Mark your calendars: the 2017 Association for Mormon Letters Conference will take place on April 21 and 22.
The conference will open in Provo with a keynote address at Writ & Vision from writer Phyllis Barber, the recipient of the 2016 Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for outstanding achievement in Mormon Letters. The conference will then reconvene the next morning at Utah Valley University for a day of scholarly presentations, panel discussions, and literary readings. The winners of the AML Awards will also be announced at a special ceremony at 12:45 pm MST. Among those honored will be two lifetime achievement awards. Orson Scott Card will be presented with the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters, and Susan Elizabeth Howe will be presented with the Association for Mormon Letters Lifetime Achievement Award.
The conference and awards ceremony are free and open to the public. We hope to see you there!
2017
Association for Mormon Letters Conference
April 21-22, 2017
Utah Valley University
| Schedule | ||
| Friday 4/21 | Writ & Vision-274 W Center St., Provo, UT | |
| 7:00-8:00 PM | Keynote:
Phyllis Barber, “Reconciling Art with History” |
|
| Saturday 4/22 | Utah Valley University-Orem, UT | |
| 9:30-10:00
AM |
Registration
Room: CB 101A (Classroom Building) |
|
| 10:00-11:15
AM |
Panel Discussion:
“Mormon Historical Drama” Tom Rogers Melissa Larson Margaret Young Eric Samuelson Moderator: James Goldberg Room: CB 113 |
Sarah Reed, “Postmemory and the Lost Generation: Midcentury Mormon Novels”
Jed Woodworth, “When MIA Fought Atheism through Poetry: Orson F. Whitney’s Love and the Light” Joseph Soderborg, “Robert Louis Stevenson: Mormons, Missionaries, and Friends in Utah and the South Pacific” Room: CB 114
|
| 11:30 AM-12:30 PM | Lunch | |
| 12:45-1:30
PM |
AML Awards Ceremony
Room: CB 101A |
|
| 1:45-3:00
PM |
Harlow Clark, “The Philosophy of Consolation: A Dialogue Between Boethius and Joseph Smith”
Sherilyn Olsen, “From Active to Activist Mormon: How Writing About My Family’s Adoption Experiences Converted Me to Race Issue Advocacy” Marilyn Brown, “Raiders, Readers, and Writers of the Last Art: Tackling Historical Fiction” Room: CB 113
|
Panel Discussion:
“The Work of Orson Scott Card” Eric James Stone Mattathias Westwood Scott Parkin Christopher Smith J. Scott Bronson Moderator: Andrew Hall Room: CB 114 |
| 3:15-4:30
PM |
Panel Discussion:
“The Work of Susan Elizabeth Howe” Lance Larsen Darlene Young Jeffrey Tucker Michael Lavers Moderator: Bert Fuller Room: CB 113
|
Julie Nichols, Fiction Reading
Steven L. Peck, Fiction Reading James Goldberg, Poetry Reading Room: CB 114
|
| 4:45-6:00
PM |
Chris Smith, “Prosperity in the Book of Mormon”
Jordan Shumway, “Abish: A Female Figure of Christ” Kylie Nielson Turley, “Alma2’s Hell: Ammonihah and a Lake of Fire and Brimstone” Room: CB 113 |
Laura Harris Hales, “Title: Creating Safe Literary Space in the 21st Century Mormon Community”
Bert Fuller, “Mormon Poetry in Review: Some Notes on the Last Five Years.” Sheldon Lawrence, “Mormon Conversion Narratives and the Construction of Certainty” Room: CB 114
|
Campus Map and Parking
On Saturday, the conference will be held in the Classroom Building on the northwest end of campus, right next to the Fulton Library on College Drive. On campus maps, the building is marked CB.
When you arrive, please register in room 101A. All sessions will take place either in room 113 or 114. These rooms are right inside the southwest entrance of the building, right next to parking lot L4.
Parking information can be found here and here.
Writ & Vision Map and Parking
On Friday evening, the conference will open at Writ & Vision in Provo with our keynote address from Phyllis Barber. The address is 274 West Center Street, Provo, UT 84601.
Parking is available along Center Street.
Restaurants near UVU
Conference attendees are responsible for their own meals. UVU has a few restaurants on Campus, although not all of them are open on Saturday. Several other restaurants are near campus.
After the conference there will be an informal reception and reading for award winners and conference attendees at the home of James and Nicole Goldberg in American Fork.
Bert Fuller, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, will be moderating the panel on Susan Elizabeth Howe. He also will do a presentation called “Mormon Poetry in Review: Some Notes on the Last Five Years.” During the block of sessions on Saturday at the AML Conference. I see he has a blog where he writes about Mormon poetry. https://mormonverseblog.wordpress.com/author/mormonverseblog/
He also presented on “Cloven Tongues: Marita Dachsel’s Glossolalia,” at the Toronto Sunstone Symposium on April8 . Dachsel is a non-Mormon poet whose book Glossolalia is an “exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, and sexuality as told in a series of poetic monologues spoken by the thirty-four polygamous wives of Joseph Smith.”
Bert is a former student–as bright and motivated as they come. I expect big things.
I am from Peru and I am mormon. Also, I have written 12 books on the doctrine and history of the church but I do not speak English very well.
I would like to know if I could still belong to an association of Mormon writers. Being a Mormon writer is difficult in South America. There is no support. But I keep doing it because I believe my work is important, the church manuals are very basic and many members need more information on the doctrine and history of the church.
I would appreciate if you could send me any information about it