AML blog will be getting a new look and feel, thanks to efforts by Jacob Proffitt and Johnna Cornett -- including a switch to Wordpress as our new platform. It's our hope that this will make the blog function more smoothly than it has in the past.

The changeover will take place Thursday evening, Dec. 30. Aside from the blog being down for a few hours, you shouldn't notice any ongoing problems. The URL address for the blog will remain the same.

Thanks in advance for your patience as we work out the (inevitable) bugs. And thanks to Jacob and Johnna for researching and implementing the changeover!

Hi all! I’ve been asked by the AML board to take over coordination of the AML blog. I’m posting to ask for suggestion and throw out some ideas for how we — that’s us here at AML, but also hopefully includes some of you reading — can help improve the blog so it will better serve the community of Mormon letters.

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Cain’s Sacrifice

I was thinking about the spiritual dangers that come with being an LDS writer (or artist of any kind, really) when the following came to mind:

And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering; but unto Cain, and to his offering, he had not respect. (Moses 5:19-21)

And the eyes of my understanding were opened, and I did wrest the scriptures to fit my own purposes...

Writing is an exercise of the ego as much as the intellect. I don’t personally know any writers who are truly capable of separating themselves from the works they create. To appropriate Yeats (after all, I just did it to Moses, why not Yeats as well?): “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” More...