We are pleased to announce the 2019 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Creative Non-Fiction, Religious Non-Fiction, and Comics. The final awards will be announced and presented on May 2. The AML Conference has been postponed, but we are planning a live streaming awards ceremony for that day. Details on the awards event will be announced later. The finalists and winners are chosen by juries of authors, academics, and critics. The announcements include book blurbs and author biographies, adapted from the author and publisher websites.
Creative Non-Fiction
James Goldberg. Remember the Revolution: Mormon Essays and Stories. Self-published.
In 2006, 22-year-old James Goldberg moved to Utah, dreaming of possibilities for Mormon artistic community. Though the ride was often rough, he spent the next five years feeling his way forward, finding a voice to speak the language of the tradition in his own distinct register. The twelve essays and short stories in Remember the Revolution chronicle those experiments, giving voice to the idealism, anxiety, and insight of a young Mormon writer. Whether imagining the experience of a Mormon Bollywood playback singer, giving the German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin a seat in primary, telling the story of the early Restoration through an imagined sequence of Joseph Smith’s anxious dreams, or writing an inverted theology in the form of spam emails, Goldberg grapples with ways Mormon thought can engage with the cultures around it and speak to the pressing questions simmering beneath the surface of the modern world. At turns sincere, satirical, surreal, and somber, Remember the Revolution is vital reading for anyone interested in the potential of a distinctly Mormon literature.
James Goldberg‘s family is Jewish on one side, Sikh on the other, and Mormon in the middle. His plays, essays, and short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Shofar, Drash, The Best of Mormonism: 2009, and Jattan Da Pracheen Ithas. He founded the Provo-based New Play Project, and several of his plays can be found in the anthology Out of The Mount. He has won AML Awards for Drama (The Prodigal Son, 2008) and Novel (The Five Books of Jesus, 2012). Other publications include two poetry collections, Let Me Drown With Moses (2015, an AML Poetry Award finalist) and Phoenix Song. In 2019 he published The First Five-Dozen Tales of Razia Shah and Other Stories, and Remember the Revolution. Goldberg has taught persuasive and creative writing at BYU and has written for the LDS Church History Department.
Ashley Mae Hoiland. A New Constellation: A Memoir. BCC Press.
“On December 19, 2018, I went in for an eye appointment. By the end of the day I had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. As this unexpected world intruded into my life, I started to write. I got up that night when everyone else was asleep and wrote and then kept going. An experiment writing in real time. The chronology is not perfect, but when the earth shifts the fault rupture is rarely linear. This is a beginning, nothing more. Above all, it is simply my experience, which I hope can reach out in some way and hold hands with what is hard and unexpected in your life, however small or large.”
Ashley Mae (Ashmae) Hoiland received a BFA in painting and an MFA in creative writing from Brigham Young University. She runs a small business creating and selling paintings, and her own children’s books. She is the author of 100 Birds Taught Me to Fly (2016 AML Creative Non-Fiction Award finalist and several children’s books, including The Lost Party and Unto Us a Child is Born. She is also the illustrator of Rachel Hunt Steenblik’s poetry collections Mother’s Milk: Poems Searching for Heavenly Mother and I Gave Her a Name. A writer at the By Common Consent blog, she lives in Santa Cruz, California, with her three children and husband.
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye. Crossings: A Bald Asian-American latter-day saint woman scholar’s ventures through life, death, cancer, & and motherhood. Deseret Book/Maxwell Institute.
In this collection of personal essays, letters, and even drawings, Melissa Inouye considers how Latter-day Saints in an increasingly globalized Church might cultivate unity without leaving their distinctive gifts behind. As an Asian American Latter-day Saint feminist and scholar, she feels the urgency of the Lord’s command that the Church be one. With her unique mix of humor and candor, empathy and idealism, Inouye draws upon her academic training in Chinese history and religious studies, her rich cultural heritage, her experiences raising a family in an international setting, her tangle with cancer, and her resilient faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ to unfurl vibrant reflections on the enduring question of what it means to be a Latter-day Saint today.
Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye is a senior lecturer in Asian studies at the University of Auckland. She received her PhD in Chinese history from Harvard University. Melissa’s research includes the history of Chinese Christianity, moral ideology in modern China, global charismatic religious movements, and women and religion. Her book China and the True Jesus: Charisma and Organization in a Chinese Christian Church was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. She is a member of the advisory board of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, and her writings on Latter-day Saint life and faith have been published online and in print in Mormon Studies Review, Patheos, the Washington Post, Meridian Magazine, Square Two, and the Ensign, as well as in the books Decolonizing Mormonism: Approaching a Postcolonial Zion and Women and Mormonism: Historical and contemporary perspectives. She and her husband, Joseph, have four noisy and joyful children.
Religious Non-Fiction
Hollie Rhees Fluhman and Camille Fronk Olson, editors. A Place to Belong: Reflections from Modern Latter-day Saint Women. Deseret Book.
In our complex world, it’s easy for modern Latter-day Saint women to feel they don’t fit the mold, especially in a culture that often focuses on traditional values and picture-perfect families. A Place to Belong is filled with distinctive stories written by twenty-five modern women of faith who show from their own lives that there’s more than one way to be a believing and contributing woman in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This collection celebrates the diverse lives that women lead and how they navigate their twin commitments to women’s issues and to their faith. For some people, faith and feminism may seem incompatible, yet A Place to Belong illustrates how they can actually complement one another.
Hollie Rhees Fluhman graduated from BYU with a BS in family science, which has proven to be mostly useless during the past twenty-two years of raising her family. Indeed, she now regards family life as emphatically unscientific. She has enrolled again at BYU in post-baccalaureate studies and wrestles with Latter-day Saint women’s history and academic women’s studies. She lives in Provo with her family. Camille Fronk Olson is a professor emeritus of ancient scripture and former department chair at BYU. She holds an MA in Ancient Eastern Studies and a PhD in the sociology of the Middle East from BYU. She has served on the Young Women General Board and on the Church’s Teacher Development Curriculum Committee. She is a popular speaker and writer whose published books include Women of the Old Testament; In the Hands of the Potter; Mary, Martha and Me; and Too Much to Carry Alone. She loves to travel, garden, and research stories about her ancestors.
George B. Handley. If Truth Were a Child: Essays. Maxwell Institute.
We live in an age of polemics. Choices are presented as mutually exclusive and we are given little time to listen. You are either secular or religious. You either believe in the exclusive truth of your own religion or you believe truth is everywhere or impossible to discover. The battle over truth rages on. But what if truth were a child? With how much more care and humility would we speak and act if truth was not the result of some war of wills, but a flesh-and-bone living child, a living soul? Humanities scholar and Latter-day Saint George B. Handley charitably invites us to put away the false traditions of the fathers while seeking to lay hold of every good thing wherever it may be found in the world, thereby increasing our faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
George Handley teaches interdisciplinary humanities at Brigham Young University, where he also serves as the associate director of the Faculty Center. He received his BA from Stanford University and his MA and PhD in comparative literature at UC Berkeley. His scholarly publications and creative writing focus on the intersection between religion, literature, and the environment. His most recent books include Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River (AML 2010 Memoir Award), a collection of essays entitled Learning to Like Life: A Tribute to Lowell Bennion (2017 AML Creative Non-Fiction finalist), and the novel American Fork. His collection of essays on LDS faith and the environment, The Hope of Nature, is being released this month. He also serves on the Provo City Council.
Jana Riess. The Next Mormons: How millennials are changing the LDS Church. Oxford University Press.
American Millennials–the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s–have been leaving organized religion in unprecedented numbers. For a long time, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was an exception: nearly three-quarters of people who grew up Mormon stayed that way into adulthood. In The Next Mormons, Jana Riess demonstrates that things are starting to change. Drawing on a large-scale national study of four generations of current and former Mormons as well as dozens of in-depth personal interviews, Riess explores the religious beliefs and behaviors of young adult Mormons, finding that while their levels of belief remain strong, their institutional loyalties are less certain than their parents’ and grandparents’. For a growing number of Millennials, the tensions between the Church’s conservative ideals and their generation’s commitment to individualism and pluralism prove too high, causing them to leave the faith-often experiencing deep personal anguish in the process. Those who remain within the fold are attempting to carefully balance the Church’s strong emphasis on the traditional family with their generation’s more inclusive definition that celebrates same-sex couples and women’s equality. Mormon families are changing too. More Mormons are remaining single, parents are having fewer children, and more women are working outside the home than a generation ago. The Next Mormons offers a portrait of a generation navigating between traditional religion and a rapidly changing culture.
Jana Riess holds degrees in religion from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in American religious history from Columbia University. From 1999 to 2008, she was the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly. She is a senior columnist for Religion News Service and the author or co-author of many books, including Mormonism and American Politics, Flunking Sainthood, and The Prayer Wheel: Rediscovering Prayer with an Ancient Spiritual Practice. Her essay “Mormon Popular Culture” from The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism won the 2015 AML Criticism Award.
Comics
Michael Allred, Lee Allred, Rich Tommaso, Laura Allred. Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive. IDW Publishing.
The All-American detective just made the biggest collar of his career, and it only cost him his job! But now the honest cop has packed his bags for “the city by the lake,” and its criminals better watch out. It’s bizarre villains, crooked cops, and gunfights galore! Reimagined for the 21st century through a retro lens by the superstar team of Michael Allred, Lee Allred, Rich Tommaso and Laura Allred, Dick Tracy: Dead or Alive is a lock to be the pop-art event of the year! Collects the four-issue series.
Michael Allred has been creating comics since 1989 and is best know for his work on the titles Madman and iZombie, among others, and for work on the characters Batman, Superman, The Silver Surfer, and more. He won the 2016 The Eisner Award or Best Single Issue/One Shot (Silver Surfer #11). Michael and Laura won a 2005 AML Award for their Book of Mormon comic The Golden Plates, and Michael won a 2011 AML Special Award in Graphical Narrative for a lifetime of comic art. Lee, Michael, and Laura were finalists for the 2017 AML Comics Award for Batman ’66 / Legion of Super Heroes #1.
Lee Allred has written several dozen fiction stories that have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Pulphouse, and in book anthologies edited by the likes of S.M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He has also scripted many comic books with his brother Michael. Lee’s novella “For the Strength of the Hills” was named a Sidewise Award for Alternate History finalist, and his Mormon alternative history has appeared in States of Deseret and All Made of Hinges.
Laura Allred is a colorist who often works with her husband Michael. She won the 2012 Best Coloring Eisner Award for iZombie and Madman All-New Giant-Size Super-Ginchy Special.
Rich Tommaso has penned over a dozen original comics and graphic novels, including Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow (2007) and The Cavalier Mr. Thompson (2012). He currently works on his original comic series, She Wolf.
Kevin Beckstrom. That’s One Small Step for a Mom, One Giant Leap for a Missionary. Self-published.
A behind-the-scenes look at life as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s more than wearing a white shirt and a name tag! If you’ve ever been a missionary, raised a missionary, or seen a pair of them on the streets, you’ll enjoy this collection of cartoons.
Kevin Beckstrom is a native of Salt Lake City, served a mission in Korea and is a graduate of BYU. Beckstrom has been publishing cartoons since he was 16, and his work has appeared in numerous newsletters, trade publications, newspapers and magazines, including The New Era. He has drawn several cartoon strips, including two that currently run as webcomics: Zarahemla Times and Good Heavens, both of which have garnered fans from around the world. He and his wife Christy are the parents of five boys and live in Salem, Oregon.
Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham. Best Friends. First Second.
The creators of the graphic novel Real Friends are back with a true story about popularity, first crushes, and finding your own path. Sixth grade is supposed to be perfect. Shannon’s got a sure spot in the in-crowd called The Group, and her best friend is their leader, Jen, the most popular girl in school. But the rules are always changing, and Shannon has to scramble to keep up. She never knows which TV shows are cool, what songs to listen to, and who she’s allowed to talk to. Who makes these rules, anyway? And does Shannon have to follow them? A School Library Journal Best Book of 2019, A National Public Radio (NPR) Best Book of 2019.
Shannon Hale is the New York Times best-selling author of fifteen children’s and young adult novels, including the Ever After High trilogy and multiple award winners The Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Newbery Honor recipient Princess Academy. She also penned three books for adults, beginning with Austenland. She co-wrote the hit graphic novels Rapunzel’s Revenge and Calamity Jackand illustrated chapter book The Princess in Black with husband Dean Hale. They live with their four small children near Salt Lake City, Utah. Shannon has received AML Awards for Emma Burning and Princess Academy, and Shannon and LeUyen shared the 2017 AML Comics Award for Real Friends. LeUyen Pham wrote and illustrated Big Sister, Little Sister and The Bear Who Wasn’t There, and is the illustrator of numerous other picture books, including God’s Dream by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Princess in Black series and Aunt Mary’s Rose by Douglas Wood. LeUyen Pham lives in California.
Matt Vroom. Super Elders & the Rise of Legion. Self-published.
A show-stopping, fictional graphic novel that will captivate multiple audiences from active LDS members, to ex-members, and to the edges of the world. Two young Mormon missionaries meet up with a strange alien from outer space who bestows upon them great power to take out an adversary that is heading towards Earth. As they discover their powers, members of a villainous organization try to destroy them.
Matt Vroom is a graduate in Graphic Design, Business, and Communication for BYU-Idaho. His works have been published in BYUI’s The Scroll and a newsletter for the Montana Billings Mission. He is a frequent comic book reviewer for the Super Hero Speak podcast, and contributes to various other sites around the web. He is a classified nerd, and has been seriously making comics for the past five years.