From: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (aml-list-digest) To: aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: aml-list-digest V1 #472 Reply-To: aml-list Sender: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-aml-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk aml-list-digest Wednesday, October 3 2001 Volume 01 : Number 472 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 19:12:44 -0500 From: Linda Adams Subject: [AML] Paul BAILEY, _For Time and All Eternity_ Hi, Has anyone ever heard of a fiction work by the title _For Time and All Eternity,_ by Paul Bailey? I "rescued" this 400-page volume from the public library's 25-cent book sale. Published in 1964 by Doubleday, it states in a facing page that "It is an attempt to portray with truth and fidelity the great Mormon anti-polygamy crusade of the 1880s, but, with the exception of a few actual historical personage, all characters in this book are entirely imaginary and fictitious." It's dedicated "To my grandmothers... who lived their lifetimes in the 'Principle'..." Sounded scary enough I felt I ought to spring for the quarter and save it from the hands of unknowing Gentiles. :-) Doesn't look to be well-read. However, I have no intention of reading it myself unless I'm thoroughly convinced otherwise by List members that it's one not to miss. Anybody want it? I can ship it out book rate if you cover shipping. He's also written other books, it looks like, called _The Gay Saint_, _For this My Glory,_ and several biographies, including Jacob Hamblin and Sam Brannan, and one called _Grandpa was a Polygamist._ Linda Adams adamszoo@sprintmail.com http://home.sprintmail.com/~adamszoo - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 20:44:25 EDT From: AEParshall@aol.com Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Killed "There were twelve family members from Springville, UT, also killed. I believe they were LDS." The "news flash" that reported this one can be found at http://www.mormonstoday.com/010921/P2WTCVictims01.shtml HOWEVER, I'll bet the farm that it is false, that it was one man who, in a misguided attempt to be the center of attention at work or to gain sympathy from a small circle, told a whopper that got out of hand. You'll notice that none of the information you would expect to find in such a dramatic story is present: no names of victims, no residence (except to say that it was NOT Springville), no ages of children. There has been no local follow-up whatsoever, and none of the national channels have picked it up. That may be the biggest tip-off: with all the dramatic stories being told, what national news source could possibly resist the drama of 12 members of one extended family dying in this tragedy? You'll note that it was a co-worker who called in the tip. Once the local news people investigated a little bit, they quietly let it die. Let's not perpetuate another urban legend. [Ardis Parshall] AEParshall@aol.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 19:43:55 -0700 (PDT) From: William Morris Subject: Re: [AML] Review Archive Update - --- Terry L Jeffress wrote: > New Features > ============ > > The archive now fully cross references with the Awards Database. > For example, reviews for _God's Army_ have a link to the citation > in the Awards Database, and the Awards Database citation page for > _God's Army_ provides links to the available reviews. Thanks to > the wonders of relational databses, reviews of award winning > titles will automatically cross reference with the awards > database. That is so cool. Relational databases rock! ( please excuse my adolescent enthusiasm) ~~Wililam Morris __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 00:00:26 -0400 From: "Debra L. Brown" Subject: [AML] Fw: MN 'New Era' to Drop Fiction: BYU-Idaho Scroll 2Oct01 US UT SLC N1 'New Era' to Drop Fiction SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- The New Era, the youth magazine published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will no longer publish fiction, ending a practice of carrying stories in each issue that has launched the careers of many LDS authors. A date for the change to only non-fiction hasn't yet been set, but the decision to make the change has been made. The magazine's publication of fiction has started the careers of many LDS authors, including prominent LDS youth author Jack Weyland. Weyland, a BYU-Idaho physics instructor, told the university's newspaper, The Scroll, that the New Era led to his writing career, "If it hadn't been for the New Era, I wouldn't have written a thing," he said. Weyland wrote his first New Era article in 1969, and was surprised afterward when the magazine wanted him to write more. That led to writing more than 50 stories, and a second career as a popular youth novelist, author of dozens of books. Another, anonymous, author who spoke with The Scroll expressed regret for the decision, "It makes me sad for two reasons. First, it's so difficult to find fiction that meets Church standards. Second, the New Era was a great starting place for new fiction writers. Many LDS authors got their start by writing short stories for the New Era. The best place for aspiring fiction authors is no longer available," he said. "A few years from now, you may see the quantity and the quality of LDS fiction writers drop off. The New Era was also very good to work with. It is a writer-friendly publication, and not many of those exist." But Richard M. Romney, director of the Curriculum Planning and Editorial Division of the LDS Church told The Scroll that fiction really wasn't the mission of the magazine. "The major role of the Church magazines has always been to carry the words of the Latter-day Prophets to the members of the Church worldwide." He said that aspiring writers should, "take advantage of other opportunities to publish fiction, such as in Church university publications and other wholesome periodicals." Source: 'New Era' to write only non-fiction articles BYU-Idaho Scroll 2Oct01 N1 http://www.byui.edu/scroll/religion2.html By Kelly Smurthwaite: Scroll Staff >From Mormon-News: Mormon News and Events Forwarding is permitted as long as this footer is included Mormon News items may not be posted to the World Wide Web sites without permission. Please link to our pages instead. For more information see http://www.MormonsToday.com/ - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 22:11:06 -0600 From: "Jacob Proffitt" Subject: RE: [AML] The List and the WTC - ---Original Message From: Scott Parkin > Jacob Proffitt wrote: > And I do want to point out that the reason the Anti-Nephi-Lehis were > able to convert and repent was because at least one faction of the > Nephites chose not to fight, deciding to give their own lives rather > than take the lives of their enemies. I do not and will not accept > that urging restraint is somehow wrong in this or any other case. No. Those who allowed themselves to be meekly slaughtered were a group of Lamanites who had been converted by Aaron and his brothers. They took the oath not to take up arms and were slaughtered (1,005 died) by their fellow Lamanites who weren't converted who then converted after all (more than had been slain). The combined group then left their lands and went to the Nephites rather than die at the hands of Lamanites so hardened that even the unresisted slaughter wouldn't stop them from wiping out all the Lamanites who had converted. *All* of the pacifists in the Book of Mormon are Lamanites who took the oath not to take up arms ever again. The Nephite anti-war efforts were the Kingmen who took up arms to overthrow the government at home. > >Ah, but what change of heart do you want to make? I'm > afraid that, in > >war, literature becomes the tool of ideologies. I think that it is > >inevitable. You can't, really, avoid it. You can choose > what ideology > >to support. But I don't think that, in the immense, > overarching shadow > >of war, you can avoid making ideological statements, however well > >nuanced. If you want to show how some Arabs are > good-hearted, you will > >have to depict how that connects to the war or else have that > >connection made for you. The same if you want to show how some > >Americans are as bad as the Arabs who attacked us. War, once it > >starts, tends to overwhelm everything else taking place in a > society. > >As we see in our discussion on AML-list--you just cannot avoid the > >implications forever. And I believe that if you try, you will end up > >supporting an ideology after all. > > Here is where the context changes for me. When I talk about > literature, I mean all of it--not just the stuff written for or about > the coming war. We will see a great deal of what I would consider > propaganda during the course of the war, and it serves the purpose > for which it was created. > > But the other stuff, the literature written because someone felt a > need to tell a story--be it about war, peace, slavery, mercy, grace, > fishing, baseball, love, money, or corruption--the stuff told out of > a desire to understand some idea or thing that was not chosen to fit > a wartime agenda, is what I prefer to read and hopefully create. My point is that in the event of a war, even this so-called non-propaganda literature is connected to the war. There is no such thing as non-propaganda wartime literature. You can't do it. The very effort to leave out the war becomes affected by the war. War is too big to leave art independent. Any art that tries will be subsumed by that effort. > Literature can enflame as well as calm, and that's just fine. The > difference is that literature is a place where we can exercise our > passions and present our arguments without placing anyone in > immediate mortal danger. I can rage against an enemy and sorrow at > the poignancy of loss without firing a shot--or getting hit by one. I > believe that if we tell enough stories about who we are, who we wish > we were, and who we're afraid we might become, then we create a > greater chance for understanding. If we seek out the stories of those > different from ourselves we increase the chance for understanding. > Maybe that understanding alters the approach people take to political > decisions. Maybe it helps create a better world. > > If telling our stories has no other purpose than a moment's > entertainment, that's fine. I believe literature has more enduring > power to enlighten both the mind and the spirit, and that's the kind > of work I both support and hope to learn to write. It my desire that > our wars of ideology be fought on paper so the words are written in > ink, not blood. You cannot be disconnected from a war just because you feel like it. When you rage against an enemy or sorrow at the poignancy of loss, you are a part of what is firing the shots even though you personally might be disconnected from it and your story doesn't mention anything about it. My point is that it is very different to rage against something in time of peace than it is to rage against it in time of war. In time of peace, dying is theoretical and can be discussed. In time of war, dying is very real and rage against somebody places them with those we are killing, and poignancy of their loss will tend to place them with us who are fighting. No amount of care can prevent that from happening because it is a feature of being at war. In war, your ideology is written in blood period--no matter what your personal weapon might be. In war, all of who you are is engaged in fighting the enemy--your economy, your agriculture, your technology, and your literature. Which frankly shows that you were right that it takes two to fight a war (and that the semantic difference is significant). The choice we have is whether we want to enter war or to take one of the other two options. > Today my ideology is that I'd rather die than kill. Part of that > comes from my own fear that once I started killing I would come to > enjoy it and whatever small spark of goodness is in me would be > snuffed out completely. It's a selfish motive born of a sense of > self-preservation. But that has been my belief for many years, and I > hope it will continue to be for many more. If I succeed in publishing > a body of work, I hope that the overall ideology it espouses is one > that seeks peace when possible and a rapid end to war when not. > > And if your belief is different, I wish you peace and acceptance in > whatever you choose to believe. So long as we act in faith, not > doubt, our hearts remain right before God. In my opinion. How could I not want to seek peace when possible and a rapid end to war when it is not? How could anyone honestly follow Jesus and not have that as their ideology? Personally, I've decided I'd rather kill than allow someone to kill my family (and that includes letting them kill me). But that doesn't mean that I don't seek peace when possible and a rapid end to war when it is not. I think that your personal decision to die rather than kill is fine as a personal one, but we aren't discussing personal choices here. I don't have any right to judge your choice as better than my own, and frankly each could be perfectly correct choices given the differences in who we are. Our discussion is about ideologies, though, and when it is right to fight as one people against another and what that means to our literature. Wars aren't about justice and that they shouldn't be about vengeance, and they don't really have much to do with what decisions individuals might make for themselves. Jacob Proffitt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 00:19:05 -0400 From: "Tom Johnson" Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Killed One lds member from Queens was killed in the tower crumbling. (source of info. = bronx stake president.) [Tom Johnson] - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 23:37:07 -0500 From: Larry Jackson Subject: [AML] Historical Research (was: LDS Killed) >From Jonathan's post within a post: [MOD: ... I find it interesting that several List members have written in with different information about who was/was not killed. Anyone care to make a connection with the challenges of doing the research needed for accurate fiction?] _______________ Well, rule number one would be to actually look it up and not go by memory. Because of that, I was wrong in saying that two men were killed at the Pentagon. Jerry Tyner, who got to the Church News (Sept. 22) more quickly than I did, correctly pointed out that one of the two members killed there was a sister. The same article added the name of the missing man who was working on the 107th floor in one of the WTC towers. This is much more reliable information than my feeble mind provided when I said, "I thought I also had heard there was a 5th member killed." Hedging (or even double hedging) such a comment, as I did, is a sure sign that more research would have proven fruitful. The Sept. 22 Church News article also refers by name to the two members, mother and daughter, who were killed in one of the plane crashes, which was also reported in the Sept. 15th issue. So my rule number two is that good research takes time if the complete story is to be verified. In the still-to-be-researched (I think) department, LuAnn Staheli mentioned the twelve family members from Springville, UT, also killed. She said she believed they were LDS. I had also heard of that. Did we hear it from the same source? Can the information be traced back to a reliable origin? Is it true, or has this story been lost with the myriad other stories spilling past the last page of newspaper Section A and relegated to the local section. Or worse, could it have derived from inaccurate descriptions of other real incidents, or even not be true. I believe it is safe to say that a family of twelve members from Springville, Utah would be LDS, but do we know for sure? In researching a fiction story, that detail may not matter, but for non-fiction it surely would. And I don't know if the Springville paper is available electronically. From where I sit, I would not be able to travel to Springville to check out this story. If I needed to know, I would have to find someone closer to that corner of Zion to do it. In the same way, I saw some very graphic photographs of the WTC towers as they burned, which I will not describe here. But, from those photos, I do not believe anyone working in the two towers above the level of the plane crashes could have survived. This would mean that if we were to determine the missing man was actually working on the 107th floor at the time, it would be safe to say he did not survive. Do we know he was there? Was he able to call out before his tower fell? Non-fiction would allow a man missing for a sufficient amount of time to be presumed dead. Fiction wouldn't need any amount of time. So my rule number three says that different standards of research will do for fiction and non-fiction. In this modern electronic era, and because of my interest as a pilot and in flying, I was actually able to look up the four flight numbers on the internet and determine their scheduled vs actual departure times. And that of the 5th flight scheduled to depart Boston at the same time. The one that cancelled at the last minute for a maintenance problem. The brilliant, though wicked plan of attack was evident to me before the television and radio comentators ever mentioned it. And so my fourth rule would be, there will be too much information out there. Decide when you will have enough to write what you want to write. And then quit researching and write. Larry Jackson ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 09:02:16 -0600 From: "Eric R. Samuelsen" Subject: Re: [AML] WHIPPLE, _The Giant Joshua_ (was: Homogeneity in Art) Veda wrote: >Jacob sees that it "violates ...core doctrine..." is "faithless and = >misrepresentative of my faith because of the godless barrenness >presented= as truth." If anyone can help me, I'd appreciate it. I have spent >12 = years writing Maurine Whipple's biography and Lavina is ready to help = >bring it to completion. It tells of a true talent who perhaps chose the = >wrong battle to fight. What do you AML writers think? If Whipple did = chose >the wrong battle to fight, what about the advice so often heard "to = >>write what you know." That's just what she did.=20 She was a very great novelist, who wrote one of the three greatest novels = in the history of our culture. She communicated a specific time and place = with great precision and accuracy. She tells a crackerjack story well and = interestingly. That's what novelists do. "The wrong battle?' No way. = =20 BTW and FWIW, has anyone written a good novel on the Godbeites? Seems = like it would make a wonderful story. Specially now, at a time when, for = some of us, homogeneity is the problem, not the solution. Eric Samuelsen - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 10:21:48 -0600 From: "Cathy Wilson" Subject: Re: [AML] WHIPPLE, _The Giant Joshua_ (was: Homogeneity in Art) I love _The Giant Joshua_ at the same time as I struggle with some of the themes. But these are the struggles we deal with today: what the church ought to be (as we imagine it, anyhow), and the way it is, and being faithful irregardless. It is so hard to enter Clory's world and accept what she had to accept as givens. Perhaps that is what Jacob hates. They aren't the givens we accept today: moving wherever you're asked by the prophet; living with multiple wives as best you can, no matter what your character; leaving on missions and leaving your families behind. Some of the themes hit closer to home, such as Clory being in the Church without much of a personal testimony. It is true that Clory's husband seemed like a real creep sometimes, especially the way he treated the women. Not doctrinal, okay, but definitely real. I haven't read the book in a while so I can't remember everyone's name, but it is also true that the first wife behaved like a real witch. We read of the same behavior in other polygamous wive's journals, however. It was real. For me, _The Giant Joshua_ rang true. What else could Whipple do but write the truth that worked inside her? We have enough sham and pretense around us, both in and out of the church. Even as I detest some of the things that are done in the name of the church and gospel in _The Giant Joshua_, I really love the book. Cathy (Gileadi) Wilson Editing Etc. 1400 West 2060 North Helper UT 84526 - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 09:53:43 -0700 From: jltyner@postoffice.pacbell.net Subject: [AML] Re: LDS Killed The only semi-official looking source I've seen about how many LDS may have been killed is the Church News. There was a story last week about the mother and adult daughter who died on one of the planes and another one about the Pentagon victims and the new member who worked at the "Windows on the World" restaurant (NY). I didn't see anything about a family of twelve. Pres. Faust spoke at the mother and daughter's memorial service. As with any big news story there will be "wars and rumors of wars" and just plain rumors and care needs to be taken about the quality of information, even the Church website which had some inaccuracies the first day or two. I relate it to research and authorship in this way: We've had a string of postings and inquiries about Juanita Brooks and a question about her possibly destroying incriminating information about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The only thing we based all this on was an unsubstantiated accusation in an unflattering article that cited no footnote or source! This is not a new thing to the LDS church and LDS culture in general, it happens in and out of the Church all the time. It has become all too common in what should be general news stories and magazine articles to editorialize without identifying it as opinion and not neccessarily fact. If an author wishes to express an opinion based on the study of their subject, by all means do it! Just let the reader know that's what it is and nothing more. Sometimes if a source is cited the author has not followed up and checked if it is a reliable source and just recycled more errors. Sam Taylor mentioned this in his book which I think is titled "Taylor-made Tales". He cited his father being mentioned in a book by a famous newsman as involved in certain activities that got his father in trouble with the Church, problem was his father had already been dead for eight years! Can't remember if the author corrected the errors or not, I hope so. Back to Juanita Brooks-It seems to me the initial inquiry about her was willing to believe that she would be capable of doing such a thing as destroying valuable evidence based on such a vague accusation when everything about her and the struggle she went through to get that book published should have leaned more to the belief that she would do no such thing. In other words, she deserved the benefit of the doubt based on the integrity she showed all her professional and personal life. The burden of proving such an assertion should be with the author of the article cited! Has anybody bothered to contact the author and inquire about their source? We of all people should harbor a certain suspicion about such things. There have been cases where someone was a so-called "expert" on the Mormon Church and made the rounds on the Anti-Mormon lecture circuit until someone bothered to look into their credentials and expose them and their credentials as fraudulent. Same thing goes for certain "Faith- promoting" stories that have gone around the Church and later are found to untrue and are added to "The Mormon Myth" file. I guess those are our versions of "Urban Legends" some of which get spread around the Church as well. I hope this adds something to the conversation. Kathy Tyner - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 11:17:45 -0600 From: "Morgan Adair" Subject: Re: [AML] Juanita Brooks Query >>> rrasband@yahoo.com 09/27/01 03:46PM >>> > >eye. On page 84 she writes about Juanita Brooks, author of the seminal >history of the massacre: "But only last year was it revealed that Brooks, >herself a descendant of one of the participants, had admitted to burning >crucial historical documents because 'they were just too incriminating' = of >the church." No source for this is given. Is this really true? I >hesitate to believe it. The destruction of evidence is one of the worst >sins a scholar can commit. I asked historian (and author of a forthcoming book about Mountain = Meadows) Will Bagley about this and he said that the charge against Brooks = was made by Bart Anderson and was first printed in Jay Shelledy's editor's = column in the SL Tribune in March 2000. He also said that he doesn't know = a single historian or anyone that knew Brooks who believes it. MBA - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 11:22:29 -0600 From: Barbara Hume Subject: Re: [AML] LDS Last Days Lit (was: _Left Behind_) At 05:33 PM 10/1/01 -0600, you wrote: >I would like to see a gripping page-turner of a story that assumes an >eschatology distinct from that of evangelical Christianity. The Left Behind books must be gripping page-turners, since they sell so well. I've read them all, though I've gotten them from the library--didn't like them well enough to buy them, but want to know what happens next! Tyler, what are a few major points where you think an LDS novel based on the last days would differ from a novel written by an evangelical Christian? barbara hume - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:40:33 -0600 From: "Amy Chamberlain" Subject: [AML] Lit Class for Enrichment Night [MOD: I deem this topic certainly on-topic for AML-List. Please, everyone, feel free to send your responses to Amy to the List as well.] Hi, all. I'm wondering if any of you can help; I've been asked to teach = an Enrichment class on "Learning to Love Literature." This topic is so = wide-open that nothing brilliant has hit me yet.=20 So if you had a captive audience of about thirty mostly older women for = an hour, what would you tell them about literature? I would especially = like to talk about the great LDS writers out there (I've been playing = around with a title like "Beyond The Work and the Glory," but that's as = far as I've gotten.) Please contact me off-list if you have any good insights for me. Thanks. Amy amyc@xmission.com - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:59:42 -0600 From: "Ethan Skarstedt" Subject: RE: [AML] Akeda Scholar Needed I would like to attend said play, where can I go to get more information? - -----Original Message----- From: J. Scott Bronson [mailto:bronsonjscott@juno.com] Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 6:35 AM To: aml-list@lists.xmission.com Subject: [AML] Akeda Scholar Needed I will be presenting a production of my play, _Stones_, in Springville (at the Little Brown Theater) next month and I'm looking for someone much more intelligent than I who wouldn't mind writing a program note sort of explaining the Akedah and the Atonement as described in my play. Anyone out there game? Or know someone who might be? J. Scott Bronson -- Member of Playwrights Circle - ------------------------------------------------------------------ "The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and=20 dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as=20 if it had nothing else in the universe to do." Galileo - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:54:16 -0600 From: "Ethan Skarstedt" Subject: RE: [AML] Fw: MN 'New Era' to Drop Fiction: BYU-Idaho Scroll 2Oct01 US UTSLC N1 Said: >But Richard M. Romney, director of the Curriculum Planning and >Editorial Division of the LDS Church told The Scroll that fiction >really wasn't the mission of the magazine. "The major role of the >Church magazines has always been to carry the words of the Latter-day >Prophets to the members of the Church worldwide." He said that >aspiring writers should, "take advantage of other opportunities to >publish fiction, such as in Church university publications and other >wholesome periodicals." Other periodicals like "The Leading Edge" a science fiction and fantasy magazine published by BYU: http://tle.clubs.byu.edu/wg.php and/or "Inscape" a pretentious "literary" mag published by BYU: http://humanities.byu.edu/inscape/submissions.htm I don't know about Inscape but I do know that "The Leading Edge" pays for the stories they publish. As a comment, I am saddened that while church leaders are calling for there to be a literary tradition developed and refined in the LDS culture (I remember such being said but can't remember specific sources, someone shoot me down if I'm wrong) we are seeing less and less official encouragement for LDS literary efforts. I for one would eagerly subscribe to a magazine produced by the church that was devoted exclusively to fiction and LDS concerns therewith. That is, I would until it turned into yet another propaganda mill for Weylandesque fiction. =20 I see many potential problems with a fictional mag endorsed by the church, not the least of which being, who would vet the stories to ensure that no shady doctrine slipped through? But then of course disclaimers are wonderful things and the magazine could be founded solely for the purpose of encouraging LDS literature and proclaim that the views and the doctrine therein *did not* represent official church views and/or doctrine. Which, of course, begs the question, why bother to have such a thing put out by the "official church" if not endorsed by same? My answer would be to get more members reading and thinking and submitting (which would seem to be in line with the goals expressed by my significant lack of a source earlier). IMHO only an *officially endorsed* LDS fictional mag would be able to get a large enough readership to pay for itself. Something I suspect Deseret Book could not do on its own. =20 Then there's the question, what would such a magazine do for members of the church who do not desperately want to get published? My answer is manifold: =20 Get them thinking. Lessons learned from a well-crafted story are more powerful and stick longer than those painfully gleaned from a lecture format article. And they are learned even when the story was not specifically designed to preach a particular moral point. Lessons learned when you figure out a question springing from your own interpretation of a story, one the author most likely did not intend, are, again, far more powerful and meaningful and stick longer than any other. And frankly, lecture format articles rarely if ever lead us (at least me) to ask our own questions. In my opinion, one of the reasons we have been encouraged to develop an LDS literary tradition could be because of the great effect powerful literature can have on people and their thinking. It is a tool that is largely unused by the "official church" today. Our LDS culture is decidedly poorer for the lack of a powerful literary tradition and, I think, our members weaker.=20 If nothing else, an official church magazine devoted to fiction would provide an opportunity for those members out there who do not have easy access to a Deseret Book to sample LDS fiction. And it could, just maybe, provide interesting reading for those youth who feel their gorges' rise as they flip through the latest New Era. Sorry this turned into a bit of a ramble. I was planning just to mention the two magazines at the top but found myself unable to stop. - -Ethan Skarstedt - -- AML-List, a mailing list for the discussion of Mormon literature ------------------------------ End of aml-list-digest V1 #472 ******************************