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!

Our webmaster, Jacob Proffitt, has set up a link to an email subscription to the AML blog (so that people can receive emails whenever there is a new AML blog post).

On the AML blog pages, on the right side, there is a list of recent comments and a list of recent posts.

At the bottom of the list of recent comments is a link for those who want an RSS feed whenever someone posts a new comment on the AML blog.

And, at the bottom of the list of recent posts, is a link that says "Subscribe to Dawning of a Brighter Day by Email"

This "subscribe" link is the one you use to get emails whenever there is a new post on the AML blog.

We hope that this will make it easier to know what is going on at the AML blog, and perhaps bring people around for more discussions.

Irreantum has three big annoucements to make, which means this will be a lengthy (but information-packed!) post.  We want to tell you all about:

1.  Our Fall/Winter 2010 issue, which is going to press in a few days and will be mailed out in December.

2.  Irreantum's 2011 Literary Contests and our brand new poetry contest in particular.  We begin accepting submissions on Jan. 1.

3.  Our nominations for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.

Read on for more information about each of these exciting developments. More...

It may not be the best-kept secret in Mormon Literature, but sometimes we wonder.  The AML Review Archive contains over 1000 reviews of books, short stories, films, plays, and play productions, and even a few of music CDs, all pertaining in one way or another to the Mormon experience.   Links to the five most recent additions to the Archive are in the upper right corner of the AML home page, and new reviews are added frequently.

But there are hundreds of other examples of Mormon literature (literature by, for, and/or about Mormons) that have not been reviewed, or at least those reviews have not been included in the AML Review Archive.

One of the purposes of this post is to invite everyone to visit the Archive and look around. More...

Two and a half months. That's all the time left for readers to send in Whitney Award nominations.

A big announcement regarding the awards recently came out, but before I get there, here's a quick refresher on what they are and how they work. More...

Association for Mormon Letters

CALL FOR PAPERS

 The Association for Mormon Letters announces 2011 Annual Meeting, which will be held on Friday and Saturday, March 25 and 26 on the campus of Utah Valley University.

 The theme for this year’s meeting is “liberating form.” In a seminal article published in the 1970s, Marden J. Clark pointed out a central paradox of creative production: that “the creative person is at once the most free and most bound of people.” As Clark wrote, “Freedom can find meaningful release, meaningful expression only in significant form.” This paradox of creativity, argued Clark, is also at play in creating a meaningful life: without plans, rules, and structure, our lives become chaotic and painful. “A glider soars, a jet plane flies, not just because the wind blows or because a motor develops a half million pounds of thrust, but because of the form of the wing it flies on.” This interplay of freedom and form is the focusing lens through which we not only create good literature but saintly lives.

 We welcome submissions on this or any topic relating to Mormon literature, film, or drama. Please submit a short (2 to 3 paragraph) abstract of your paper proposal to Boyd Petersen, boyd.petersen@uvu.edu or Margaret Blair Young, margaret_young@byu.edu, or on or before February 1, 2011.

 In an effort to foster greater discussion and synergy, AML will this year be meeting jointly with Mormon Scholars in the Humanities on the campus of Utah Valley University. While both organizations will host and create their own sessions, we will share some plenary speakers and host joint events.

Irreantum Fiction Contest Winners

The Association for Mormon Letters is pleased to announce the winners of the 2010 Irreantum fiction contest. A committee of judges considered 91 entries and awarded three cash prizes and two honorable mentions. More...

We've been busy at Irreantum these days.  The submission window for our fiction and creative nonfiction contests just closed on May 31, and we received 90 fiction entries and 48 creative nonfiction entries, our most robust level of participation yet.  And even though that's a lot of reading, the high response level is very satisfying to me.  It shows how many people out there are writing Mormon literature, and gives me great hope that we can find some excellent work to publish in Irreantum's pages.

We also have an announcement to make.  The Fall/Winter 2010 issue of Irreantum will be my last.  More...

First, two announcements:

1.  The first annual Segullah Writing Reatreat is coming up on Saturday, June 26 in Salt Lake City.  It's going to be fantastic.  Although Segullah's audience is primarily female, the Writing Retreat is open to both women and men.  The retreat also welcomes writers of all experience levels, from professional writers to bloggers to dabblers.  You can't beat the price--especially considering the tasty catered lunch and dinner offerings--and the company will be great, too.  Join us!

2.  Don't forget that the deadline for Irreantum's fiction and creative nonfiction contests is coming up soon.  May 31st!  So whip those stories and essays into shape and send them our way.

And now, instead of an announcement, a PROnouncement:

Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist, which officially hit the shelves today, is going to be huge.  I'm still not finished with my advance reading copy--the book's over 600 pages long--but I haven't been this excited about a novel in a good long time.  Publisher's Weekly recently called the novel "a serious contender for Great American Novel status," and I can't help agreeing.  (Well, as much as the idea of the Great American Novel even exists, or ought to exist, as a construct.)  The novel is sprawling and funny and heartwrenching and sad and insightful and full of charity for its fallible (and loveable) cast of characters.  And, yes, there's sex in it.  And swearing.  Not all Mormon readers will be able to get past some of these elements, it's true.  But for me?  The novel is brimming with goodness and heart.  And there's some knock-your-socks off prose to admire as well.  Like I said, I haven't finished the novel, so don't consider this my be-all-end-all review, but now that the book is officially available in stores I wanted to take this chance to encourage those interested in Mormon literature to scrape together twenty bucks and buy it.  I'm ceratin the novel will get a good deal of attention from the national market, but I'm hopeful that Mormon readers will embrace it as well.

I haven't been doing much blogging or posting in any social forums lately, mainly because I'm trying to finish up one big book project and gear up to start the next, so I don't have much extra literary energy to spare these days (and I'm not even talking about Zarahemla projects but projects I'm authoring and/or editing for other publishers, whether contracted or on speculation). And I have to admit, the blog discussion I got into here a couple of months ago about Zarahemla Books threw me for a loop. But it caused me to do some thinking and evaluating, and I came up with some new author guidelines that I thought I'd share, not least because they include some realistic thinking about Zarahemla's niche. So without much further ado, here are the new guidelines, and if they prompt any comments, fine. Deep down, I hope some author out there comes up with such a great book in Zarahemla's niche that I absolutely MUST publish it simply because it's so exquisite. More...