Segullah

Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured

Built like Grandma…

I am built like my Grandma Cannon. I would always marvel when we laid our hands side by side. They looked like hands from the same person – hers because they were so young looking for her ninety-five years and mine because they looked so old. I have inherited her extreme short-waist, her high forehead, [...]

How?

Ever feel overwhelmed? Yeah, I thought so. Me too. But really, what overwhelms me? Keeping my house clean? Getting the mountain of laundry done? Feeding everyone something new and interesting each day? Finding time to do something “grown-up”? Doesn’t it all seem a little, well, silly?
I’m so bothered about it all. What on earth [...]

An Infomercial

Christopher is my husband. I call him Chup on my own blog. Anyway, Christopher (my husband) is a quiet guy, unless he is talking about high-end sports cars, but generally he keeps things on the down low.I, on the other hand, suffer from an Unquiet Heart and I “Go Tell It On the Mountian” to [...]

Sonnet Contest!

Standards will be that of an English Sonnet (sorry to those who adore others, we had to narrow the field somehow).
Deadline: Monday, April 30th.
Have fun and play within the lines– like within the gospel, where there are rules that we hold sacred, but a lot of breadth of scope in our [...]

I Want it All

Often it happens in the early mornings while I’m studying. Or after a busy day of kids’ activities, preschool, grad school, therapy. I’ll notice it start with a quiver, a tiny movement that stops my eyes mid-sentence. Or I’ll detect a tiredness in my back that seeps through my arms making them [...]

p.o.e.t.r.y.

Between driving back and forth to the hospital (my hubby had an emergency appendectomy on Wednesday) and studying for finals, my illustrious agenda for National Poetry Month has been neglected. Don’t worry, we are going to hold another poetry contest next week (Rock. on. Rick. Walton). But, in the meantime, I thought I’d [...]

Weak Words Made Strong

I gave my first and only poetry reading when I was seven years old at a ward talent show. I wore my yellow bathrobe and a pair of black glasses I made out of a pipe cleaner, so that I would look distinguished. And I recited my second-grade poetry, dancing around for emphasis [...]

The Art of Self-Centeredness in Motherhood

First question people always ask me, “How many children do you have?”
Second question people always ask me,”What was your mom’s secret to raising children?”
She must’ve had a secret, she had nine babies and didn’t go insane. But if you ask her she’ll reply “I was just sent wonderful spirits!
But I answer, “She was self-centered.”

Mormon. Tabernacle.

Q: What’s pudgy, bony, stinky, sensuous, frail, mighty, and beautiful?
A: Your body.
True, it hurts, it sweats, it tends to break down when you need them most. But it is also miraculous. A divine gift, a divine dwelling-pace. The mortal body is something to rejoice about.
Join us in the celebration! Read our brand-new spring issue,  Tabernacles: The Mortal Body. 
Print [...]

Everybody ought to have a body . . .a body is the only way to go!

Last year I started to run for exercise. I’ve been an exerciser my whole life. As a young teenager I started doing aerobics videos with my mom and biking everywhere with my friends. During college I learned how to weight lift with my sister, enrolled in swimming, participated in an intramural aerobic/kickboxing class, and took [...]

Sound the trumpets!

We’re pleased to announce the honorees for Segullah’s 2006 literary contests. These works will be published in our Summer 2007 issue, coming in July. The deadline for our 2007 contests is December 31. Get writing!
Heather Campbell Personal Essay Contest
Winner ($100 prize): Honor in the Ordinary by Lisa Rumsey Harris
Honorable Mention: Finding Myself on Google [...]

Quilters Unite! (by May 15th)

We are currently accepting art submissions for the summer issue of Segullah, Patchwork.
Interested?
We are looking for digital photographs of quilts, hand or machine pieced and hand quilted.
Please send the digital files (including a photograph of the entire quilt as well as cameos/close-ups of individual squares/patterns) to art@segullah.org.
Deadline: May 15th, 2007

Liberty, Privileges, Women, Saints?

“Do you know of any place on the face of the earth, where [a] woman has more liberty, and where she enjoys such high and glorious privileges as she does here, as a Latter-day Saint?”
—Eliza R. Snow, as quoted by Bonnie D. Parkin in the last General Conference.  If you want to see her reference [...]

Hard Things

I watched my girls at gymnastics class last night. They were running, jumping, flipping, balancing, the works. I watched them fall, a lot. Man, it looked painful. They didn’t seem to much mind. OK, here’s where I wax philosophical — I watched them do, or rather try to do, really hard things. They kept [...]

Stop Murmur. Learn Doctrine. Do Crafts (if you want.)

As it turns out, our church doesn’t have any doctrine about crafts. I use crafts to describe anything in our LDS culture that isn’t backed by official gospel truth. Crafts (and the craft culture) are just optional and perhaps, unnecessary.

Calling All Writers

The deadline for Segullah’s fall issue is April 21st. Check out our submission guidelines. We’re hoping to read your essays and poetry on the topic of consecration.

That Thy Days May Be Long

I go downstairs to grab a can of mushrooms, and stop for a second to talk to Dad, my father”“in-law. He’s watching the news, reclined in his chair, legs shaking. I know why they’re shaking: because the pain he lives with is too intense for his bones to contain, and so he shakes. [...]

Haiku Away!

It’s National Poetry Month and here at Segullah we’re celebrating by hosting another poetry challenge. We were delighted by the response to our limerick contest in March and would now like to put out a call for haikus.
To refresh your memory, a haiku is a very short poem consisting of 17 syllables divided into [...]

A Swollen Eye and a Simple Lesson

Do you ever wonder about the Israelites who refused to look at Moses’ serpent and be healed? The Book of Mormon teaches us that all they had to do was to look. Why didn’t they do it? It was too simple.
A few years ago, my son was ill, and after a couple of days [...]

A Minivan Full

I loved President Faust’s talk about forgiveness this past Conference Weekend. His humble delivery made everyone put down the hashbrowns for a second and really listen.

You’re famous (by association)

Ok, so maybe not “famous,” since I’m not famous. But I was on NPR the other day, reading an essay I wrote as part of the Listener Commentary series. And since you know Segullah, and I know Segullah, you therefore know me. Kind of. And with that, here are a vicarious fifteen minutes of broadcast [...]

FREE Literary Conference

The 2007 Conference of the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) will be held this Saturday, April 7, at the UVSC Computer Science Building in Orem, Utah.
8:30-9:00 am 
Registration
9:00-10:00 am
Welcome by AML President Linda Adams 
Plenary Session: “Making Connections, Growing the Field” by Rick Walton
10:15-11:45 am
Choice of sessions: Fostering Artistically Informed Criticisms and Critically Informed Art, [...]