The Association for Mormon Letters presented Melissa Leilani Larson with the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters on March 30, at the AML Conference, held in Berkeley, California. A panel discussed Melissa and her career, featuring Mattathias Westwood (chair), Janine Sobeck Knighton (dramaturg), Shelley Graham (dramaturg), and Chantelle Squires (director). Eric Samuelsen, one of Melissa’s mentors, sent in a tribute that was read at the panel. Also, that weekend there was a screening of Jane & Emma, the recent feature film for which Melissa was the screenwriter.
Award Citation
Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters
One of our central religious practices, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is to bear witness. And one of our central covenants is to mourn with those that mourn. The drama and film art of Melissa Leilani Larson exemplifies the power of both these commitments, as she offers herself as a witness to both the pain and faith of her fellow Saints when their obedience to God pushes them up against the limits of their endurance. And yet, for all the sorrow on display, hope and rejoicing are at the center of Larson’s works, as her careful attention to their struggles reveals a profound love, and a hope and faith that give sacrifices the potential to become sacred.
In the sixteen years since she first came to the attention of the Association for Mormon Letters for her second full-length play (Wake Me When It’s Over) she has won three AML Drama Awards and numerous other honors for her plays and screenplays. But the value of her work cannot be measured in accolades alone (although they have been frequent and well-deserved). No, the true measure of Melissa Leilani Larson’s outstanding contributions to Mormon Letters are the ways in which her writing has given us the ability to better see and love each other, and in loving each other, perhaps to recognize the face of God.
From Martyr’s Crossing and its speculative examination of post-mortal sainthood and sisterhood through this year’s Jane and Emma, Larson’s plays teach us how to earnestly seek after our dead, not just to work on their behalf, but to allow their lives and trials to work on us and help bring us to a change of heart. Through her adaptations of beloved classics, she teaches us how to learn from the best books and to draw on the art and wisdom that surrounds us in order to make it our own. And, fittingly for a year in which our conference theme is “Looking Outward,” Melissa Leilani Larson’s plays and films, from 2009’s Little Happy Secrets to 2015’s Freetown, have encouraged us to look to those within our own faith whose stories are sometimes seen as distant from us, and to recognize them as our sisters and brothers.
In addition to her powerful art, Larson has consistently reached out to support and mentor other artists, serving as a pillar of the Utah theatrical community and reaching out to engage in conversation with other playwrights across the nation. God willing, Melissa Leilani Larson has many years of writing ahead of her to grace us with her powerful gift of sight and witness. At this time, we honor the powerful contributions that she has already made, and look forward with enthusiasm to those works still in store.
About Mellissa Leilani Larson
Below is a simple introduction of Melissa’s contributions, based on information from her website.
Originally from Hau‘ula, Hawai‘i, Melissa Leilani Larson is a writer presently based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her work has been seen on four continents. Mel’s latest production will be the world premiere of Sweetheart Come at PYGmalion Theatre Company in May 2019. At present she is completing a stage adaptation of Kelly Barnhill’s Newbery medal-winning The Girl Who Drank the Moon (commissioned by Utah Valley University, where it will premiere in fall 2019). Mountain 
Law received a Script-in-Hand reading at Plan-B Theatre in March 2018. Produced plays include: The Edible Complex (Plan-B Theatre commission), Pilot Program, Pride and Prejudice (Brigham Young University commission), Little Happy Secrets, Persuasion, Martyrs’ Crossing, A Flickering, Lady in Waiting, and The Weaver of Raveloe. Little Happy Secrets and Pilot Program were published together in a book titled Third Wheel (BCC Press, 2017).
Mel’s produced screenplays include Jane and Emma (currently playing in select cinemas across the U.S. and Canada, and an AML Narrative Film Award finalist) and Freetown (winner of the Ghana Movie Award for Best Screenplay and the Utah Film Award for Best Picture, and an AML Film Award finalist).
Mel is the only woman to receive more than one Association for Mormon Letters Drama award and is the youngest person to win three. Other honors include: the IRAM Best New Play award; a Salt Lake City Weekly Arty Award; the Mayhew Playwriting Award; winning the Lewis National Playwriting Contest for Women; placing as a Trustus Playwrights Festival top five finalist; and being named an O’Neill National Playwrights Conference semi-finalist.
Mel has worked as a writer for the LDS Church History Department, including as a contributing writer for Saints: The Standard of Truth, and for the upcoming volume 3 of that series.
Mel is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, serving as the Utah Ambassador and Proxy Rep. She is also a member of The Lab, Plan-B Theatre’s incubator for new plays, and a 2018 Art Access Mentor. She holds a BA in English from BYU and an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Mel enjoys melty cheese, hedgehogs, puzzles, nice paper, and nicer pens.
Previous winners of the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters:
2005: Dean Hughes
2006: Rick Walton
2007: Anne Perry
2008: Douglas Thayer
2009: Levi Peterson
2010: Richard Cracroft
2011: Marilyn Brown
2012: Eric Samuelsen
2013: Charlotte Hawkins England
2014: Margaret Blair Young
2015: Phyllis Barber
2016: Orson Scott Card
2017: Lavina Fielding Anderson
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