By Cherie Taylor Pedersen
From the editor: This piece contains poetry and journal excerpts from the author’s ancestors. The spelling and punctuation have been left in their original forms for authenticity. ’Neath persecutions road we smartFor pilgrims pathway roamFrom loving wives and children partAnd leave our much-loved home.’Tis true we neither drink nor swearNor enemies dispelTreat others kindly everywhereAnd …
By Mauri Pollard Johnson
Last May, only one month after I had been discharged from an eating disorder treatment center, it rained eleven out of twenty-three days before I stopped counting. This weather may be typical for some but not in my home state of Utah. Of course, rain is expected during Spring—how else would the withered tree branches …
By Katie Whitworth
Dear friend of my mom who screamed at her to keep giving me CPR even though my mom thought I was already dead, My mom had good reason to believe I was dead as she looked down at my purplish-bluish-gray body, bloated with the water I had swallowed on my way down to the bottom …
By Amanda Erdmann
I. Comedy Here is a story I love to tell at parties: On a sunny cold day in March, while I sat folding laundry, a fully grown male pheasant crashed into my living room window and died on my patio. I called my husband who was working in the hospital and asked him what to …
By LeAnne Bingham Hansen
“…was blind, but now I see.” One Sunday, as I was driving back to Kansas from my daughter’s home in Houston, I stopped to attend a sacrament meeting at a tiny chapel just two miles off the freeway. I slipped in during the opening hymn and took a seat on the back row of folding …
By Bridget Verhaaren
The Teton County Sheriff stands as a sentinel on the crest of the slope in his UPS brown-colored pants, his sheriff’s badge worn on the left side of his taupe button-down, long-sleeve shirt. Rob’s friend Dave stands beside him in his black spandex cycling shorts and royal blue Contender jersey, now stained with …
By Sherilyn Stevenson
Let all things be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14:40 New York City calls. I’ll soon move from little Ogden, Utah to join my husband who lives and works one hour north of The Big Apple. One daughter already lives and attends university in Manhattan. My visits over the past 18 months are …
By Shari Crall
As the night darkened, the wind blew. Leaves swirled, flooding the street. A giant sycamore leaf hurtled toward the windshield causing me to duck. We got home and battened down the hatches as best we could. I checked our emergency supplies. This was the kind of wind that knocked things out. This was the kind …
By Emily Debenham
As a lifelong fan of Mormon Literature, who spent a decade writing book reviews, I’ve had deep thoughts about the role of critics in our culture, specifically in Mormon literary culture. Back when I was a ‘wise’ college senior, I thought writing reviews would help improve how people viewed the work of LDS artists. During …
By Sherrie Gavin
Little Golden Books. I bet that right now, you can picture at least one Little Golden Book that you read or had read to you as a child. The square shape, the gold and black binding, the watercolour art that with a child’s imagination seemed to leap off of the page. I can still see …