SunstoneBlog

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: MORMON WOMEN WRITERS

We are looking for young and emerging Mormon women writers to take part in a historic series of literary readings to take place in Utah in Spring 2010.

We invite submissions of poetry or prose from any woman who identifies herself as a Mormon, including members or former members of the Community of Christ or fundamentalist Mormon groups.

We seek writers who speak powerfully to Mormon audiences by broadening our sense of Mormon belonging and offering compelling new visions for what it might mean to be Mormon in the 21st century.

If you would like to be considered for inclusion, please send

1. a one-page cover letter explaining how your work offers a compelling new vision for what it means to be Mormon in the 21st century. Given that we are interested in inclusion rather than orthodoxy, this letter should not be considered a request to bear your testimony. Rather than affirming your beliefs in the core tenets of the church, consider discussing intersections, tensions and confluences between Mormon culture and the world at large, or the ways that a Mormon heritage helps and hinders women in responding to the challenges of the world we live in today. Feel free to define and redefine your Mormon identity in idiosyncratic and personal ways as part of this analysis.

2. a two-page writing sample of poetry or prose

to mowolito@live.com or by mail to Professor Joanna Brooks, Department of English, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanille Drive, San Diego, CA 92182. Submissions due March 31, 2009.

Questions? Write to Holly & Joanna at mowolito@live.com. Also see our blog at http://mormonwomenwriters.blogspot.com/ for more information and updates as the project progresses.

November 19th, 2008 | Tags: Mormon women writers | Category: Arts, Literature, Women's Issues, lds, mormons | Leave a comment

by Edwin Firmage, Jr.

In Mormonland where I live, nothing is more certain than that God loves families, eternally procreative Ward and June Cleaver clones with, as our Sutherland Institute so felicitously puts it, “a quiver full of kids.” A happily married husband and father of four myself, I too like families. What I’m having trouble understanding is where God fits into all of this, because I just don’t see a lot of support for traditional family values in God’s track record, proponents of Proposition 8 notwithstanding. More »

November 18th, 2008 | Category: Homosexuality, Politics, Sunstone, mormon | Comments (10)

At the 2008 Sunstone Northwest Symposium, I presented a short essay during the “This I Believe” panel. I revised it good and hard over the past few weeks and have posted the result on The Red Brick Store blog. Head on over and take a read.

November 18th, 2008 | Category: Sunstone | Leave a comment

With the voting over and the dust settling, Sunstone is gathering the personal experiences of Mormons who worked on all points of the Proposition 8 spectrum. The purpose of the collection is to humanize this issue that has been so divisive in the LDS community.

We’re looking particularly for short personal essays: brief, reflective, autobiographical stories that encapsulate the writer’s experience. Preferably not more than 700 words.

To give you a little inspiration, take a look at these two blog posts:

http://loydo38.blogspot.com/2008/11/seeking-forgiveness.html

http://roughstonerolling.com/blog/2008/11/03/five-signs/

If you have read any good writing along the lines above, please point us there.

Send your writing to stephen [at] sunstonemagazine [dot] com

November 6th, 2008 | Category: Featured | Comments (95)

Hi All,

I’ve posted a report on the northwest symposium over at The Red Brick Store.

Take a look.

November 5th, 2008 | Category: Symposium, The Red Brick Store | Leave a comment

By Clay Whipkey

On the eve of another election in the United States of America, many historic events are looming, both encouraging and daunting; whatever happens, we will either elect our first person of color as President, or our first female as Vice President.  We may see a 60-vote majority in the Senate for the Democratic Party. But offsetting these historic events is great uncertainty and fear about an ongoing economic crisis unseen since the Great Depression, alarm due to serious conflicts with various nations overseas, even apprehension about possible irreversible changes in our environment. Yet, here we are again looking at a fundamental divide on issues of morality, equality, and civil rights.
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November 2nd, 2008 | Category: Featured, Homosexuality, Marriage, Sunstone | Comments (8)

Hey all. Quite a few of the independent Mormon print magazines have gotten together to form a group blog called The Red Brick Store. Basically it’s THE place to find out what’s going on in the Mormon magazine world. The editors post their own reflections as well as articles, stories and poems from past issues. I hear they will also be starting up contests soon.

So far we have Dialogue, Irreantum, Segullah and Sunstone on board (and other magazines are certainly invited).

Tuesday is Sunstone day, so I have posted Frances Lee Menlove’s beautiful and thought-provoking devotional, “Living the Mysteries, Loving the Questions.”

Head on over and check out the action.

October 28th, 2008 | Category: Featured, The Red Brick Store | Leave a comment

(Editor’s note: This award-winning essay by Emily Summerhays (along with a lot more great writing) will appear in the October issue of Sunstone. Subscribe here. Photographs are by Martyna Adela and Faruk Ulay.)

Sometimes I pray with my eyes wide open. And sometimes with one of those eyes on the television, just for good measure. Not because I’m particularly absorbed in that Downy commercial but because I don’t want God to think he has my full attention. Childish, I know.

When I was a child, I prayed as a child, with my eyes screwed tightly shut, arms folded firmly against my body, speaking in slow, taut tones, as if I could command divine attention through a sheer critical mass of rigidity. I carefully balanced the ratio of blessings asked to blessings thanked for. I spoke of moisture instead of rain. I used all of my thee’s and thou’s correctly, and, approximating the sonorous tones of my elders, asked to be both nourished and strengthened.

At least, that’s how I prayed in front of people. It was, of course, all just for show—something I’d picked up in church. Something to trot out at mealtimes and in Sunday School. Because that’s what reverence looked like in sacrament meeting and sounded like in Primary, and I suppose I thought that’s what reverence must feel like—at least, to other people. But to me, outside of church and in my own world, reverence was something completely different.

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September 30th, 2008 | Category: Sunstone | Comments (12)

(Editor’s Note: This piece comes from issue 150 of Sunstone. It was written by an anonymous author. Subscribe here. The illustrations are by Jeanette Atwood.)

At age twenty-four, I, a female virgin, married a twenty-five-year-old male returned missionary, also a virgin, in the temple of the Lord.

While most modern, non-LDS Americans consider the marriage of virgins miraculous, for my husband and me, it was simply the one true way. After all, we were obedient Latter-day Saint kids with our sights set on eternal exaltation. We were prepared for temple marriage. We were eager to fulfill our duty to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, raise up righteous seed unto the Lord, and fill an Econoline van or two with our offspring.

We were not, however, prepared for sex.

More »

September 29th, 2008 | Tags: advice, love, Marriage, sex, virgin | Category: Featured, Humor, Marriage, Sunstone, Women's Issues, magazine | Comments (46)