AML Conference Programs 1976-2002

1976

First Annual Symposium

Empire Room, Hotel Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 4, 1976

Morning Session

  1. Leonard Arrington, “The Mormon Heritage of Vardis Fisher“
  2. Bruce Jorgensen, “Heritage of Hostility: The Mormon Attack on Fiction in the Nineteenth Century”
  3. Richard Cracroft, “Bishop Potts and Elder Dunbar: Max Adeler’s Much-Married Mormons.” [In the program, this is called, “The Humorists: The Image of the Mormon in Nineteenth Century American Fiction.”]
  4. Richard Cummings, (Commentator) “Tension: Mormon Literature Facing Its Time,”

Luncheon Speaker: James Arrington, “Here’s Brother Brigham” (discussion/performance)

Afternoon Session

  1. Davis Bitton, “Writings Engendered by the Martyrdom of Joseph Smith”
  2. “Being a Mormon and a Poet”
    • Emma Lou Thayne
    • Arthur Henry King
    • John S. Harris

1977

Second Annual Symposium

Marriott Library Auditorium, the University of Utah, Saturday, October 8, 1977

Aspects of Mormon Fiction

  1. Ed Geary, “Mormondom’s Lost Generation: The Novelists of the 1940s.”.”
  2. George Tate, Halldor Laxness: The Mormons and the Promised Land.”
  3. Bruce Jorgensen, “The Life and Writing of David L. Wright.” [Published as “The Vocation of David Wright”]

Luncheon Speaker: Herbert Harker

Personal Literature

  1. Elaine Burnham, “The Orally-Told Tales About Solomon Henry Hale.”
  2. Steven P. Sondrup, “The Literary Dimensions of Mormon Autobiography“
  3. Mary Bradford, “I, Eye, Aye: The Personal Essay in Mormon Literature“

Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association

AML session: Steven P. Sondrup, presiding

Neal E. Lambert, “The Representation of Reality in Nineteenth Century Mormon Autobiography”

1978

Third Annual Symposium

Marriott Library, University of Utah, October 7, 1978

The Search for Self in Mormon Letters (Edward L. Hart, chair)

  1. Maureen U. Beecher, The Diary and the Autobiography of Eliza Roxey Snow: A Study in Three Genres
  2. Lavina Fielding Anderson, “The Identity Crisis in L.D.S. Missionary Fiction” [Published as “Truth and Consequences: The Identity Crisis in L.D.S.. Missionary Fiction.” Sunstone 3 (September/October 1978): 30-34]
  3. Davis Bitton, “Utah’s Thoreau: Claude T. Barnes”

Luncheon Speaker: Neal A. Lambert, “Some Thoughts on the Mormon Idea of Sacred Space”

The Mormon Novel, Folklore, and Moral Criticism (Chaired by George S. Tate, with comments by Levi S. Peterson)

  1. William Wilson, “Folklore in The Giant Joshua“
  2. Richard Cracroft, “Samuel Taylor’s Heaven Knows Why“
  3. Stephen L. Tanner, “A Moral Approach to Literary Criticism” (later published as “The Moral Measure of Literature“

In the evening the Association members were treated to an additional literary feast-the presentation of literary works by Linda Sillitoe, Dennis Clark, Don Marshall, Emma Lou Thayne, and Elouise M. Bell. This session, new to the annual proceedings, was chaired by Elouise M. Bell, entitled, “Poetry and Prose in Progress: Mormon Writers Read from Their Work”

Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association

Phoenix, October 28, 1978

AML session: Maureen U. Beecher, chair

Bruce Jorgensen “Element and Glory: Reflections and Speculations on Mormon Verbal Imagination”

Steven P. Sondrup, “The Psalm of Nephi: A Lyric Reading”

1979

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Newcomb Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, April 28, 1979

  1. Richard Rust, “‘All Things Which Have Been Given of God…Are the Typifying of Him’: Typology in the Book of Mormon“
  2. Neal E. Lambert, “A Sense of Place in Mormon Literature”
  3. Chris Arrington, “The Women’s Movement and the Literature of Religion”
  4. Steven P. Sondrup, “The Psalm of Nephi: A Lyric Reading“
  5. Tony Kimball, “The Process of Living: C.S. Lewis as a ‘Guide of the Perplexed'”

Fourth Annual Symposium

Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, October 13, 1979

The Book of Mormon as Literature (Levi Peterson, Chair)

  1. Mark Thomas, “Lehi’s Dream: An American Apocalypse”
  2. Steven C. Walker, “More Than Meets the Eye: Book of Mormon Concentration“
  3. Clifton Holt Jolley, “Rhetorical Evidence for Claiming Moroni as a Tragic Protagonist”

Luncheon Speaker: Richard J. Cummings, “Some Reflections on the Mormon Identity Crisis”

Theme and Character in Mormon Fiction (Kenneth B. Hunsaker, Chair)

  1. Elouise M. Bell, “‘(Almost) All is Well’: Thematic Sophistication as an Index of Quality in Short Stories by L.D.S. Student Writers”
  2. Bruce W. Jorgensen, “‘Herself Moving Beside Herself, Out There Alone’: The Shape of Mormon Belief in Virginia Sorensen’s The Evening and the Morning Star“
  3. Linda Sillitoe, “‘The Upstream Swimmers’: Female Rebels as Protagonists in Mormon Novels” (later published as “The Upstream Swimmers: Females as Protagonists in Mormon Novels” in Sunstone, Volume Four, Numbers Five and Six, 1979, pp. 52-58)

Evening: Poetry and Prose and Progress: Mormon Writers Read from Their Work (at the home of Charlotte and Eugene England).

Linda Sillitoe, Chair. Featuring Penny Allen, Kathryn Ashworth, Marden Clark, Arthur Henry King, Bela Petsco, Douglas Thayer

Rocky Mountain MLA

Oct. 20, 1979

  1. Maureen U. Beecher, “The Scribbling Sisters: Newspaper Verse on the Mormon Frontier”
  2. Clifton Holt Jolley, “Toward the Rhetoric of Mormon Sermons”
  3. George S. Tate, “On Book of Mormon Typology” (later published as”The Typology of the Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon“

1980

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Boston, Massachusetts, May 10, 1980

  1. Bruce Young, “Emerson, Thoreau, and Mormonism”
  2. Eleanor Hart, “Confession as Discovery: An Examination of the Confession Art Form of Two Mormon Pioneer Journals”
  3. Ellen Knight, “‘Deseret; or, A Saint’s Affliction,’ An American Opera.”
  4. Susan Howe, “The Use of ‘Cultural Myth’ in Universalizing Mormon Fiction”
  5. Karen Lynn, “Sensational Virtue: Anti-Polygamy Fiction and American Popular Culture”
  6. Nicolas Shumway, “Art and Worship: Towards a Theoretical Accommodation”

Fifth Annual Symposium

Weber State College, Ogden, Utah, September 27, 1980

Morning Session

  1. Marilyn Arnold, “Prospects for the New Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature”
  2. John D. Peters, “An Occupation for the Saint: A Mormon View of T.S. Eliot’s Religious Poetry”
  3. Marden Clark, “The More Perfect Order Within: Being the Confession of an Unregenerate but not Unrepentant Mistruster of Mormon Literature” (published as “Toward a More Perfect Order Within: Being the Confession of an Unregenerate but not Unrepentant Mistruster of Mormon Literature“

Luncheon Speaker: Eugene England, “Obedience, Integrity, and the Paradox of Selfhood”

Afternoon Session

  1. Linda Sillitoe, “Contemporary Poems by Mormon Woemn: New Voices, New Songs“
  2. Levi S. Peterson, “Lambent Voices: Recent Mormon Fiction”

Rocky Mountain MLA

Denver, Colorado, October 1980

  1. Marden J. Clark. “Paradox and Tragedy in Mormonism”
  2. Eugene England. “Joseph Smith and the Tragedy of Language”
  3. Clifton Holt Jolley. “Coriantumr and Saul: Old Testament Tragic Archetype and Book of Mormon Analogue”

1981

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

House Budget Hearing Room, Rayburn Building, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., April 25, 1981

  1. Robert Wood, “The Philosophy of States and the Forms of Government: The Mormon Position”
  2. Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, “Mormons in Science Fiction”
  3. Susan Howe, “Progress Report: Exponent II“
  4. Marlene Payne, “Archetypes and Mythology: Connections with Mormon Thought”
  5. Donna Hill, “How and Why I Wrote Joseph Smith: The First Mormon”“

Rocky Mountain MLA

Oct 24, 1981

Maureen U. Beecher, Chair

  1. Karl Keller, “Fiction at the Mormon Fringe,”
  2. Richard Cracroft, “The Didactic Heresy as Orthodox Tool: B. H. Roberts As Writer of Home Literature”
  3. Steven P. Sondrup, “The Possibility of Mormon Tragedy”

1982

Sixth Annual Symposium

Note: Beginning in 1982, the annual symposium moved to late January-early February of each year

Marriott Library, University of Utah, January 23, 1982

Session on Mormons and Critical Theory

  1. Bruce Harper, “Mormons and Modern Literary Theory”
  2. James E. Faulconer, “An Alternative to Aristotelian Criticism”
  3. Stephen W. Durrant, “Lessons from Chinese Criticism”
  4. James E. Ford, “Interesting Critical Times: The Moral Implications of Post-Structuralism”

Luncheon Speaker: Levi S. Peterson, “The Civilizing of Mormondom: The Indispensable Role of the Mormon Intellectual”

Session on Mormon Literature

  1. Roger Miller, “Whoso Readeth, Let Him Understand: Latter-day Scripture and the Problem of Translation”
  2. Gloria Cronin, “Grace and Isolation: A Thematic Examination of Eileen Kump’s Bread and Milk and Other Stories“
  3. Steven C. Walker and Lorna Nielsen Best, A Reading from the Poetry of Clinton F. Larson
  4. John B. Harris, “The Poetry of Clinton F. Larson”

Evening: Readings and music. Home of Clifton H. Jolley. Featuring Elayne Clark, Donnell Hunter, and others.

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Boston, Massachusetts, June 4-5, 1982

Friday (Faneuil Hall)

Panel: Editors of Mormon Publications

  • Exponent II (Nancy Dredge, Linda Collins, Susan Paxman)
  • Benson Institute Newsletter (Kevin Barnhurst
  • Dialogue (Eugene England, Mary Bradford, Lavina Fielding Anderson)
  • Sunstone (Lori Winder)

Saturday (Cambridge Ward chapel)

  1. Brian Ward, “The Privileged Criteria in Literary Evaluation”
  2. Nicolas Shumway, “The God Within” (Later renamed “Ambiguity and the Language of Authority“)
  3. Tony Kimball, “The Mirror of Stupidity: Mormon Political Writing”
  4. Mary Bradford, “‘The State of the Union’: Dialogue and Mormon Writing.”

Rocky Mountain MLA

Oct 20, 1982

  1. Michael R. Collings, “Science Fiction and Revelation: Mormonsim and Science Fiction as Alternate Modes of Knowing” (Later published as “Refracted Visions and Future Worlds: Mormonism and Science Fiction“)
  2. Lavina Fielding Anderson, “The Assimilation of History: The Mormon Historical Novel”
  3. Clifton H. Jolley, “The Metaphysical Theory of Clinton F. Larson.”

1983

Seventh Annual Symposium

Marriott Library, University of Utah, January 22, 1983. Abstracts available in the link.

Perspectives on RLDS Literature

  1. Paul M. Edwards, “Moonbeams from a Larger Lunacy: RLDS Poetry” (Renamed “Moonbeams from a Larger Lunacy: Poetry in the Reorganization”)
  2. Karen Lynn, “RLDS Hymnal, 1982“

Presidential Address: Lavina Fielding Anderson, “Making the Good Good for Something”

First Afternoon Session

  1. Mick McAllister, “Vardis Fisher’s Mormon Heritage” (Notes for the essay)
  2. Ted Lyon, “A Grandfather’s Poetry: John Lyon” (Renamed: “Feud and Fun: Humor in the Poetry of John Lyon”)

Second Afternoon Session

  1. Roy Bird, “Marxism, Mormonism, and Aesthetic Standards”
  2. Cherry Silver, “Patient Griseldas and Cinderella Heroes” (Retitled: “Patient Griseldas and Reluctant Heroes: Character Types in Contemporary Mormon Fiction”

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Philadephia, Pennsylvania, May 13-14, 1983

Session One: Philosophical Hall

  1. Eugene England, “Are Mormon Women Freer than Men under the Patriarchy: The Evidence of Mormon Literature”
  2. Panel Response:
    • Claudia Bushman
    • Eloise Bell
    • Mary Bradford
    • JoAnn Younge
    • Susan Howe

Session Two: Housten Hall, University of Pennsylvania

  1. Susan B. Taber, “Editorial Structure and Unity in The Book of Mormon“
  2. Gloria Cronin. “Grace and Isolation: A Thematic Examination of Eileen Kump’s Bread and Milk and Other Stories“

Session Three: Housten Hall, University of Pennsylvania

  1. “Marching Through Utah: A Utah Suffrage Sing-along with Claudia Bushman: A Participatory Exploration of One of the Immaterial Cultural Artifacts of the Mormon Feminist Past”
  2. Presentations of original music and writings: Elouise Bell, Jane Geller,  Joyce Stevenson, Jennifer Dix, Kevin Barnhurst, Debra Blose, Lonnie Gibson, Ruth Knight, and Ann Woodward

West Coast (Fall) Symposium

Huntington Library, San Marino, California, September 17, 1983

Session One: Language, Perception, and Personality

  1. Chris Conkling, “One-and-only-truth vs. Philosophical Pluralism in Mormon Life and Letters”
  2. Irene Bates, “Mormon Letters–The Other Kind”
  3. Nicolas Shumway, “Truth and Language in the Judeo-Christian Tradition”

Session Two

Russell Chandler, religion editor, L.A. Times. “What Makes Religion News”

Session Three: Historical Perspectives

  1. Valeria Franco, “The Mormon Collection at the Huntington”
  2. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, “‘On Subjects Not Disclosed’: An Interlinear to the Diaries of Eliza R. Snow”
  3. Grant Underwood, “‘Saved or Damned’: Tracing a Persistent Protestantism in Early Mormon Thought”
  4. [reading by Steven P. Sondrup] Levi Peterson, “Road to Damascus”
  5. Gloria Cronin, “Levi Peterson’s Development as a Writer”

Session Four: Mormon Hymns and Children’s Songs: High Church to High Comedy”

Ruth Rees, Karen Lynn

Rocky Mountain MLA

Glendale, Arizona, October 22, 1983

Richard H. Cracroft, chair

  1. Eugene England. “Thayer’s Ode to a Red Tail Hawk”
  2. Bruce W. Jorgenson, “‘A Smaller Canvas’ of the Mormon Short Story since 1950”
  3. Mary Bradford, “The Quintessential Mormon Genre: Practitioners of the Personal History”
  4. John S. Tanner, “Shared Heresies: Milton among the Mormons” (Later published as “Making a Mormon of Milton“

1984

Eighth Annual Symposium

Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, January 21, 1984

Session One: The Literature of Immigration

  1. Margaret Rampton Munk, “Writing the Literature of Immigration: Fiction from Personal History”
  2. William Mulder, “Scandinavian Immigrant Humor”
  3. Frederick S. Buchanan, “The Immigrant and the Muse,” a performance of Scottish-Mormon poems and songs.
  4. Steven P. Sondrup: Commentary

Luncheon

Candadai Seschachari: Presidential Address

Session Two: Mormon Women Writers

  1. Cherry and Barnard Silver, “The Poetry of Madelyn Cannon Stewart”
  2. Neila Seshachari, “Confrontation vs. Tradition: The Lives of Trapped Women in Maurine Whipple’s The Giant Joshua“
  3. Linda Wilcox, “Contemporary Writing on Motherhood by Mormon Women”
  4. Gloria Cronin, “Contemporary Mormon Folklore: Two Female Folk Performers”
  5. Annette Sorensen Rogers, commentary

Evening gathering

At the home of Marcia and Clifton Jolley. Maggie Smith reminisced about her years as “Margaret Masters”, and Scottish folk music by Fred Buchanan.

East Coast (Spring) Symposium

Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, May 19, 1984

Linda King Newell and Claudia Harris, organizers

Morning Session

  1. Richard Dilworth Rust, “Imagery in the Book of Mormon”
  2. Phillip Snyder, “Autobiographical Experience in Joseph Smith’s History”

Luncheon

Aston Day, “A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Publisher”

Afternoon Session

  1. Donald R. Marshall. Symbolism in the short stories in Greening Wheat
  2. Eugene England. Discussed Douglas Thayer’s “The Red-Taled Hawk”
  3. Stephen P. Sondrup, “‘Road to Damascus’ and the Language of Grace”

West Coast Symposium

University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California, October 27

Larry Y Wilson, Bonnie Bobet, and Dick Butler, organizers

  1. Mormon Biography: Featuring Irene Bates and Gary Smith
  2. Reader’s Theater: David Anderson reads excerpts from Huebener Against the Reich (a play that was performed in Salt Lake City in February 1984)
  3. Mormon Fiction: Marilyn Brown, Herbert Harker, Vernon Jensen, Bruce Jorgensen, and Karen Rosenbaum
  4. Discussion of Emma Smith: Mormon Enigma

1985

Ninth Annual Symposium

Brigham Young University, January 19, 1985

Morning Session: Fictional Use of the Mountain Meadows Massacre: Three Authors Discuss Their Work (Linda Newell, Moderator/Respondent)

  1. Herbert Harker, “A Distant Influence: Turn Again Home“
  2. Marilyn Brown, “An Immediate Influence: Rage and Mercy“
  3. Veda Hale, “A Modern Stigma: Cobwebs“

Luncheon

  1. Steven Sondrup: Business and Elections
  2. Richard Cracroft: Annual Association Awards
  3. Edward Geary, Presidential Address: “Of Mormon Poesy: An Essay”. A literary discussion of Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy, with the holders of various points of view regarding Mormon writing wearing thinly disguised classical appellations.

First Afternoon Session: Aspects of Nineteenth-Century Mormonism (Leonard Arrington, Moderator/Respondent)

  1. Edward and Eleanor Hart, “Some Popular Non-Mormon Books Read by Mormons before 1900”
  2. Thomas Burton, “Looking Through the Glass Darkly: Early British Perceptions of Mormonism”

Second Afternoon Session: Reunion Under the Cottonwoods: Focus on Two Contemporary Mormon Writers (Richard Cummings, Moderator/Respondent)

  1. Jane Anne Waterstadt, “The Women of Reunion: A Dissenting View”
  2. Bruce Jorgensen, “Romantic Lyric Form and Western Mormon Experience in Douglas Thayer’s Under the Cottonwoods“

An Evening with Herbert Harker: Readings and Discussion

At the home of Marilyn and William Brown, Jr.

1986

Annual Symposium

Weber State College, January 25, 1986

Session I: Writers on their Work: Bruce Joresnen, Chair

Luncheon and Presidential Address

Edward L. Hart, “An Open Letter to AML Members”

Session II: Papers: Richard Cracroft, Chair

  1. Levi S. Peterson, “Juanita Brooks’ Quicksand and Cactus: A Mormon Memoir as Literature”
  2. Eugene England, “The Book of Mormon as Literature: Insights from Northrop Frye and Rene Girard”

Session III: Panel Discussion: AML After Ten Years: John Tanner, Moderator

Panelists: Maureen Beecher, Lavina Anderson, Candidai Seshachari

Session IV:

Elouise Bell, “Only When I Laugh” (I had the title before Neil Simon): Readings from the Award-Winning Column of the Same Name”. Held at the home of Levi and Althea Peterson

1987

Annual Symposium

University of Utah LDS Institute, January 24, 1987

Session I: Literature and Personal Experience

  1. Eugene England
  2. Edward Geary
  3. Levi Person, Commentator

Session II: Literature and Scripture

  1. Steven Sondrup
  2. Steven Walker
  3. John Tanner, Commentator

Session III: Editor’s Roundtable

Linda Newell (Dialogue and the University of Utah Press), Daniel Rector (Signature Books and Sunstone), Cory Maxwell (Bookcraft), and Jack Lyon (Deseret Book).

Session IV: Emerging Voices

Poetry and short story readings by Patty Gunter, Lance Larsen, Pauline Mortensen, and Zina Peterson.

(Details found in Sunstone, March 1987, p. 44-45)

1988

Instead of a symposium, a catered awards dinner was held on April 1 at the home of Steven Sondrup in Salt Lake City. 25 people were in attendance. Following the presentation of citations, awardees read from the works for which they had been honoured. Retiring AML president John S. Tanner read from the presidential paper, “Hymns and Herbert: Aesthetics of the Heart”, which compared the hymns and devotional poetry of modern Latter-day Saints with the devotional poetry of the seventeenth century English writer George Herbert.

1989

Annual Symposium

Weber State College, January 28, 1989

Virginia Sorensen and her Contemporaries (I)

Chair, Linda Brummett (BYU)

  1. Eugene England (BYU) “Virginia Sorensen as the Founding Foremother of the Mormon Personal Essay”
  2. Jackie Barnes (WSC) “The Sacrifice to the Proper Gods in Virginia Sorensen’s The Proper Gods“
  3. Edward Geary (BYU) “Joseph and His Brothers: Rivalry in Virginia Sorensen’s On This Star”
  4. Linda Berlin (BYU) “Strengths and Weaknesses of Virginia Sorensen’s On This Star“

Luncheon

  1. Steven Sondrup, Association Business
  2. Bruce Jorgensen, Presentation of Awards
  3. Presidential Address, William A. Wilson

Virginia Sorensen and her Contemporaries (II)

Chair: Linda Adams (BYU)

  1. Patricia Truxler Aikins (Westminster College) “The Geography of the Heart: Utah Women Writers and the Utah Renaissance” (On Ardyth Kennelly and Maurine Whipple)
  2. Audrey Godfrey (USU) “The Promise Is Fulfilled: Literary Aspects of John D. Fitzgerald’s Novels“
  3. Karin England (BYU) “Feminine Voices in the Works of Juanita Brooks”

Panel Discussion: Three Utah Authors on Publishing in the Marketplace

Dean Hughes (moderator), Gordon Allred, Linda Sillitoe

Evening Social and Readings by 1988 Award Winners

At the home of Candadai and Neila Seshachari

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association

AML Session, Las Vegas, October 20, 1989. Eugene England, Chair, Bruce Jorgensen, secretary

  1. Elouise Bell, “Nice Ain’t So Nice”
  2. Robert Rees, An essay defining love and compassion
  3. Karin Anderson England, The personal essay as a stimulant in technical writing courses

1990

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, January 27, 1990

Session 1

  1. LuDene F. Dallimore, “Mercy, Zina, and Kate: Virginia Sorensen’s Strong Women in a Man’s Society”
  2. Grant T. Smith, “A Community of Women: Kate Alexander’s Search for Self in The Evening and the Morning“

Session 2

  1. Jessie L. Embry, “Overworked Stereotypes of Accurate Historical Images: The Images of Polygamy in The Giant Joshua” (Published in Sunstone, April 1990).
  2. Katerine Ashton, “Whatever Happened to Maurine Whipple?” (Published in Sunstone, April 1990).

Luncheon

  1. Bruce W. Jorgensen, Presentation of AML Annual Awards
  2. Steven P. Sondrup, Election of Officers and Board Members
  3. Levi S. Peterson, AML President’s Address: “AML: Unlikely Skirmisher in the Battle of the Books”

Session 3

  1. Patricia T. Aikins, “Neal Chalnder’s Benediction: Or, Lessons from the Righteousness Hall of Fame”
  2. John R Sillito and Constance Lieber, “Letters from Exile”
  3. Jean Anne Waterstradt, “In Hims of Praise: The Songs of Zion”

Session 4

  1. Mick McAllister, “Embracing the Other: Orson Scott Card’s Aliens”
  2. Richard H. Cracroft, “Realizing ‘A Personal and Possessed Past’: Tradition, Community, and Incorrigible Hope in Wallace Stenger’s Recapitulation”

Evening social: Home of Patricia Aikins. Award winners reading from their recent works.

1991

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 26, 1991

Session One 

  1. Emma Lou Thayne, “The Poems and Diaries of Clarice Short–Earthy Academia”
  2. David E. Sloan, “From Great Britain to the Great Salt Lake: The Poetry of Edward Lennox Sloan”
  3. Mary Jan Munger, “A Look at Contemporary Mormon Poetry: One Harvester’s Opinion”
  4. Harlow S. Clark, “Toward a Theory of Literary Value: ‘The Necessity of Bearing Direct Personal Testimony'”
  5. Neal E. Lambert, “From Magnolia Cristi Americana to A Marvellous Work and a Wonder: Puritan-Mormon Parallels

Luncheon

  1. Steven P. Sondrup, Election of officers and board matters
  2. Dennis Clark, Presentation of AML Annual Awards
  3. Bruce W. Jorgensen, AML President’s Address: “To Tell and Hear Stories: Let the Stranger Say“

Session Two

  1. Robert M. Hogge, “Levels of Perception in Michael Fillerup’s Visions and Other Stories“
  2. Susan Howe, “On Recent Stories of Pauline Mortensen and Levi Peterson”
  3. Helen Cannon, “Strange Love: The Stories of Phyllis Barber””
  4. Joe Peterson, “Franklin Fisher’s Bones: The Effaced Identity of the Mormon Missionary”
  5. Patricia T. Aikins, “On Elouise Bell’s Only When I Laugh“

Evening Social: Home of Linda and John Sillitoe. Buffet supper and award winners reading from their recent works.

Special AML lecture

AML-sponsored event, at the home of Ann Edwards Cannon, Salt Lake City, Sept. 20, 1991

William Mulder, “Telling it Slant: Aiming for Truth in Contemporary Mormon Literature”

Rocky Mountain MLA

Arizona State University, Tempe, October 1991

Contemporary Mormon Poetry: Elouise M. Bell, Chair

  1. Richard H. Cracroft (BYU), “Spiritual Humanism in the Poetry of Emma Lou Thayne”
  2. Lisa Orme Bickmore (U of U), selected poems
  3. B. J. Fogg (BYU), selected poems
  4. Pauline E. Mortensen (U of U), “What Say Ye of the Harvest: A Review of the England-Clark Anthology”
  5. Susan Elizabeth Howe (BYU), selected poems

1992

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 25, 1992

Session One: Approaching Scripture

  1. Steven L. Olsen, “Abridging the Records of the Zoramite Mission: Mormon as Literary Craftsman, Religious Teacher, and Social Critic” (Later published as “Abridging the Records of the Zoramite Mission: Mormon as Historian”)
  2. Keith Lane, “‘After Ye Have Received So Many Witnesses’: Symbolic Action in Alma 32-34”
  3. Harlow Clark, “In the Territory of Irony”

Session Two: Essays Personal and Familial

  1. John S. Harris, “Risk and Terror”
  2. Marian Nelson, “Drinking, and Flirting with the Mormon Church”
  3. John Bennion, “Doubt and the Desert”

Luncheon

  1. Stephen P. Sondrup, election of officers
  2. Dennis M. Clark, presentation of AML Annual Awards
  3. Richard H. Cracroft, AML President’s Address: “Attuning the Authentic Mormon Voice: Stemming the Sophic Tide in LDS Literature“

Session Three: Literature, Criticism, and Culture

  1. Neal W. Kramer, “Reading Mormon Stories: An Ethical Dilemma?”
  2. Gideon Burton, “Towards a Mormon Criticism: Should We Ask, ‘Is This Mormon Literature?'”
  3. Derk Michael Koldewyn, ““Though Like the Wanderer”: Outside the Group in Mormon Short Fiction“
  4. Nola Smith, “Madwomen in the Mormon Attic: A Feminist Reading of Saturday’s Warrior and Reunion“

Session Four: Domesticity and the Call to Art: A Panel

Gail Newbold (moderator), Julie Nichols, Margaret Young, Lisa Bickmore, and Bruce Jorgensen

Evening social: Home of Patricia Aikins. Readings of award winners, including Terry Tempest Williams.

Sunstone Symposium

AML sponsored sessions, Salt Lake Hilton, August 1992

  1. “As Women See Things”: Readings from Margaret Young, Pauline Mortensen, and Julie Nichols

  2. “What is the Short Story?” Bruce Jorgensen, Darrell Spencer, Paul Rawlins, and Pauline Mortensen panel discussion.

Rocky Mountain MLA

Weber State University, October 1992

Conjoint Session: “Virginia Sorensen–In Tribute to Her Life and Works”

  1. Mary Bradford, “Virginia Sorensen: Happy Literary Recollections from a Thirty-five Year Friendship”
  2. Helynne H. Hansen, “In Search of Women’s Language and Feminist Expression Among Nauvoo Wives in A Little Lower Than the Angels“
  3. Susan Howe, “‘Little Books’ from a Large Soul: The Private Poetry of Virginia Sorensen”

1993

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 23, 1993

There were morning and afternoon sessions, where several papers were read, including:

Cecilia Konchar Farr and Phillip A. Snyder. “From Walden Pond to the Great Salt Lake: Ecobiography and Engendered Species Acts in Walden and Refuge”

John Bennion. “Faithful and Ambiguous Fiction: Can Weyland and Whipple Dance Together in the House of Fiction?”

Glen J. Wiese, “Kindly Ironic Vision in Richard Scowcroft’s Novels”

Marni Asplund-Campbell, “Heart of My Father: C. Thomas Asplund, A Retrospective”

Presidential Address: Ann Edwards Cannon, “And Now for a Little Mormon Humor“. There was an evening social at the home of Patricia Aikins Coleman.

Sunstone Symposium

AML sponsored sessions, Salt Lake City, August 12-14, 1993

  1. “The All-Time Best Mormon Poems”. Readings from the history of Mormon poetry, organised by Dennis Clark, and read by Karen England, Emma Lou Thayne, Steven Taylor, Dawn Brimley, Richard Downey, Susan Howe, Marden Clark, Levi Peterson, and Dennis Clark
  2. “I Never Wrote About Them Except as a Friend: Wallace Stegner and Mormons in Literature”. Organized by Susan Howe. Papers by Kip Clark, Russell Burrows, and William Mulder.

Boston Symposium

Boston, October 22-23, 1993. Organised by Susan Paxman.

1994

AML Fundraiser

Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, January 14, 1994

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. “Clio Meets Elijah in the Family History Center”

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 22, 1994

Session One

  1. Shirley Brockbank Paxman, “Where Nothing Is Long Ago: Memories of Virginia Sorensen Waugh”
  2. Jean Anne Waterstradt, “Relief Society’s Golden Years: The Magazine”

Session Two

  1. Ellen Bonelli Pace, “Life Transitions in the Poetry of Clinton F. Larson”
  2. Lisa Orme Bickmore, “The Lyric Body in Emma Lou Thayne’s Things Happen“
  3. Tom Plummer, “Is There Refuge in the Text?: Narrator and Reader in Terry Tempest Williams’s Memoir”

Luncheon

  1. Steven Sondrup: Election of officers. Dennis M. Clark: Presentation of AML Annual Awards
  2. Linda Brummett, Presidential Address: “The Power of the Preposition”

Session Three

  1. Richard H. Cracroft, “The Ineffable Made Effable: Rendering Joseph Smith’s First Vision as Literature”
  2. Benson Y. Parkinson, “S. Dilworth Young: His Life in Words”
  3. Harlow Clark, ““P.S. The Slimy One on the Right”: Remarks on Bombastic criticism”

Evening social at the home of Patricia and Robert Coleman.

AML panels at Sunstone Symposium

August 17-20, 1994

“Women Talking about a Sacred Cow: Why It’s So Difficult to Make Mormon Humor”. Featuring Pauline Mortensen and Elouise Bell.

“Song of Songs and the Mormon Blues: Eros in LDS Life and Literature”

  1. Bruce W. Jorgensen, “The Song of Songs and the Mormon Blues”
  2. Karin Anderson England, “Narrative, Community, and Intimacy”
  3. Margaret Blair Young, “Monks, Missionaries, and Eros”

Rocky Mountain MLA

Colorado Springs, October 27-29, 1994

  1. Michael Austin, “How to be a Mormon-American; Or, the Function of Mormon Criticism at the Present Time”
  2. John Bennion, “Ambiguity vs. Moralizing: Can Whipple and Weyland Dance in the House of Fiction?”
  3. Tessa Meyer Santiago, “The Mormon Fiction Mission“
  4. Eugene England, “Mormons Playing in the Dark”

1995

AML Fundraiser

Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, January 13, 1995

Wayne C. Booth, “Mormon Writers Climbing Parnassus: Why is the Climb So Steep?”

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 14, 1995

Session A: Panel: “On the Works of Wayne C. Booth”

  1. Neal Kramer, “The Vocation of a Mormon Teacher”
  2. Gideon Burton, “The Company We Keep” (Later published as “Keeping Company with Wayne Booth: Ethical Responsibility and the Conduct of Mormon Criticism”)
  3. Grant Boswell, “‘Easy to be Entreated’: Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent and Christian Communication”
  4. Response by Wayne Booth

Session B

  1. Patricia Coleman, “Religious Comedies of Manners: The Works of David Lodge and Neal Chandler”
  2. Dan Pearce, “Mormon Guilt, Self-Mutilation and Therapy in Levi Peterson’s The Backslider“
  3. Robert Bird, “Theology and the Mormon Writer” (later published as “Modern Postmodernism: Worlds Without End in Young’s Salvador and Card’s Lost Boys“)
  4. Cheri Pray Earl, “Consistency through Inconsistency: The Literature of Mormon Polygamy”

Luncheon, Presentation of Awards, and Susan Howe’s Presidential Address, “The Moral Imagination”

Session C

  1. MaryJan Munger, “Other Voices, Other Visions: Why Write in the Household of Faith” (later published as “Creating Zion: Why Write in the Household of Faith”)
  2. Eric Eliason, “The Emergence of ‘Mormon Studies’ and ‘Intermountain West Studies’ and their Significance for Mormon Letters”
  3. Ariel Clark Silver, “Ramona Wilcox Cannon as Woman and Writer”
  4. Marden J. Clark, “The Boon: A Temporary Summing Up”

Evening social at the home of Patricia and Robert Coleman

AML Session at Sunstone Symposium

August 9-12, 1995

“Author Meets Critics: Killing Cats: A Discussion of Altmann’s Tongue, and when Mormon Literature Becomes ‘Mormon'”. Panel, chaired by Marni Asplund-Campbell.

  1. Marni Asplund-Campbell, “General Mutterings”
  2. Scott Abbott, “The Provo Window: Late Night Thoughts on the Purposes of Art and the Decline of a University”
  3. Susan Elizabeth Howe, “Violence and Aesthetics”
  4. Bruce W. Jorgensen, “Losing My Life in the Story”
  5. Brian Evenson, “Moral to Read, Moral to Write”

“The Poetry of May Swenson”

  1. Susan Elizabeth Howe, “‘I Do Remember How It Smelled Heavenly’: Mormon Aspects of May Swenson’s Poetry”
  2. Paul Swenson, “Knowing the Poetry First: A Response”

Rocky Mountain MLA

Spokane, October 1995

1996

Annual Symposium

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, January 12-13, 1996

January 12, AML Fundraiser: Gerald Lund, “The Gospel and the Creative Arts”

January 13, Annual Conference

Plenary Session: The Work and the Glory of Gerald Lund’s Fiction

  1. Richard H. Cracroft, “Restoring the Restoration: Lund’s The Work and the Glory Saga and the Historical Novel”
  2. Dennis Clark, “Fantastic Joseph and Mimetic Readers: Gerald Lund, Scott Card, and the Great Divide in Mormon Fiction”
  3. Response by Gerald Lund

Concurrent Sessions (II and III):

Session II. Angels in America: Kushner Among the Mormons

  1. John-Charles Duffy, “Casserole Myth: Religious Motif and Inclusivity in Angels in America“
  2. Michael S. Austin, “Three Mormon Stereotypes in Kushner’s Angels in America” (later published as “Theology for the Approaching Millennium: Angels in America, Activism, and the American Religion”)
  3. Sandra Ballif Straubhaar, “Sea-Changed Iconography: Tony Kushner’s Use and Abuse of Mormon Images and Traditions in Angels in America“
  4. Joseph D. Straubhaar, Daniel Stout, and Gail Newbold, “Through a Glass Darkly: Mormons as Perceived by Critics’ Reviews of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America“

Session III. Mormon Women: Voices and Silences

  1. Jessie L. Embry, “The Rhetoric of Sister Missionaries: Views of Women Serving LDS Missions from 1930 to 1970”
  2. Patricia Coleman, “Ann Edwards Cannon: Silences in Adolescent Literature”
  3. “About Being Female: Stories We Agree to Tell,” Readings from a Feminist Theatre Seminar

Conference Luncheon: Announcement of AML Annual Awards and AML Lifetime Membership. Presidential Address by Robert M. Hogge, “Mormon Literature in Cyberspace: The New Frontier”

Concurrent Sessions (IV and V):

Session IV: Mormons Do Too Have a Sense of Humor

  1. Louise Plummer, “Organic Humor,” remarks and reading from her novel The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman
  2. Donlu Thayer and Pat Pelissie, “Humor and Healing,” remarks and reading from their book Overcoming Co-dependency Through the Elimination of Personal Relationships

Session V: Reclaiming our Literary Foremothers

  1. Kylie Nielson Turley, “‘Untrumpeted and Unseen’: An Introduction to Josephine Spencer, Mormon ‘Authoress’“
  2. John Bennion, “Saviors on Mount Zion: Silence, Culture, and Polygamy”
  3. Laurie Illinois Rodriguez and Joshua Rodriguez, “The Example of Virginia Sorensen: Honest Ambivalence and the Mormon Experience”

Concurrent Sessions (Sessions VI and VII)

Session VI: Mormon Literary Criticism in Theory and Practice

  1. Veda Tebbs Hale and Marilyn Brown, “Levi Peterson’s Canyons of Grace: Two Critical Perspectives”
  2. Bruce Jorgensen, “Redefining ‘Faithful Fiction’ (The Sophic Stranger Rides Again) (With His Evil Twin)”
  3. Benson Y. Parkinson, “”Towards an LDS Aesthetic of the Novel: A Report form the Front Lines”

Session VII: The Poetry of the Kingdom

  1. Harlow Soderborg Clark, “I Have Come to the Whirlwind to Converse with the Father: The Book of Job s a Ceremony of Irony”
  2. Neal W. Kramer, “Orson F. Whitney and the Consecration of Poetry”
  3. Fred C. Pinnegar, “The Poetry of Arthur Henry King”

Buffet and Reading by 1996 AML Award Winners, at the home of Karen Moloney

Rocky Mountain MLA

Albuquerque, October 17-19, 1996

“The Fifth Ordinance: Enduring to the End–Negotiating Middle-Ages Mormonism”. Tessa Meyer Santiago, organizer and chair.

AML Fundraiser

Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, November 1, 1996

Elouise Bell and Laurie Johnson, “Patti and Fonda Play the Palace”. Two characters, Aunt Patti Sessions and Fonda AlaMode, meat on the same stage.

1997

AML Annual Conference

Westminister College, Salt Lake City, February 1, 1997

Plenary Session: “Mormon Humor: Flashing Radiant Smiles while Eschewing Loud Laughter: Telestially Tickling the CelestialBound Funnybone.”

  1. Richard H. Cracroft, “Sidetracked by Mortality, or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Eternal Life” (Published as “A Bibliography of Mormon Humor: or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Eternal Life”)
  2. Kathryn Kidd, “You Stole My Life and I Hate You”
  3. Robert F. Smith, “Remodeling the Tract Homes of Heaven: Observations of a Second-rate Carpenter”
  4. Robert Kirby, “Holding to the Ironic Rod: Distinguishing Between the Sacred and Profane” (Published as “Scaring the Hell Out of People”)

Mormon Folklore. Chair, William A. Wilson.

  1. William A. Wilson, “An Introduction to Mormon Folklore”
  2. Jessie L. Embry, “Settlement Folk Ideas: Stories of the Mormons’ Move West”
  3. Kristin Bell, “Theory and Practice in Creative Dating and Invitations: Or, ‘How About a Pie in the Face?'” (Published as “Practice Makes Perfect: A Twenty-Year Overview of Creative Dates and Invitations”)

LDS Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction

  1. Lee Allred, “The Individual vs. the Zion Community: An Empirical Look at the Dichotomy in Mormon Speculative Fiction”
  2. Scott R. Parkin, “A New Mormon Battalion: The Rise of Speculative Fiction Among Mormon Writers”
  3. J. Scott Bronson, “As Ethical As I Want To Be: Ethics and the LDS Speculative Fiction Writer”

LDS Publishing in the Twentieth Century, a panel of LDS publishers. Moderator: Valerie Holladay

Panelists: Curtis Taylor (Aspen/Gold Leaf), Cory Maxwell (Bookcraft), Jo Ann Jolley (Covenant), Jack Lyon (Deseret Book), and Gary Bergera (Signature)

The Essay: Reflections on My Mormon Experience. Chair, Mikel Vause.

  1. John Sillito, “Opening the Door: A Personal Reflection on Sunstone”
  2. Craig Oberg, “Ancestral Lives”
  3. Russell Burrows, “To a Grandmother”
  4. Mikel Vause, “My Mother, Poet of Experience”
  5. Adam Nebeker, “Satan Inhabits Us?: Some Thoughts on LDS and Brazilian Experiences with Spirit Possession” (Published as “Spirit Possession in Brazil: A Folklore Study”)

Luncheon: Annual elections, awards presentation.

Presidential address by MaryJan Munger, “Maps and Addresses”

Mormon Literature on the Internet

  1. Benson Parkinson, “Electric Talk: Twenty Months of AML-List”
  2. Gideon Burton, “The Mormon Literature Website and the Mormon Literature Electronic Bibliography: Progress Report”
  3. Ben Godfrey, “Brining LDS Literature to the ‘Rest of the Church and the World'”

The Book of Mormon as Literature. Chair and respondent: Karl Sandburg

  1. Richard Dilworth Rust, “The Book of Mormon as Epic”
  2. Mark D. Thomas, “The Art of Nephite Narrative”
  3. Karl C. Sandberg (response), “The Book of Mormon and Literature”

The Essay, Critical and Reflective

  1. Harlow Soderbergh Clark, “Light & Delight”
  2. Marden J. Clark, “I Taught People–Reflections on Teaching and Learning” (Published as “I Taught People-Or Should Have”)

Buffet and reading of award winners, at the home of Karen Moloney

Rocky Mountain MLA

Denver, October 16-18, 1997

“Light Speeches, Laughter, and Light-mindedness: The Irony of Mormon Humor”, John Bennion, Chair.

AML Fundraiser

Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, November 19, 1997

Terry Tempest Williams, “The Cultural Editor”

1998

AML Annual Conference

Westminister College, Salt Lake City, February 28, 1998

(Based on the preliminary program, it looks like there were several changes)

Plenary Session: Roundtable Discussion of the Works of Terry Tempest Williams

Panelists: Jana Remy (chair/moderator), Eugene England, Susan Howe, Scott Parkin, Phil Snyder

Panel Discussion: Many Mansions: LDS Genre Fiction In and Out of the Mormon Market”

Panellists: Lee Allred (chair/moderator), Dave Wolverton, Susan Evans McCloud, Pat Bezzant, Thom Duncan

Texts and Countertexts. Bethany Ann Clawson, chair

  1. Bethany Ann Clawson, “Joseph Smith, Going Like a Lamb to the Slaughter? A Counterview from the Poetry of Times and Seasons“
  2. Cheri S. Hardisty, “Historical Misconceptions in the Novels of Gerald Lund”
  3. John L. Needham, “A Voice Crying on the Range: Mormonism and the Cowboy Jesus” (or maybe “The Land Nobody Wanted: Mormonism’s Lost Generation and the Making of the Mormon Culture Region”)

Lunchoen: Business matters, presentation of AML awards

Presidential Address: Neal Kramer, “Art and Advocacy: Politics and Mormon Letters”

Hearing Mormon Voices. Eric Samuelsen, Chair

  1. Eric Samuelsen, “A Voice Unheard: Reflections on the Poetry of Florence Bale”
  2. Janelle Higbee, “Rhetoric of Sarah Granger Kimball” (published as ‘”A Representative Woman’: President Mrs. Kimball and a Rhetoric of Deseret”)

Panel discussion of Viper on the Hearth

Eric A. Eliason (chair/moderator), Neal W. Kramer, Richard Ouellette, Jana K. Riess, Terryl Givens

Mirrors, Windows, Revelations: Mormon Letters and the Mormon Mind

  1. Eric Eliason, “A Man Caught in the Middle: J. Golden Kimball as a Transitional Figure in Mormon History and Folklore”
  2. Harlow Clark (chair), “God as Power, God as Love: How This Changes our Literature”
  3. Lee Allred, “Trail of Dreams (drama by Arrington, Payne, and Perry) and Mormon World View

The Art of Mormon Storytelling

  1. Gabi Kupitz, “‘Let Your Light So Shine’: Dean Hughes and the Mormonisms in His Fiction”
  2. Patricia Truxler Cannon, “Ann Edwards Cannon Takes On Motherhood, Martha Stewart, and Marriage”
  3. Gideon Buron, “Turning Hearts Turns Sour: High Aspirations and Low Achievement in Orson Scott Card and David Dollahite’s LDS Short Story Anthology”

Evening Social: Home of Karen Moloney

AML Session at Sunstone Symposium

Salt Lake City, June 9, 1998

The Official Declaration of September 30, 1978: Two Reconsiderations. Lisa Bickmore, Chair

  1. Margaret Blair Young, “June 9, 1998”
  2. Eugene England, “Playing in the Dark: Mormons Writing About Black and Blackness”

AML Fundraiser

Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Salt Lake City, September 24, 1998

Paul Alan Cox, “Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rain Forest”

1999

AML Annual Conference

Gore Auditorium, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 20, 1999

Session I: The Mormon Literary Family and Literary Ecology

John Bennion, “Esther Anne and Me: An Essay into Boundaries”

John Needham, “Unable to Hide in the Certainty Anymore: Phyllis Barber’s How I Got Cultured as Literary Family Album”

Janet Garrard Willis, “Dessert Phoenix”

Brandie Siegfried, “Thoughts on an Ecology of Meditation”

Session II: A Diverse Gathering of Mormon Poets (Readings)

Robert Christmas, Robert Hogge, Lance Larsen, Scott Samuelson

Presidential Address: Neal W. Kramer, “Heart, Mind, and Soul: The Power of Mormon Letters” (later published as “Heart, Mind, and Soul: The Ethical Foundation of Mormon Letters”

Session III: “I’ll Take Mormon Potpourri for 200, Alex”: Folklore, Theatre, and Popular Culture

Kristi Bell, “Is Dating One Big Jack Weyland Novel?”

David Allred, “Reflections and Deflections: Austin and Alta Fife and Mormon Ethnography”

Melinda Mathes Wolfer, “Po-Mo-Mo(rmonism):The Quintessence of Samuelsenism”

Eric Samuelsen, “Typically Mormon: Neil Labute, Johnny Whitaker, Donny and Marie and the Mormonizing of Popular Culture”

Session IV: A Critical Culture

Carolynne Durland, “When Athens and Jerusalem Meet: How A Mormon Should Read ‘Whole Other Bodies'”

Richard Y. Thurman, “A Most Remarkable Work: R. Paul Cracroft’s A Certain Testimony: A Mormon Epic”

Gideon Burton, “The Unerasable Mormonism of Lance Larsen’s Erasable Walls”

Richard Cracroft, “Samuel Woolley Taylor: Mormon (Literary)Maverick”

Harlow Clark, “Those Who Hunger and Thirst after Writeousness”

Buffet and readings of AML Award winners at the home of Ken and Ann Edwards Cannon.

Rocky Mountain MLA

Boise, October, 1999

Gae Lynn Henderson, “‘I Love You.’ Invitation or Demand?: Revelatory Marriage Proposals in Mormon Fiction”

Lisa Tait, Home literature paper

Writer’s Conference

Sorenson Student Center Ballroom, UVSC, Nov. 13, 1999. “Finding a Voice.”

Carol Ottesson, chair. Carol Lynch Williams, Cheri Earl, John Bennion, Henry Miles, Tory Anderson, Quinn Warnick, Ryan Rauzon, organizers.

Plenary speaker: Louise Plummer, “Doesn’t Everyone Hear Voices?”

Chris Crowe and Gabi Kupitz, “What’s Hot and What’s Not”

Tessa Meyer Santiago, “Trying to Find the Middle Place: publishing in This People”

Elbert Peck, “Publishing in a Church-Related Magazine”

Levi Peterson, “One Novel, Three Backsliders”

Eric Samuelsen, Tim Slover, “Contemporary Mormon Theater”

Dave Wolverton, “Is There a Place for Science Fiction in the Mormon Market?”

Launi Anderson, “True Lies, Writing Children’s Historical Fiction for the LDS Market”

Jerry Johnston, “Vox Populi–Learning to Palaver”

Paul Rawlins, “How Not to Write a Story: or How Art Doesn’t Imitate Life After All”

Josh Brady, “Though Now Low in Earth” (About the creation of a Mormon drama)

John Bennion, Carol Lynch Williams, Cheri Earl, Chris Crowe, “Building a Private Writing Community: Critique Groups”

Ann Cannon, Carol Lynch Williams, “The Voices in Young Adult and Middle Grade Novels”

Don Norton. “Composing Personal and Family Histories”

Dean Hughes, “The Nuts and Bolts of Writing (Especially the Nuts!)” (Focus on the business of writing: submissions, manuscripts, agents, contracts, etc.)

Lance Larsen, “Coaxing the Muse: Writing as Revision”

Jaroldeen Edwards, “Who Will Hear My Voice”

Cory Maxwell, Paul Rawlins, Emily Watts, “Many Voices, One Company: The New Deseret Book” (Deseret Book after the merger with Bookcraft)

Carolyn Campbell, “When Your Voice Illuminates the Dark Realms of the Dream” (Writing about forbidden topics such as infidelity, divorce, and dissension in LDS lives)

Gideon Burton, “A Short History of LDS Publishing”

Eugene England, “Saving Your Soul with the Mormon Personal Essay”

Plenary session: Carol Lynn Pearson, “Listening to the Oracle.”

2000

AML Annual Conference

Gore Auditorium, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 19, 2000. “The Tradition”

Session One–Traditional Expressions of Conscience and Charity

  1. Laura Bush, “Combating Race and Religious Prejudice Through
    Spiritual Autobiography in Wynetta Willis Martin’s
    “Black Mormon Tells Her Story“
  2. Kristin Bell, “Mary Pondered: The Power of Mothers’ Narratives
  3. Sheree Bench, “‘Woman Arise!’ Political Work in the Writings
    of Lu Dalton”
  4. Margaret Young, “‘Is There No Blessing for Me?’: The Relentless Jane Manning James”

Session Two–The Tradition of Poetic Imagination and Fantasy in Mormon Letters

  1. Marilyn Brown, “Traditional Misperception of Zion: John Milton and the Crystal City in Hatrack River”
  2. Ivan Wolfe, “Not Another Orson Scott Card Paper: Elizabeth
    Boyer and Leonard Tourney”
  3. Lee Allred, “Projecting the Other: The ‘Mormon Question’ in
    Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain“

Session Three–Panel “There’s a Multitude of Children All Around”: The Place of Children’s and Young Adult Fiction Within the Mormon Literary Tradition

Moderator: Sharlee Mullins Glenn. Panelists: Rick Walton, Carol Lynch Williams, and Dean Hughes

Presidential Address – John Bennion, “‘All Is Well in Zion’?: Publishing Among the Gentiles” (published in Irreantum, Summer 2000)

Session Four, A Tradition of Excellence: Mormon Women Novelists  (Co-sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council)

  1. Eric Eliason, “The ‘Mormon Magical Realism’ of Phyllis Barber: Parting the Veil with Folkloric Literature
  2. Eugene England, “Maurine Whipple’s The Giant Joshua: The Greatest Mormon Novel but not the Great Mormon Novel”
  3. Susan Howe, “Virginia Sorensen’s A Little Lower Than the Angels and John A. Widtsoe’s A Lesson in Literary History“
  4. Richard Cracroft, “A Preliminary Look at Anne Perry’s Tathea”

Session Five, A Tradition of Criticism

  1. Kevin Klein, “The Mantle of the Poet: Reappraising Clinton F. Larson”
    Gideon Burton–Traditions of LDS Publishing
  2. Anne Billings, “‘Your Grandma Makes Green Jell-O Salad,
    Too?’: The Rhetorical Function of Mormon Humor”
  3. Harlow Clark, “Stories Worth Telling”

Buffet and Reading by 2000 AML Award Winners at the home of Ken and Ann Edwards Cannon

Writers’ Conference

Utah Valley State College, Student Center, Orem, Utah, November 4, 2000

Featuring seminars on fiction, nonfiction, film and theater, the craft of writing, poetry, music, and more, plus some special performances. Featuring Richard Dutcher, Margaret Young, Kenny Kemp, and Kristen Randle.

9:00 – Extending the Culture
Plenary session with Gideon Burton, Neal Kramer, and Eric Eliason

10:00 – Breakout sessions:
Is it okay to write about God?
Personal essay
Songwriting
Characterization and dialogue
Literature readings

11:00 – Breakout sessions:
LDS fiction: What’s the next phase?
Writing family histories
Poetry: What’s the point when no one reads the stuff?
1,000 ideas in an hour

12:00 – Lunch break (optional lunch available)

1:00 – Plenary session with novelist Dean Hughes

2:00 – Breakout sessions:
Faith meets fantasy: The Harry Potter syndrome
Self-publishing and electronic publishing
Appealing to the LDS audience
Plot and structure
Performance: “I Am Jane”

3:00 – Breakout sessions:
Historical fiction
Separating gospel from culture: How to criticize LDS culture without losing your temple recommend
Writing scripts for film and theater
How to publish the next LDS blockbuster
Literature readings

4:00 – Extending the Depth and Breadth of Our Culture. Plenary session with Margaret Young and Darius Gray

2001

AML Conference

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, February 24, 2001

Theme: “Zion and New York: Bridges and Innovations”

Some of the papers can be found here.

Plenary Session: Charting the Future from the Past: A History of the Association for Mormon Letters
Steven Sondrup and Gideon Burton

(Published as A History of the Association for Mormon Letters Literary Awards — Gideon Burton)

Drama and Poetry:

Worth a few bad dreams: Toward a Mormon aesthetic
Tim Slover

Sunstone Magazine and Twenty Years of Contemporary Mormon Poetry
Susan Elizabeth Howe

National Trends in Poetry
Lisa Bickmore

Mormon Culture

Foodways among the Mormons
Kristi Bell

Mark Twain, Polygamy, and the Origin of an American Motif
Eric A. Eliason

The Lost Tribes of Mormon Science Fiction Literature: Battlestar Galactica
Ivan A. Wolfe

Children and Young Adult

Then and Now: A Survey of Mormon Young Adult Writers
Jesse S. Crisler and Chris Crowe

Louise Plummer: Local Grasshopper Makes Good
Anne Billings

LDS Picture-Book Authors and Illustrators Publishing in the National Market
Rick Walton

Faith, Reading, Philosophy

Emerson as Radical Restorationist
John-Charles Duffy

Job Revisited: Discussion of a Tim Slover Story
Cherry B. Silver

Socrates Stretched on Ion’s Racke
Harlow Soderborg Clark

The Novel

God-Finding in the Twenty-First Century: Alan Rex Mitchell’s Angel of the Danube and John Bennion’s Falling toward Heaven
Richard H Cracroft

Writing Dixie: Marilyn Arnold’s Desert Trilogy
Douglas D. Alder

A Historical Survey of LDS Fiction: The Lee Library Collection
Connie Lamb and Robert S. Means

Presidential Address: Girl in Transition: An Authentic Mormon Letter
Marilyn Brown

Religion and Literature

The Inner Other: Sharing Testimony through Personal Experiences
Kristen Allred

The Last American Refuge of Religious Literature: Card and Science Fiction
Valerie Buck

National Christian fiction and publishing: Models for LDS lit?
Gideon Burton

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Orson Scott Card
Eugene England (read by Gideon Burton)

The Family in Literature

“Unto The Third and Fourth Generations”: The Influence and Community of Families in Virginia Sorensen’s The Evening and the Morning
Kelly Thompson

Imagining Mormon Marriage, Part 2: Toward a “Marriage Group” of Contemporary Mormon Stories
Bruce W. Jorgensen

“The Holy Cords Too Intrinse to Unloose”: Mormon Families in Life and Fiction
Bruce W Young with Remarks by Margaret Blair Young

Plenary Session: Expressing Faith: A Literary Legacy
Chieko N Okazaki

Rocky Mountain MLA

Vancouver, October 13, 2001

Neila C. Seshachari, “The Quest of Essences as an Archaic Religious Quest: Terry Tempest Williams’s Interrogation of Faith, Art and Earthly Life in Leap”

AML LDS Writers’ Conference

Thanksgiving Point, Lehi, Utah, November 3, 2001

“Mission Impossible: Breaking New Ground in LDS Literature”

Join Richard Dutcher and Kenny Kemp at the Third Annual AML LDS Writers’ Conference, the only writers conference specifically designed for authors of LDS literature. Dutcher will conduct a Q&A session on LDS art in general, and another on film making for the LDS audience. Kemp will discuss his experiences in self-publishing, in going with a national book publisher, and what advantages and disadvantages either approach offer. He will also conduct a nuts-and-bolts seminar on self-publishing. Additionally, we will have other guests prominent in LDS literature, film, and theater giving presentations and instructional workshops for those who are or aspire to be published authors, or who are interested in LDS film and theater production. These include Paris Anderson, Paul Bishop, Marilyn Brown, Gideon Burton, Carolyn Campbell, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Thom Duncan, Sharlee Glenn, Tyler Moulton, Scott Parkin, Kevin Rand, Eric Samuelsen, Eric Snider, and Dave Wolverton.

2002

AML Conference

Westminster College, Salt Lake City, March 2, 2002

Theme: “Walking the Tightrope: Mormon Writers and Their Audiences”

All of the papers can be found here.

Presidential Address: Cherry Silver, “Elegant Angst: Mining the Treasures of Mormon Personal Essays”

The Quest of Essences as an Archaic Religious Quest: Terry Tempest Williams’s Interrogation of Faith, Art and Earthly Life in Leap  
Neila C. Seshachari (Neila passed away eight days after giving this paper)

Tension of the Opposites: John Bennion’s Falling Toward Heaven
Gae Lyn Henderson

Mormoniad: The Book of Mormon as Proto-Epic
Peter J. Sorensen

Great Plots Leap over Many a Tightrope
Lael Littke

Saturday’s Warriors: Winning the Popular Market
Doug Stewart

Saturday’s Warriors: The Pioneering Art of the Mormon Ethos
Noreen Astin

Serpents in Our Midst: What Brigham City Tells Us about Ourselves
John-Charles Duffy

Stuck Somewhere before the Golden Age: The Two LDS Science Fiction Markets
Ivan A. Wolfe

Mapping Manifest Destiny: The Paintings of Lucile Cannon Bennion
John Serge Bennion

“I Love You.” Invitation or Demand?: Revelatory Marriage Proposals in Mormon Fiction
Gae Lyn Henderson

Strong Enough to Face the Dark
Carolyn Campbell

What the Mormon Audience Wants: Telling Our Story with Stories
Lawrence Flake

Panel: Walking the Tightrope: Mormon Audiences
Tyler Moulton, moderator, Chris Bigelow, Terry Jeffress, Marilyn Arnold, Jerry Johnston, and Margaret Blair Young

The Critical Divide: Where and Why Mormon Literary Criticism Needs a National Audience
Gideon O. Burton