CULTIVATING MORMON LITERATURE & OTHER GARDENS
The Annual Conference of Association for Mormon Literature & the Mormon Scholars in the Humanities, 2025
May 28-30, 2025
Snow College
Ephraim, UT
For digital version: mormonscholars.net
Program
| Wednesday, May 28 |
4:00 – 6:00 pm: Ranch visit with Lowell Bennion discussion led by George Handley and English Brooks (Birch Creek Ranch)
7:00 – 8:00 pm: Cream Soda Social (Huntsman Library Plaza (TBD))
| Thursday, May 29 |
8:00 – 8:45 am Registration (Huntsman Library 101)
9:00 – 10:20 am What is Mormon Literature? Gary Ettari, Martha Petersen, Steven L. Olsen. Moderator: Michael Austin
9:00 – 10:20 am An Embodied Mormon Corpus. John Alba Cutler, Madison Tenney. Moderator: Tod Robbins
10:30 – 11:50 am The Seeds of Mormon Genre. Nicole Wilkes Goldberg, El Call, Emma Tueller Stone. Moderator: Diana Brown
10:30 – 11:50 am Offshoots: Tangentially Mormon Authors. Stephen Carter, Heidi Naylor, Reid Neilson. Moderator: Tod Robbins
12:00 – 1:20 pm Lunch Break, or Brown Bag Lunch and Walking Tour of Local Monuments (English Brooks and Erik Freeman)
1:30 – 2:50 pm Backyard Gardening, Home Literatures. James Goldberg, Rachel Helps, Scott Hales. Moderator: Kristine Haglund
1:30 – 2:50 pm Latter-day Eloquence: Oratory and Other Airborne Seeds. Isaac Richards, Rosalynde Welch, Benjamin Peters, Bob Rees, Tyler Andersen. Moderator: Isaac Richards
3:00 – 4:20 pm Cultivating Global Literary Gardens. Rex Richard Wilkins (remote), Gabriel González Núñez, Michelle Graabek-Wallace. Moderator: Kristine Haglund
3:00 – 4:20 pm Repotting, Replotting Mormon Rhetoric. Rosalyn Eves, John S. Bennion, (prerecorded) Andrew May. Moderator: James Egan
4:30 – 5:50 pm Mormon Poetry in the Cosmological Garden: Poets Read Creative Work. Darlene Young, Isaac Richards, Susan Elizabeth Howe, Scott Hales. Moderator: Michael Austin
4:30 – 5:50 pm Literary Approaches to the Book of Mormon. Rachel Helps, Kylie Turley, Steve Peck. Moderator: John Alba Cutler
6:00 – 7:15 pm Keynote Presentation – If You Want a Future, Darlin’ Why Don’t You Get a Past?: Notes On a Mormon Literary Tradition. Michael Austin. Moderator: James Goldberg
8:30 – 9:30 pm Listening Party: “Singing Scripture Secular? The Bible in the Songwriting of Josh Ritter”. James Egan, Ryan Davis
| Friday, May 30 |
8:00 – 8:50 am Granola & Grad School: Breakfast Workshop (with Remote Access). Shawn Tucker
9:00 – 10:20 am What Happened to Mormon Literature at BYU? Susan Howe, John Bennion, Margaret Blair Young. Moderator: Michael Austin
9:00 – 10:20 am Philosophical Roots & Branches. Andrew Petersen, Thomas Hilton, Catie Nielson. Moderator: Steven Peck
10:30 – 11:50 am Writing as a Mormon Woman Today. Richelle Wilson, Kristine Haglund, Mary Favro. Moderator: Catie Nielson
10:30 – 11:50 am Turning the Soil: Stewardship and Ecotheology. David Gore, Christopher (Chip) Oscarson, Steven Peck. Moderator: Benjamin Peters
1:30 – 2:50 pm Grafting Individual Authors. Brigham Barnes, Jaroslav Kusnir, Samuel Mitchell. Moderator: Richelle Wilson
1:30 – 2:50 pm Companion Planting: Wayfare Magazine. Zachary Davis, Jeanine Bee, Benjamin Peters, et al. Moderator: Nicole Issac
3:00 – 4:20 pm “Miltons of Our Own”: A History of the Great Mormon Epic
Liz Busby, Kent Larson, Rachel Helps, Zach Hutchins. Moderator: Gerrit VanDyk
3:00 – 4:20 pm Topiaries: Mormon Visual Art & Architecture. Jenny Champoux, Amanda Buessecker Taylor (remote), Ben Felix. Moderator: Diana Brown
4:30 – 5:50 pm AML-MSH Awards Ceremony
Closing Words & Next Steps
Full Program
| Thursday, May 29 |
9:00 – 10:20 am 1a What is Mormon Literature?
Presenters: Gary Ettari, Martha Petersen, Steven L. Olsen
Moderator: Michael Austin
Gary Ettari. ‘The Word Made Flesh’: Mormon Literature, the Body, and the Limits of Literary Tradition
This paper addresses two compelling (and seemingly contradictory) questions in the Conference’s CFP: What spadework needs to be done in order to create a fuller, flowering maturation and harvest of Mormon literature? and Should there be a Mormon literature? These questions hint at the underlying tension at the heart of attempting to both define and create a Mormon literature. Defining a specific literary tradition inevitably, for example, implies both inclusion and exclusion: e.g. is there literature that contains Mormon elements, but is not “Mormon enough”? Another question concerns whether a distinctly Mormon literature can or should appeal to a wider audience. Does Mormon literature necessarily always exclude non-Mormon readers? This paper suggests a way to navigate the Mormon/non-Mormon literary divide lies in two fundamental aspects of Mormon theology: the body and Mormon Universalism. Drawing upon the work of neuroscientist Patrick McNamara, Mormon theologian Terryl Givens, and others, I posit that the way to cultivate Mormon literature is to embrace what I term the Mormon Universalist theology of the body. This particular theology, one based on physiological and theological commonalities, permits the continuing cultivation of a uniquely Mormon literature while at the same time offering an aesthetically compelling appeal to a larger audience. By combining the neuroscience of religion with the Universalist elements of Mormonism, I suggest that Mormon literature is uniquely positioned to grow and prosper among both Mormon and non-Mormon audiences alike.
Martha Petersen. Goodness Knows Nothing of Beauty: Tending Mormon Writing through an Open Aesthetic
In 1977 Spencer W. Kimball referenced Orson Whitney’s prediction of Mormon Miltons and Shakespeares and argued for the nurturing of Mormon writers. “Could there be among us embryo poets?” he asked, and suggested Latter-day Saints could surpass writers such as Goethe. At the same time, he referred to several well-regarded artists as “perverts” and “moral degenerates,” promising even greater works from Latter-day Saints who were “clean and free from the vices, and thus entitled to revelation.” Almost fifty years later, where is Mormon literature? Our values-based aesthetic, whether from Church culture or personal preferences, circumscribes an honest, objective look at the human condition, sacrificing painful or offensive experiences to remain “of good report.” An open aesthetic, on the other hand, removes boundaries, sometimes at risk to fragile faith. William Gass contended, in his essay “Goodness Knows Nothing of Beauty,” that morality and art occupy separate spheres. In his words, “Artistic quality depends upon a work’s internal, formal, organic character, upon its structure and its style, and not upon the morality it is presumed to recommend.” In this presentation I will argue Gass’ case. Drawing on my experience teaching creative writing to undergraduates and coaching individual writers, including Latter-day Saints, I will show that a values-based aesthetic, while meant to protect, rather prevents creative development, blocking the growth of any “Mormon Miltons or Shakespeares” We should envision a new kind of Mormon writing—an unfenced garden allowed to grow wild, full of thistles and weeds, overgrown, and far east of Eden.
Steven L. Olsen. Crafting the Book of Mormon Text Using a Key Literary Convention of Biblical Hebrew
According to Professor Robert Alter, “It is a general principle of biblical narrative that a character’s first recorded speech has a particular defining force of characterization,” (The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, p. 158, n. 1). Emerging from the ancient Near East, the Book of Mormon may exemplify this widespread convention of biblical poetics. The present study examines the consequences and implications for the Nephite record of the first recorded words spoken by God to Nephi (1 Nephi 2:19-24). This communication establishes a defining covenant with Lehi’s extended family. Consistent with the standard binary form of most biblical covenants, the covenant with Nephi is distinguished by a non-negotiable condition (keeping God’s commandments), promised blessings for obedience (prospering in a land of promise and leading the covenant community), and curses for disobedience (isolation, powerlessness, and being scourged “in the ways of remembrance”). This study illustrates the extent to which Nephi crafts his ‘Small Plates’ record according to the terms of this covenant, using it to (1) clarify key roles of the main characters and social groups, (2) structure the historical narrative, and (3) define core cultural values and identities. In his turn, Mormon uses this covenant-based interpretive framework to abridge the surviving portion of Nephi’s ‘Large Plates.’ Thus, the principal writers of the Book of Mormon intentionally crafted their respective records consistent with a foundational covenant with God whose place in the narrative is consistent with a common convention of biblical Hebrew.
9:00 – 10:20 am 1b An Embodied Mormon Corpus
Presenters: John Alba Cutler, Madison Tenney, TBD
Moderator: Tod Robbins
John Alba Cutler. Falling into Luminosity: Lance Larsen and the Paradoxes of Attention
Attention constitutes one of the most difficult problems of contemporary life. Smartphones and digital media have fractured our ability to pay attention, with consequences for intellectual, social, and spiritual life. As scholar David Marno has shown, attention also constitutes one of the thorniest problems of the Christian tradition, where devotional exercises (prayer, most notably) depend on the seemingly impossible task of directing the mind toward God, despite its tendency to wander and in defiance of the body’s constant demands. In this paper, I offer an analysis of Lance Larsen’s poem “In a Room with Seventeen Rembrandts,” in which the poet describes being in the Rembrandt room of the Louvre, only to be distracted by a seven-year-old girl drawing a self-portrait on a portable whiteboard: “I have traveled half a planet and a case of jet lag to fall into Renaissance luminosity. Yet what pins me to this moment is an erasable face.” Remarkably, Larsen describes two different movements of attention not only as internally produced, or cultivated, but rather as externally produced. He had hoped to “fall into luminosity” and instead finds himself “pinned” to the moment. Building on Gary Ettari’s argument for Mormon aesthetics grounded in the body, I show how Larsen’s poem produces a new theory of attention as grace arising from a heightened awareness of embodiment. This theory implies one way that a specifically Mormon lyric aesthetic might prove vital to our collective spiritual life.
Madison Tenney. Queer Liturgy and Literature for Mormon Futurity
While the institutional Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints remains explicitly heterosexual and patriarchal, it offers a uniquely queer doctrine. The historiography of Joseph Smith, a 14-year-old boy who spoke to God, rejected religious authority, wrote sacred texts, and then organized a new religion, is incredibly powerful within the faith. Personal revelation sits at the core of the faith, and doctrinally, one’s connection to God supersedes any external authority. The emergence of queer LDS/Mormon liturgy and literature showcases a potential future for Mormonism and its queer members. As a queer Mormon scholar, I will present the lay of the land of queer Mormon religious literature and the unique questions that the unity of queerness and Mormon theology offer to both Mormon and Queer studies. With the focus of developing oneself within a beloved community that both fields hold sacred, I will conclude by arguing that queer methods and theories reflect the future of Mormon studies as an integral part of the field.
10:30 – 11:50 am 2a The Seeds of Mormon Genre
Presenters: Nicole Wilkes Goldberg, El Call, Emma Tueller Stone
Moderator: Diana Brown
Nicole Wilkes Goldberg. An Evolving Pedagogy: Teaching Literature of the Latter-day Saints
For decades Latter-day Saint scholars have wrestled to define the literature of the Restored Gospel. At different points, institutions have been very supportive—though at other times scholars of Latter-day Saint literature have been degraded, ignored, or even penalized. Engaging works of LDS literature have fallen into obscurity while students blindly come into class believing Latter-day Saint literature is mostly biographies of apostles or inspiring stories found in church magazines. Providing students diverse points of view as well as faith-promoting experiences enriches the study body, particularly at LDS universities. I will explore the ways centering a literature of the Latter-day Saints class on encouraging creative and personal connection can strengthen the field of LDS literature, as well as the faith of the students who learn more about their own faith more deeply.
El Call. LDS Manuals: An Untended Garden of Eden
One of the largest sources of Mormon studies data is manuals published by the LDS Church. Formal academic research using this dataset is incredibly limited, often focused on small-scale discourse analysis. A digitally-accessible corpus of manuals would provide information on curricular and pedagogical development, diachronic changes in doctrine, as well as approaches to translation. Creating such a corpus requires not only the work of collecting and cleaning data, but also the work of creating metadata structures that can accommodate a wide variety of manual styles. This paper outlines the need and use cases for a corpus of LDS Church manuals. It also presents a design document for the corpus, including how more manuals could be added in the future by other researchers.
Emma Tueller Stone. God is a Grown Up: Writing Literature for Children of God(s)
It has become a Mormon Literature truism that there is an abundance of LDS-authored works in children’s and young adult literature (CYA). In fact, much of the non-LDS attention for Mormon literature in recent years has focused on Mormon CYA, including profiles on children’s and YA authors published in The New York Times in 2013 and 2023 respectively (Oppenheimer, 2013; Aguirre, 2023). Yet, while NYT writers, CYA studies scholars (Day, 2013), and religious scholars (Crowe, 2016) alike have focused on the features of these Mormon stories (clean language, minimal sex, an interest in educating youth), there has been relatively little focus on why CYA speaks especially well to Mormon religious ideas and themes. Given the Primary song and core doctrine – that we are all children of God – I suggest that CYA is popular in Mormonism not because of a focus on children, but because of CYA’s depiction of adults as godlike entities. Using conventions of CYA and fantasy, Mormon CYA positions mere mortals as always childlike (Edelstein, 2018) – adolescent, dependent, and growing – in comparison to immortal creatures who often emulate Mormon Heavenly Parents. Looking primarily at Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga as an example, this paper posits that CYA provides a perfect venue to explore the nature of divinity (Stapley, 2017) when God is a Grown Up and young adult human protagonists are embryonic gods (Coviello, 2019) just trying to make it to adulthood unscathed.
10:30 – 11:50 am 2b Offshoots: Tangentially Mormon Authors
Presenters: Stephen Carter, Heidi Naylor, Reid Neilson
Moderator: Tod Robbins
Stephen Carter. Was May Swenson a Mormon Poet?
May Swenson, who grew up LDS in Logan, Utah, is one of America’s most unique and celebrated poets. But she stopped going to church at age 23 when she moved to New York City in 1936. “It’s not for me—religion,” she said. “It seems like a redundancy for a poet.” Are there, nevertheless, compelling reasons for considering May a Mormon poet? This paper explores both yea and nay using definitions of Mormon literature promulgated by Richard Cracroft, Bruce Jorgensen, and Orson Whitney—and then shows how May herself brought the debate to the next level.
Heidi Naylor. Hannah’s Travel: Poetry of the Plains
Pioneer heritage colors the ancestral and cultural histories of Latter-day Saints, carrying a prairie-to plains-to-Platte-to-peaks romance. We revere trimmed, idealized journal or epistolary narratives of the Mormon trail, notable in their faith-filled, matter-of-fact language. I much enjoy them, but hunger sometimes for the “real story” that can seem elusive. So, I read Richard Speakes’s chapbook Hannah’s Travel (1982, Ahsahta Press), which imagines a harrowing trek from Macune, Missouri to Ft. Laramie, Wyoming. Its linked poems span May 1851 to June 1852 in a stunning mix: fictional character (rather than poetic persona), lyric poem, and historical drama. Written in the voice and dreamspace of Hannah, it has been compared to John Berryman’s “startling [1956] masterpiece” Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (Matthews, 1982). Though not Mormon, Hannah—similarly—leaves beloved family behind for a new life “far away, in the West.” Her soul is stripped and strafed as she gives birth to and surrenders an infant daughter. Yoked to an ambitious, zealous husband who “divines loss as a task / of will,” Hannah “drive[s] me hard for the New Start, for … Last Chances & their bodies, their lives that are carried west / dragged & hauled, wheeled west / led to a bedroll at night” (30). She knows her Bible, some, but also trusts a burgeoning spiritual instinct. How do faith and character sustain and scour her journey? What can we learn from such poetry? This presentation explores and shares several Hannah poems, with a short pioneer poem of my own, after Berryman and Speakes.
Reid Neilson. A Catholic Storyteller of the Latter-day Saints: The Life and Writings of Utah Novelist John Dennis Fitzgerald, Author of Papa Married a Mormon and The Great Brain
After graduating from Utah’s Carbon High in 1923, Catholic John D. Fitzgerald set out to make his mark on life beyond the borders of his youth. “I left Utah when I was eighteen and traveled throughout the West with a jazz orchestra playing the drums,” he reminisced of his varied early careers. Fitzgerald soon started writing western and detective stories for popular pulp magazines to help financially support his family. Fitzgerald recalled, “my wife gave me a typewriter for a Christmas present. I knew what she was hinting. She wanted me to start writing novels again. I decided to write a biographical novel about my family and life in Utah as I knew it as a boy. It was a labor of love. I called it Papa Married a Mormon because my father was a Catholic and my mother a Mormon. Nobody could have been more surprised than I was when it became a bestseller.” This and his subsequent adult and juvenile novels about his real Fitzgerald family were all set in the fictitious town of Adenville, a community modeled after Mormon pioneer settlements in Utah. Basking in the overwhelming success of his first semi-autobiographical novel, Fitzgerald quit his day job as a purchasing agent and moved his family to Utah. There he wrote Mama’s Boarding House (1958) and Uncle Will and the Fitzgerald Curse (1961), the much-clamored-for sequel and prequel to Papa Married a Mormon (1955).
1:30 – 2:50 pm 3a Backyard Gardening, Home Literatures
Presenters: James Goldberg, Rachel Helps, Scott Hales
Moderator: Kristine Haglund
James Goldberg. A New Periodization of Mormon Literature
In his 1982 essay “Mormon Literature: Progress and Prospects,” Eugene England divided Mormon literary history into four periods. Forty-two years later, that periodization is overdue for an update. This presentation will introduce work by James Goldberg and Scott Hales to present an updated eight-period model that refines England’s periodization and extends it into the 21st century
Rachel Helps. Speculative Theology in Home Literature
Writers of speculative fiction have used fiction as a tool to explore ideas about possible futures. Latter-day Saint authors have done the same. Included in their speculations are ideas about their own theology. Because fiction is an expression of individual imagination, it is a permissible medium for expressions of experimental ideas. Whether or not the ideas were actually products of divine revelation, or they were simply thought experiments, they fall under the umbrella of speculative theology. I will examine speculative theology in six short stories about the postmortal life or near-death experiences, including topics like the nature of premortal and postmortal life and the visual appearance of the Holy Ghost. I will argue that Latter-day Saint writers during the Home Literature period used fiction to engage in speculation about theological ideas that were common in their culture but had not been accepted as doctrine..
Scott Hales. ‘What Good Writers Can Do’: The Beginnings of Mormon Home Literature
Critics have sometimes overlooked or dismissed Latter-day Saint “Home Literature,” or the fiction and poetry of Mormons at the turn of the twentieth century. Writing in 1894, at the height of the movement, twenty-two-year-old John A. Widtsoe observed that “Half of that which is published in our magazines is trash—written by people first, and worst, of all with no talent for writing, and who do not know the first thing about putting things together.” More sympathetic was John Henry Evans. Writing in 1912, he believed Mormonism provided writers with “the raw material for a literature absolutely unique.” Yet he believed Latter-day Saint puritanism and impatience with “that which is not fact” had kept Mormon writers from developing their artistry and producing a “pure literature.” With some recent notable exceptions (Lisa Olsen Tait, Sarah C. Reed, Michael Austin and Rachel Helps, and others), subsequent critics, while recognizing the historical import of Home Literature, have not paid it much attention. In my presentation, I will explore the beginnings of Home Literature, situating it within a context of nineteenth-century Mormonism’s aspirational self-sufficiency. Beginning with Edward Tullidge, Orson F. Whitney, Emmeline Wells, Nephi Anderson, and other proponents and producers of Home Literature, I will trace the rise of the movement, paying special attention to how it borrowed from non-Mormon models while also seeking to carve out a unique Mormon literary niche. In doing so, I will argue that Mormon Home Literature was a largely successful Mormon literary movement that merits more scholarly attention.
1:30 – 2:50 pm 3b Latter-day Eloquence: Oratory and Other Airborne Seeds
Presenters: Rosalynde Welch, Benjamin Peters, Bob Rees, Tyler Andersen
Moderator: Isaac Richards
Panel Abstract: If the garden of Mormon literature has a pervasive but beautiful weed, it might be oratory. Irritating yet charming, mundane with flashes of brilliance, and seemingly endless–the tradition of public address in Latter-day Saint history has rarely been accorded the status of “art” or “literature” as readily as fiction or poetry. And yet, as the editors and authors of Latter-day Eloquence: Two Centuries of Mormon Oratory (University of Illinois Press, under contract) contend, Mormon oratory is in fact a crucial genre of Latter-day Saint literature–certainly its most abundant–and in fact deserves more attention from critics and aesthetes as a touchstone form of quintessentially Latter-day Saint cultural and artistic expression. Affording Mormon oratory that much-deserved attention is the goal of this panel. In it, four authors contributing chapters to Latter-day Eloquence present their original research on four figures who have exhibited significant rhetorical stewardship over the garden of Mormon literature. Bob Rees reads Eugene England’s famous address “Why the Church is More True Than the Gospel,” a definitive example of why oratory belongs to the garden of Mormon arts and letters even among the fruits and flowers of other better-known genres. Likewise, Rosalynde Welch examines a well known aspect of gardening–death–and the social practice of cultivating scholarly gardens in a Maxwell Institute lecture by the late Kate Holbrook titled “The Weight of Legacy.” Tyler Andersen analyzes spiritual epistemology in Bruce R. McConkie’s legendary final testimony (“I shall not know any better then than I know now…”). Finally, in a sideways contrast to the death theme, Benjamin Peters explicates Gordon B. Hinckley’s interview with Larry King as an example of performative public leadership live on television. All told, these rhetorical analyses illustrate the centrality and importance of oratory in the Latter-day Saint humanistic tradition and in the garden of Mormon literature specifically.
3:00 – 4:20 pm 4a Cultivating Global Literary Gardens
Presenters: Rex Richard Wilkins, Gabriel González Núñez, Michelle Graabek-Wallace
Moderator: Kristine Haglund
Rex Richard Wilkins. The LDS Latino Literary Canon: A Proclamation to Global Literature
Despite the majority of Latter-day Saints living outside of the United States, the cultural hegemony enforced from within the Intermountain West upon an international institution continues to mire the possibility of a more globalized LDS identity–one that transcends geographic, linguistic, and cultural borders. Many members throughout the world crave interconnectedness with their local communities even though they often find themselves on the margins because of their religious affiliation. Moreover, they may find an Anglo-centric religious organization to be entirely alien to their lived experiences. A world of organic literary texts struggles to be born against such impositions. Yet even within these limitations there have emerged new Latter-day Saint authors, artists, and works of cultural relevance in many parts of the world, especially Latin America. While the sustained presence of the Church in Latin America has garnered impressive growth, there has been a failure to articulate a uniquely Latino identity within Church contexts precisely because the identity has been overtly mediated through institutions based in the United States. This presentation will examine how global structural inequalities prevent a flourishing of transnational cultural exchange for Latter-day Saints. It will also offer potential solutions to curtail these problems, and present a case for cultivating an emerging LDS Latino literary-cultural canon of already prominent authors from the US and Latin America. By increasing the voices of Latino Latter-day Saint voices that do not fit US-centric notions of acceptability and mannerism, the Church will be able to tap into the creative energies of Latino membership in unprecedented ways.
Gabriel González Núñez. Cultivating Translation: An Actor-Network Perspective on Translating Mormon Literature into English
Mormonism can be described as an English-dominant but ultimately multilingual faith. This is reflected in Mormon literature. Mormon literature has existed in English since the foundation of the Latter-day Saint faith. Its original production was mostly sacred in nature. Parts of it were incorporated into formal worship and became liturgical literature, as in the case of hymns. Eventually a parallel type of literature—one that can be deemed as non-liturgical—developed and flourished. As the faith becomes more international, this second type of literature—characterized by Mormons writing for Mormons about Mormon themes outside of ecclesiastical channels—has been growing in languages other than English. Metaphorically, this can be thought of as three gardens: ecclesiastical literature in English, non-ecclesiastical literature in English, non-ecclesiastical literature in languages other than English. As is well known, ecclesiastical literature has been officially translated out of English in pursuit of the purposes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since early on. However, non-ecclesiastical literature generally goes untranslated, remaining language specific. This is beginning to change, however, as a number of Spanish-language works start to appear in English through translation. This paper will apply Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, which has proven analytically useful in Translation Studies, to the slow appearance—or “sprouting,” in gardening metaphors—of Mormon literature translated form Spanish to English. This will bring to the forefront the network of oft-invisible agents that are necessary to make possible such transfer from one literature, or one garden, to another.
Michelle Graabek-Wallace. Daughters of the North: The Danish Mormon Pioneer Women in Literature
In 1873 a broadside ballad was published in Copenhagen titled ‘The Mormon Girls Complaint’, telling the tale of a Danish woman, who had been deceived and joined the Mormons, moving to Utah where she suffered much, before escaping and returning to her native Denmark where she passed away. More recently in 2017 a Danish journalist Ebbe Larsen wrote the historical novel, ‘The Journey to Zion’ about a Danish Mormon woman’s journey to Utah, and both the joy and despair she experiences in her challenges there. Since the 1860s, only a decade after the first Mormon converts in Denmark were baptized, Danish Mormon women have appeared as protagonists in both Danish and English literature, depicting their troubled experience with Mormonism in Utah. In this paper I explore Danish Mormon women as protagonists, what characterizes them, and to what extent they are given control within their own narrative, or portrayed as passive victims of fate. I also explore where their narratives conclude: what does the happy ending of a Danish Mormon woman look like in literature, or is the happy ending, by virtue of her religion, always beyond her reach?
3:00 – 4:20 pm 4b Replotting Mormon Rhetoric
Presenters: Rosalyn Eves, John S. Bennion (prerecorded), Andrew May
Moderator: James Egan
Rosalyn Eves. Cultivating Gardens in the Mountains: Mormon Women’s Domestic Rhetoric
The rugged nature of the Mountain West has often been seen as inimical to women (Comer). For men, this sublime landscape becomes a site for communion with God and/or nature—but for women, parallel divine communion most often comes in domesticated and enclosed spaces. Annette Kolodny’s study of women’s literary representations of the West demonstrates time and again the way women found their place in strange landscapes by figuring the landscape in domestic terms, most often as a garden. For Mormon women to inhabit their own spiritually endowed landscape, they had to first domesticate it. This presentation looks at poetry and essays by Mormon women (primarily from The Women’s Exponent) and explores how these women claimed spiritual authority by refiguring the mountains as a “mountain home” and encouraged the cultivation of gardens as an extension of women’s domestic space.
John S. Bennion. Many Flowers Grow from this Ground
Repeating that Mormon literature has an organic relationship with history is like saying that plants need water, so obvious it doesn’t need to be said. Foundational works such as Where Nothing Is Long Ago, Children of God, and The Giant Joshua make this clear. At a reception for Maurine Whipple not long before her death, she told me, “I made none of it up.” I assume she meant that the novel is a montage of historical events, but there are many other ways to manifest history in poetry, essays, and fiction. Most of the works on the AML list of significant Mormon literature are intimately historical: Charlotte’s Rose, Burdens of Earth, Goodbye to Poplarhaven, Hancock County, Hearts of the Children, Huebener, Mormon Country, Quicksand and Cactus, Refuge, Standing on the Promises, Under the Cottonwoods. Looking into the nature of even an obvious relationship may reveal understanding that was hidden in plain view. Why is literature from a Church founded only five generations ago uniquely historical? How does memory aid creation? How does the subversive nature of literature affect both the past and the future? How is history re-imagined? How is the impulse toward the fantastic also grounded in time and earth? How does the act of fabricating stories relate to eternal progression? For most of my writing life, I have wrestled with questions like these as I’ve mingled history and imagination, and mangled the boundary between.
Andrew May. The Power of Cross-pollinating Perspectives
The practice of cross-pollination to cultivate fruits with greater mass, firmness, sweetness, and evolutionary fitness has been a standard for horticulturists since Mendel’s discoveries in the 19th century. Cross-pollination allows immobile, siloed plants to synergistically mingle their genetic material with other hosts, thereby increasing genetic diversity and promoting flourishing. The power of this process could serve as a heuristic for fostering greater flourishing in Mormon thought. When cultivating Mormon literature and other intellectual “gardens,” the principle of cross-pollination holds the potential to generate new threads of thought, new lines of inquiry, and even new genres. Just as the intersection of linguistics and criminal justice gave birth to forensic linguistics, which helped capture the Unabomber, or how nuclear magnetic resonance in physics was combined with medicine to create the MRI machine, the possibilities for cross-disciplinary breakthroughs are as exciting as they are innumerable. This paper aims to demonstrate the applicability of cross-pollination in Mormon thought while also addressing some of the roadblocks and solutions. For instance, one challenge is taking seriously the insights of experts from other fields who might offer meaningful contributions. Another is overcoming the fear of venturing into “other people’s” domains where one may not be an expert, but where ideas may still bear fruit. Just as a basketball coach can apply principles from constraint theory in supply chain management to his offense, Mormon thought can—and will—be enriched to even greater degrees by other fields. It is only a matter of thyme before these ideas start cross-pollinating.
4:30 – 5:50 pm 5a Mormon Poetry in the Cosmological Garden: Poets Read Creative Work
Presenters: Darlene Young, Isaac Richards, Susan Elizabeth Howe, Scott Hales
Moderator: Michael Austin
Panel Abstract: In his essay “Toward a Mormon Literary Theory,” Jack Harrell takes up the long-debated question of what makes a piece of literature “Mormon.” After reviewing the famous Cracroft/Jorgensen/Burton exchange, he proposes his own theory grounded in “Mormon cosmology.” The elements of this Mormon cosmology include concepts such as God as Father who weeps over the pain of His children; humans as gods in embryo experiencing opposites (individuality and the need for community, exile and return); archetypes (Adam and Eve); and the reality of eternal progression. In this session, four poets will read creative work and discuss how their work reflects a distinctly LDS cosmology.
4:30 – 5:50 pm 5b Literary Approaches to the Book of Mormon
Presenters: Rachel Helps, Kylie Turley, Steve Peck
Moderator: John Alba Cutler
Panel Abstract: Literary criticism of the Book of Mormon is growing in popularity and sophistication. Rather than focusing on a single verse, literary approaches let the larger contexts of narratives and the words in them guide their interpretations. This panel will focus on literary interpretation of silence in the Book of Mormon. Voices (including God’s) that are absent from the narrative are just as important as those that are present.
One type of silence is when certain groups appear absent even when we know they are present. Previous work in Book of Mormon studies has examined the significance of the lack of women or Lamanites or Nephite dissenters in the narrative. Even though it seems difficult to say anything substantial about what is absent from a narrative, there are clues in the text for those who read closely. As these silences grow, close readers can sense that the pain behind them also grows.
Divine silence can be terrifying and confusing. A divine silence could indicate an absence when we expect a presence, or sitting with pain when we expect healing. How do we react to narratives in the Book of Mormon where we expect God to intervene, or to do so more cogently or completely? What approaches have grown out of attending to silence? How have other religious disciplines and faiths dealt with the silence of God? These broader readings that focus on narrative ask us to look at the big picture of the Book of Mormon and what it actually says about what we can expect from God.
6:00 – 7:15 pm 6 Keynote Presentation
If You Want a Future, Darlin’ Why Don’t You Get a Past?: Notes On a Mormon Literary Tradition
Presenter: Michael Austin
Moderator: James Goldberg
7:15 – 8:15 pm 7 Listening Party: “Singing Scripture Secular? The Bible in the Songwriting of Josh Ritter”
Presenters: James Egan, Ryan Davis
Panel Abstract: Ryan Davis and I plan to offer theological reflections on the music of Josh Ritter, the prolific Idahoan singer-songwriter and novelist. We plan to play selections from his discography in large part or in their entirety to make our respective cases.
| Friday, May 30 |
8:00 – 8:50 am Gather & Late Registration
8:00 – 8:50 am Granola & Grad School: A Breakfast Workshop
Presenter: Shawn Tucker
Shawn, Tucker – This breakfast workshop draws from my own experiences to offer insights that may help current or future graduate students, particularly those in or starting the dissertation process. Among other things to talk about, tips may focus on how to select one’s committee and useful ways to think about the dissertation as a whole. Other insights include ideas about the importance of elevator pitches and of anticipating struggles, problems, or snags. I offer how the dissertation writing process is like Chinese acrobats with plates, and learning how each individual works most effectively is key. The presentation ends with insights about different ways one might feel at the end of the process as well as how to enjoy the process itself.
9:00 – 10:20 am 9a What Happened to Mormon Literature at BYU?
Presenters: Susan Howe, John Bennion, Margaret Blair Young
Moderator: Michael Austin
Panel Abstract: In the 1970s, the BYU Department of English was the center of a vibrant new movement in Mormon Literary Studies fueled by professors like Eugene England, Richard Cracroft, Bruce Jorgensen, Ed Geary, and Neil Lambert. These English faculty launched the first course in Mormon literature with its own anthology, spearheaded the creation of the Association for Mormon Letters, and published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals about the literature of the Mormon people. By the 1990s, these publications had slowed to a trickle, and Mormon literature all but ceased to be a thing in the Church’s flagship university. In this panel, I will lead a discussion with three retired BYU English faculty members–two full-time and one adjunct–who remained active creators of Mormon literature during the time that such literature was losing favor in their department. Together, we will ask the question, “What Happened to Mormon Literature at BYU?”
9:00 – 10:20 am 9b Philosophical Roots & Branches
Presenters: Andrew Petersen, Thomas Hilton, Catie Nielson
Moderator: Steven Peck
Andrew Petersen. Kierkegaard’s Garden: Existentialism and Mormon Scholars
Kierkegaard’s blend of literary, religious, psychological, and philosophical thought has attracted LDS scholars. Through the prism of anxiety and death, I will use Kierkegaard’s existential approach as a catalyst in the Maxwell Institute’s Theological Introductions: Joseph Spencer (Nephi), Deidre Green (Jacob), James E. Faulconer (Mosiah); Kylie Nielson Turley (Alma 1-29), Mark Wrathall (Alma 30-63), Adam S. Miller (Mormon), and David Holland (Moroni).
Thomas Hilton. A Latter-day Saint View of Free Will Versus Determinism
The theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints contains the seeds of a novel solution to the longstanding debate over free will and determinism. Latter-day Saint doctrine defines the self as entirely material; this establishes the self as situated squarely within the material world, affecting and being affected by its material surroundings. Latter-day Saint doctrine also defines the self as, at base, an uncreated intelligence that is coeternal with God; this establishes the self as having an independent will. These doctrines lead to the replacement of traditional definitions of free will (the ability to choose independent of external influence) with a robust novel definition of free will (the ability to do one’s will). This novel definition implies a novel concept of free will I call Self-Determinism.
Catie Nielson. Mor-monism: Latter-day Saint Materialism in Conversation with Lady Anne Conway
Recently, scholars have debated whether Latter-day Saint metaphysics is truly monism and materialist: positing that everything, including spirit, is matter. To support Mormon materialism, a clearer picture is needed of 1) the single substance inclusive of both matter and spirit and 2) a dimension with that substance along which these two types of matter might vary. In this paper, I flesh out one possible picture in conversation with the Christian materialism of 17th century English philosopher Lady Anne Conway (1631–1679). In terms of substance, Conway posits one kind of substance inclusive of both spirit and matter that is extended (i.e., takes up space) and impenetrable (i.e., cannot exactly overlap with another substance). Conway describes the unifying feature of this substance, its “kernel”, as life or light that emanates from God. Perhaps Smith’s single substance or “matter” is something similar, what he calls “intelligence or the light of truth” (D&C 93:29), “the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things” (D&C 88:13). In terms of dimension, Conway proposes two potential dimensions: fineness and goodness. That is, Conway suggests that spirit is both finer and more similar to God’s goodness vis-a-vis matter. Smith’s dimension could be similar; at least he defines spirit as “more fine or pure” than matter (D&C 131:7), suggesting a comparative rather than categorical difference, which could also be extended to a moral dimension. Ultimately, moving Mormon materialism forward will require thinking through these questions with help from the broader philosophical tradition.
10:30 – 11:50 am 10a Writing as a Mormon Woman Today
Presenters: Richelle Wilson, Kristine Haglund, Mary Favro
Moderator: Catie Nielson
Panel abstract: this panel invites leading researchers and writers to reflect on what it means to do work as LDS women. Panel features Kristine Haglund, Mary Favro, and Richelle Wilson.
Mary Favro, “Like a Watered Garden: Nourishing the Artful Life”
The idea of a garden as a symbol of paradise can be traced back at least 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. Living in a land defined by heat and dry air, it is natural to imagine paradise as a green oasis with running water and lush trees for shade. The desire to cultivate such a respite has long been associated with desert land. The ancient prophet Isaiah understands this climate well and uses imagery of a garden as a powerful metaphor in the context of a life. He writes: The Lord will always guide you; He will satisfy you in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:11) Isaiah offers beautiful imagery of our lives becoming like a well-watered garden when we let God play a significant role. This paper will use gardens as a metaphor to explore the concept of nourishing the artful life. What is an artful life? How do we define it, and more importantly how do we live it? How does the artful life relate to being like a watered garden in the eyes of the Lord?
Society and civilization are full of tensions and yet there are those who harness the chaos into meaning through the creative force of imagination. We call those people artists. Writers, musicians, painters, yes, but also problem solvers, parents, neighbors, and disciples. We all have the creative tools to live an artful life. Yet the questions remain: How do we nourish our creative spirit? As children of a divine creator, how can we cultivate an artful life? Why is this important? This paper will explore answers through curated art, literature, and scripture.
10:30 – 11:50 am 10b Turning the Soil: Stewardship and Ecotheology
Presenters: David Gore, Christopher (Chip) Oscarson, Steven Peck
Moderator: Benjamin Peters
David Gore. An Earth Whereon These May Dwell: A Garden Planet of Possibilities
Despite the many ways to imagine Earth, it should be obvious that how we imagine Earth drives how we think, act, and move upon and within her. If we imagine the Earth as a living being rather than a thing or an object, we begin to think of her properly. As a living being, the Earth, Jacob Needleman notes, “is either growing or dying. But perhaps, in ways that we do not understand, in order to grow, the Earth needs our uniquely human conscious energy.” Human beings are in the unique position of thinking about the meaning of the Earth and how that meaning is connected with the meaning of humankind. As Earthlings, we have long sought refuge on a hospitable garden planet that offered bounteous resources. At the same time, our dwelling has always required us to labor, work, and act together in order to find refuge amidst nature. The line between the earth’s bounty and stark, forbidding nature, nature just outside the “critical zone,” has always been a fine one. There has never been a time without threats from nature, just as there has never been a time when the Earth failed to provide for all our needs. Both these things are true. Our task has always been to seek refuge in the midst of nature’s forbidding opposition and its wildly unfolding abundance.
Christopher (Chip) Oscarson. Stewardship and the Honorable Harvest
When Christ said “You have the poor always with you” (Matt 26:11), he was not excusing his disciples from anxious efforts to relieve suffering, rather to help them understand that poverty was endemic in a fallen world and part of the stewardship of discipleship. Too often we think of environmental issues as a series of problems to be dealt with rather than a relationship and on-going stewardship that affords us opportunities to become different creatures in Christ. We might also say that environmental crises have always been with us, and this too is by design. This presentation will consider how gardens offer a metaphor for reciprocity and opportunity for considering how our own growth and salvation are in relationship with the more-than-human world.
Steven Peck. Writing the Dark: The Hidden Rhizomes of Decay in the Edenic Garden of Mormon Literature
Mormons, like most people, love to dichotomize–good vs. evil, light and dark, beautiful and horrific, faithful vs. unfaithful. But the soil of human life’s ecology is richer than this, containing fractal and messy realities that underlie the bright hope we want the gospel to provide. Yet, sin, misunderstandings, depression, abuse, despair, genocides, doubt, illness, vindictiveness, abuse, suicide, dementia, thwarted expectations, accidents, hells, various and many, scar lived life in ways that seem often to be ignored or simplistically handled in Mormon literature. The atonement often seems a rickety boat compared to our confrontation with the shadow side’s reality, which the earthy substrate of tragedy serves up in woeful abundance. Yet the shadow side is often the only way to point to hope and/or give context and meaning to the world. Soil processes are often hidden in the dark substrate of the garden, but it’s there that the work of providing the growth and beauty of the garden relies on the hidden micro-rhizome of dark processes.
1:30 – 2:50 pm 11a Grafting Individual Authors
Presenters: Brigham Barnes, Jaroslav Kusnir, Samuel Mitchell
Moderator: Richelle Wilson
Brigham Barnes. German Novelist Arno Schmidt
Within the sprawling repository of theories and opinions that is Bottom’s Dream, German novelist Arno Schmidt puts forth the theory that the mysterious inscriptions found at the conclusion of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” were inspired by the Reformed Egyptian etchings of the golden plates. My presentation will bring together, test and analyze the threads Schmidt lays out in this theory and integrate the research of John Durham Peters into Schmidt’s lesser-known Book of Mormon scholarship with the goal of decoding a page and a half of Schmidt’s notoriously complicated magnum opus and understanding a little better how Schmidt, Poe and Smith might all be connected, courtesy of Charles Anthon. Surprise! Charles Anthon is going to factor into this presentation, too.
Jaroslav Kusnir. Race, Religion, and the American West in Udall’s The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
Udall´s novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint is about a half-Indian (Apache) boy, Edgar Mint, and his troubles with various foster families. In this novel, however, both religion and the cultural identity of the American West play an important role. The story takes place primarily in Utah and Arizona, and the last family he is placed with is a Mormon family in which religion plays an important role. This paper will analyze Udall’s literary construction of the American West as it relates to religion (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and race (whites and Native Americans) and the role of postmodern narrative techniques in undermining the myth of the American West as understood by Frederic Jackson Turner.
Samuel Mitchell. Priesthood Keys and Magic Rings: A Comparative Analysis of The Rings of Power and Latter-day Saint Scriptural Tradition
Amazon Studios’ “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (RoP) adapts J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium to offer viewers a live-action return to Middle-earth. It explores Tolkien’s Second Age—an area that, compared with other aspects of the legendarium, is relatively sparse in detail. In doing so, RoP has inevitably deviated from existing canon in order to stay true to Tolkien’s vision while also maintaining its own unique status as an interpretative expansion. RoP has interesting parallels with the Latter-day Saint scriptural tradition. Like RoP, Latter-day Saint scriptures have also expanded upon biblical canon and Protestant traditions, resulting in unique teachings and traits that also argue for faithfulness to biblical canon. I will conduct a comparative analysis of “what” and “how” RoP and Latter-day Saint scripture interpret, adapt, and expand upon their respective predecessors. RoP need not be understood as inherently “Mormon”—but I will argue that it acts “Mormonish” in the ways it deviates from and expands upon Tolkienian canon. “Likening” RoP’s approach to the legendarium through a Latter-day Saint lens will highlight the potential pathways that any novel expansion (be it fantastical or theological) may take in honoring, adapting, and adding to its predecessor(s). In addition to a general survey of intersections and similarities between RoP and Latter-day Saint scriptural tradition, I will primarily examine three areas of expansion/deviation that these two bodies of work share: 1) Expansion of Minor and/or Ill-Defined Canonical Roles; 2) Succession Crises and Quests for Prophesied Homelands; and 3) The Fall Reimagined.
1:30 – 2:50 pm 11b Companion Planting: Wayfare Magazine
Presenters: Zachary Davis, Jeanine Bee, Benjamin Peters, et al.
Moderator: Nicole Issac
Panel Abstract: What are Mormon letters and what are they good for, anyway–and how might creating a new forum for Mormon letters, art, and thoughts like Wayfare Magazine drive practical considerations of those questions? A selection of staffers from the recently established Wayfare Magazine engage in an interactive panel conversation about their work since the platform’s launch in late 2022: what should one make of questions of aesthetics and art, nonfiction and fiction? How do creators wayfare through the choppy print-digital media environment and attention economy? How, if at all, may a remote community best co-construct the meaning of faith? The panel, which includes Jeanine Bee, Zachary Davis, and Benjamin Peters, will feature a Q&A and copies of Wayfare will be on the conference book table.
3:00 – 4:20 pm 12a “Miltons of Our Own”: A History of the Great Mormon Epic
Presenters: Liz Busby, Kent Larson, Rachel Helps, Zach Hutchins
Moderator: Gerrit VanDyk
Panel Abstract: The epic has long been regarded as one of the most prestigious genres of literature, used to define a nation’s cultural identity by conglomerating a body of legends and heroes. Just as Dante and Milton sought to create an influential Christian culture by adapting the classical form to their own ethos, many Mormon writers have sought to produce a cultural touchstone for Mormonism by grafting Mormon ideas to a long-established form. This roundtable will explore early attempts at writing the history of the Restoration in the epic mode by Hannah King and Orson F Whitney, examine mid-century attempts to turn the Book of Mormon into material for an epic, and review contemporary attempts at a Mormon epic, including speculative fiction epics and Zach Hutchins’ forthcoming book being published by University of Illinois Press. Through our exploration, we will seek to understand the Mormon impulse to epic poetry and evaluate its successes and failures in establishing a narrative identity for the Latter-day Saints.
3:00 – 4:20 pm 12b Topiaries: Mormon Visual Art & Architecture
Presenters: Jenny Champoux, Amanda Buessecker Taylor (remote), Benjamin Felix
Moderator: Diana Brown
Jenny Champoux. Facing the Divine: Jesus in Latter-day Saint Art
Cambridge Fellow Graham Howes noted the conflict in our modern age between the didactic and the experiential impulses in religious art. Depictions of human faces, he said, embody this tension by providing the viewer something both familiar and unknown—the material and the transcendent at once. Howes added, “it is no accident that one of the most traditional and enduring Christian symbols of all is the face of Jesus Christ himself.” Reflecting on Howes’ analysis of modern sacred art, this paper considers tensions in how Jesus has been portrayed in Latter-day Saint art. Institutional depictions of Jesus by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints incline toward concrete, narrative approaches. On the other hand, with the rise of non-institutional venues and markets, artists are finding opportunities to depict Jesus in modes more numinous, universal, and unexpected. Using data from institutional sources—including information on Jesus imagery in the updated Church Facilities Artwork Catalog and the 2022-2025 Come, Follow Me manuals—and from non-institutional sources like the Book of Mormon Art Catalog, this paper examines how portrayals of Jesus evolved in the Latter-day Saint tradition. Attention will be given to recent developments in the visual canon, including efforts at depicting a more historically accurate Jesus, approaches that
Amanda Buessecker Taylor. Latter-day Saint Art in Canada
Great Treasures of Gold is an independent, juried art exhibit curated by Amanda Taylor and Mary Margaret Pilling. It is the first exhibition to ever showcase faith-based art solely from Canadian Latter-day Saint artists. The exhibit will be held in November 2025 in Calgary, Alberta at the cSPACE Gallery and will feature over 100 artworks. I will discuss the evolution of the project, interpret a number of our favourite submissions, and describe the profound impact this show can have on the future of Latter-day Saint art and Canadian Latter-day Saint identity.
Benjamin Felix. Optimizing the Quality and Significance of Church Architecture and Art Through Classicism
The architecture and art endorsed and produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provide an interpretation of Church values to outside parties. The values of modernism; namely individualism, disinterest in beauty, and breaking with the past are incongruous with the Church values of collectivism, pursuit of things that are lovely and of good report, and a veneration for our ancestry. The vast majority of meetinghouses, temples, and church art would be considered classical or traditional, which is proper due to the classical ideologies of adherence to rules and principles, idealism, and a reverence for beauty, nature, and heritage. However, due to the dominance of modernist pedagogy at all but a few schools of architecture or art, very few designers have any level of classical training. The result in most cases is a poorly executed, ignorant, cheap, and inauthentic classicism. So, the question must be asked, what does the church convey about its values with this type of architecture and art? Does the Church wish to convey through their artistic expression that they are casual in principle, uninformed, lazy, or inauthentic? The silver lining is that there are more resources than ever before where designers can receive some classical training. Locally, there is a new classical Architecture Program at Utah Valley University, The Beaux Arts Academy, and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art (ICAA). If the Church wishes to improve its architectural and artistic reputation it would do well to encourage its designers to utilize these resources.
4:30 – 5:50 pm 13
AML-MSH Awards Ceremony & Closing Remarks
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Wow—this looks killer! Very sad to miss it.