I fear a Man of frugal Speech–
I fear a Silent Man–
Haranguer–I can overtake–
Or Babbler–entertain–
But He who weigheth–While the Rest–
Expend their furthest pound–
Of this Man–I am wary–
I fear that He is Grand–
–Emily Dickinson
I am the product of a long line of opinionated, flawed, and strong women. My grandmother, who stubbornly lived to be 93 years-old, [...]

Mormon culture. Utah culture. Ack. We all, even us living in Utah, sometimes cringe at the topic. Let’s be frank here, we are wierdos. I grew up in Michigan, not living the culture so much, but even there: Mormons? Strange. We’ve got strange language, strange meetings, strange rituals. To say we are peculiar really isn’t [...]

Well I will tell you what, I just love a good Conference Weekend.
I love a break from our regularly scheduled meetings. Having church from my step-down lounge is a very nice perk of being a Mormon. I always wear my General Conference Best Pajamas and wash all the General Conference Blankets in the house so [...]

Do you ever know? I mean, really know?

“‘The beautiful things we shall write if we have talent,’ Proust says, ‘are inside us, indistinct, like the memory of a melody which delights us though we are unable to recapture its outline. Those who are obsessed by this blurred memory of truths they have never known [...]

Editor’s Note: This is another (very welcome) guest post from Emily M.

The Book of Mormon mentions five women by name: Sariah, Abish, Isabel, Eve, and Mary. It refers, without naming, to various wives (of Nephi and his brothers, of King Lamoni, of Jacob’s philandering people); to an abused servant girl of a dissenting army leader; [...]

When I was 9 years old, my family was sitting on the front bench in Sacrament Meeting. My Mom, probably occupied with a baby, asked me to tell her what page the opening hymn was on. I looked up and couldn’t see it. “I don’t know. It’s too far away,” I [...]

Because I am the sort of saint who attends the Young Women Open Houses on Temple Square every six months, I went on opening day (which was also yesterday.) I found a comfortable (I am lying. Those benches are a tight two inches away from each other and I am shortest person I know. Just [...]

Our own Sharlee Mullins Glenn accepted the Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award in February for her new book, “Keeping Up with Roo.” I have included a copy of her acceptance speech below. You can also read an article about Sharlee from the Deseret News here.
An acquaintance of mine [...]

Editor’s Note: Emily Milner graduated from BYU in Comparative Literature and now lives in Lindon, Utah with her three kids and husband. She has spent much of this past year nursing a new baby while reading the Wall Street Journal.
Three weeks after I returned from my mission to Ecuador I received a [...]

When I was young, my father told me I could “be” anything.
I believed him.

At Segullah, we are always on the lookout for good poetry to publish. So, what exactly is good poetry? I think most of us are better at enjoying it than defining it, but here are three of my favorite attempts, all from the poet, Carl Sandburg:
“Poetry is the opening and closing of a [...]

I learned as a missionary the art of avoiding past transgressions. But I am about to drop a current transgression. This is how I’d like this to work: I will vent. Then you, (you, reader person) can one of two things; you can agree with me, or you can help me resolve my disparaging attitude.
Any [...]

My husband invited a couple we know and their two kids to come home to Utah with us for Christmas.  He didn’t ask me first.  As you can imagine, this caused some tension.   But that will have to be a story for another day.  I have forgiven him and he will never do it again!!!
Let [...]

Sometimes I do stupid things. When my nine year old son was two, we would occasionally walk his sister to kindergarten. One day on our walk home, I was chatting with a neighbor and my toddler was screeching and twisting in the stroller, struggling to get out.

Editor’s Note: Heather Bergevin is Segullah’s Poetry Editor, resident comic, and long-distance hug giver. This poem was written for her mother’s 51st birthday. Lucky Mom, lucky us.
51
peering at her cradled blue
berry eyes in round muffin face
and suckling mouth—
I have read that she
does not realize yet her
separation, having been so long
part of our twin [...]

Oh My Dear Brothers and Sisters!
We have got it all wrong.

“I’m bored. I’m so excruciatingly bored that I can’t stand it.”

I tried to muster up some sympathy as Don looked up at me piteously.

“I need to be splitting wood. I want to be outside working. Last night I had a dream that we were vagabonds, wandering the streets, sleeping on other people’s front yards. In [...]

“Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.”
—-Derek Walcott from his essay, “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory.”

Last Saturday I was sitting in a Catholic Mass in Naples, Florida. This is probably the only time in my life when I will be able to say that.