We have new AML presidents, and lots of new books. The upcoming Whitney Awards means that there is a flood of reviews of the 2012 finalists.

News and Blog posts

Whitney Awards ballots are due on Monday, April 29th.

Scott Hatch, a lecturer in English at Utah Valley University, was recently named winner of the 2013 Marilyn Brown Unpublished Novel Competition for his work, “A Boy Scout’s Field Guide to the Red-shifting Universe.” Continue reading →

Posted in This Week in Mormon Literature | 5 Comments