We are pleased to announce the 2021 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Film, Drama, Poetry, and Podcasts. The winners will be announced and presented on July 23, as part of the Association for Mormon Letters Virtual Conference. We will be announcing the other category finalists over the coming week. The finalists and winners are chosen by juries of authors, academics, and critics. The announcements include descriptions of the works, usually adapted from the creators’ websites.
Film
Directed and written by Mauli Bonner.
Inspired by the true story of enslaved pioneer and Latter-day Saint Green Flake. His courageous cross-country journey to prepare the way for the Saints was integral to the settlement of Utah. It has been awarded Best Film in 10 different festivals, including the Venice Film Awards, the London Independent Film Awards, and most recently, the LA Film Awards. Feature film.
Directed and written by Albert James May.
Maggie lives with chronic pain and is having a crisis of faith. To cope, she abuses her elderly mother’s opioid prescription. When unexpected tragedy strikes, she must find a new source to feed her growing addiction. Short film.
Scenes from the Glittering World
Directed by Jared Jakins.
Three Indigenous students experience the highs and lows of adolescence while attending one of the most remote high schools in the United States. Living in a naturally beautiful but isolated community in the Navajo (Diné) Nation, they navigate life as teenagers grappling with family responsibilities, their unique place in the world and their dreams of life after graduation. PBS Independent Lens documentary.
The Touch of the Master’s Hand
Directed and written by Gregory Barnes.
Elder Hyde, a young Mormon missionary serving in Mexico, attends a monthly interview with his mission President. Unable to share the same zeal for the Lord as his fellow adherents, it becomes clear that Elder Hyde has something he needs to get off his chest. His subsequent confession, and the object of his transgression, is what caps off this absurdist comedy. Short film.
Directed by Mark Goodman. Written by Mitch Davis.
David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris face ridicule and persecution when they claim to have heard the voice of God, seen angels, and viewed golden plates containing ancient inscriptions. Executive produced by The Interpreter Foundation. Feature film.
Drama
Janine Sobeck Knighton. King Stag
Knighton translated and adapted Carlo Gozzi’s 1762 Italian commedia dell’arte play. King Deramo is on the search for a bride. To ensure he finds a wife who truly loves him, he enlists the help of a magical statue. His happily ever after, however, is threatened by his traitorous minister Tartaglia, who seeks both Deramo’s kingdom and his bride, Angela. Utah Valley University Bastian Theatre, March 2021.
Tatum Langton. REDEEMHer: How I Screwed up my perfect Mormon life
An autobiographical one-woman play about a modern Mormon wife who tries to redeem her eternal marriage from a sin next to murder. Hollywood Fringe Festival, August 2021. Santa Monica Binge Free Festival, November 2021.
Melissa Leilani Larson. Gin Mummy
A drawing room comedy in which a young Victorian aristocrat comes to terms with what she wants and what her family expects on the night of her engagement party. Also, there is a mummy. Mesa community College, December 2021.
George Nelson (book), Kayliann Lowe Juarez, Doug Lowe, and Kendra Lowe (music & lyrics). 1820: The Musical
This contemporary theatrical extravaganza portrays the faith, love and trials of Emma and Joseph Smith as told through the eyes of Emma. Covey Center for the Arts, Provo, August-September 2021.
Poetry
Mark D. Bennion. Beneath the Falls. Resource publications
In its own modest way, Beneath the Falls celebrates the archetypal journey of birth, death, and change. These poems grapple with upheaval and peace, tragedy and renewal, estrangement and conversion. This collection explores how belief is born in simplicity, mundaneness, struggle, and seeming irrelevancies. The complexities of faith then arise in the face of death, specifically the passing of situations, others, old selves, and our loved ones. Birth becomes death, which in turn creates birth again. Change happens both incrementally and immediately in this fascicle of poems, showing us God’s ample mercies, vital nudgings, and watershed moments along life’s way.
Mark D. Bennion teaches writing and literature courses in the English Department at BYU-Idaho. His poems have been published in Aethlon, The Lyric, RHINO, Windhover, and other journals. In addition to this book, he has authored two previous collections of poetry: Psalm & Selah: A Poetic Journey through the Book of Mormon and Forsythia.
Jared Pearce. Down Their Spears. Cyberwit
Down Their Spears is a Latter-Day Saint cosmogony. Each of the poem’s nine sections is told by a different speaker in a different place at a different time, from sixth century BCE India to nineteenth century Illinois, and each speaker offers a different part of the myth that weaves religious, historical, and mystical characters, scenes, and ideals to tell the story of the history of the universe through a novel, Mormon perspective.
Jared Pearce has a PhD in English from The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His books include The Annotated Murder of One (2018), and his poems have appeared in Lyrical Iowa, Variant Literature, and many other publications. His poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice, and he won 1st place in the BYU Studies poetry contest. He lives and writes in Iowa, United States.
Sunni Brown Wilkinson. The Ache and The Wing. Sundress Publications
In this sublime chapbook, Wilkinson shapes guilt and grief into a narrative of love, loss, and possibility. It explores the flickering, flighty nature of life by allowing a glimpse into the speaker’s world after the death of a newborn son. Bodies become houses, three-and-a-half-inch gaps appear in an old Irishman’s brain, and birdsong reverberates throughout these healing poems. Wilkinson gives life to last words. Her honest, yet delicate poems combine grief with possibility in the hope of rebuilding one’s life in the wake of absence.
Sunni Brown Wilkinson lives and writes in Pleasant View, Utah. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Missouri Review, Western Humanities Review, Terrain, Westchester Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, On the Seawall, Ruminate, Sugar House Review, Cimarron Review, Small Orange, South Dakota Review, and other journals and anthologies. Her essays can be found in Sou’wester, River Teeth, and Waccamaw. The Ache and the Wing won the 2020 Sundress Chapbook Prize. Her full-length collection, The Marriage of the Moon and the Field, was a finalist for the Hudson Prize and for the 2019 AML Poetry Award.
Podcast
The award is given for the entire season of podcasts released in 2021.
Faith Matters. Faith Matters Foundation.
Aubrey Chaves, Tim Chaves, and Terryl Givens, hosts. Bill Turnbull and Branson Hirschi, producers.
Faith Matters offers an expansive view of the Restored Gospel, thoughtful exploration of big and sometimes thorny questions, and a platform that encourages deeper engagement with our faith and our world.We focus on the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) tradition, but believe we have much to learn from other traditions and fully embrace those of other beliefs.
Latter-day Contemplation. Latter-day Peace Studies.
Christopher Hurtado and Riley Risto, hosts. Shiloh Logan and Riley Risto, creators. Christian Hutardo, editor.
Latter-day Contemplation exists largely to explore and document our journey of study and faith as we seek to become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are by no means experts in anything that we’re going to be talking about, but what we do have is an openness to questions, a hunger to discover truth wherever we can find it, and a desire to live a life of peace for ourselves, our families, and our community. We love that you’re here, and we hope that you find value in this discussion to enhance and strengthen your own discipleship of Jesus Christ.
Kurt Francom, host/executive producer. Lillian Angelovic, producer.
Leading Saints is a nonprofit organization with a mission to enhance leadership ability and capacity of lay religious leaders in order to accelerate the mission of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sunstone Mormon History. Sunstone Education Foundation.
Lindsay Hansen Park, host/producer. Bryan Buchannan, host.
There’s the Mormon history you do know … and the Mormon history you don’t. Join Lindsay Hansen Park (Year of Polygamy) and historian Bryan Buchanan as they gossip about their ancestors and dig into all aspects of Mormonism’s astonishing 200-year past—uncovering the little-known stories that chronicle how a six-person church grew into a multi-billion-dollar religion. Episodes for this podcast are released every other week.
This Is the Gospel. LDS Living.
KaRyn Lay, host/producer/editor. Erika Free and Katie Lambert, producers/editors. Derek Campbell, mixer. Erin Hallstrom, executive producer.
The stories we tell matter. They can build our faith, help us empathize with others, demonstrate the true power of God in our lives, and help lead us to Christ. This Is the Gospel, an LDS Living storytelling podcast, collects and shares personal stories that illustrate the challenges and triumphs of living in the latter days.