We are pleased to announce the 2025 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Novel and Criticism. The final awards will be announced and presented online on June 20, as part of the 2026 AML Conference, celebrating AML’s 50th Anniversary. We will be announcing the other category finalists over the coming week. The finalists and winners are chosen by juries of authors, academics, and critics. The announcements include book blurbs and author biographies, usually adapted from the author and publisher websites.
Novel
John Bennion. The Dead Fathers: Grief and Poker in the West Desert. BCC Press.
After his wife’s affair, Christopher Twist flees to Utah’s West Desert to be alone. The universe has other plans… Crowded by four-wheel riders, corporate prospectors, urban rednecks, and polygamists, Christopher is visited every night by his ancestors, who play poker and prophesy about a battle that will soon ravage both sides of the veil. As the second war in heaven thunders toward him, Christopher must revamp what he thought he knew about the cosmos.
A native of the Utah desert, John Bennion has published a collection of 
short fiction, Breeding Leah and other Stories (1991), and the novels Falling Toward Heaven (2000), An Unarmed Woman (2019), Ezekiel’s Third Wife (2019), Spin (BCC Press), and Ruth at the End of the World (2023). He has retired from teaching creative writing in the English Department at Brigham Young University, where he developed the Experiential Writing Project, sponsored by the Humanities College at BYU. He is the recipient of the 2021 Association for Mormon Letters Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in Provo with his wife, Karla, a writer and psychotherapist.
Steven C. LeSueur. Every Man a Prophet. Greg Kofford Books.
Every Man a Prophet is an exploration of faith, love, and self-discovery set within the framework of missionary life in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eddie Pedersen and Orrin Tanner, two missionaries serving in Norway, each grapple with the weight of expectation, personal desires, and the search for their true selves. Eddie struggles to reconcile his faith with feelings he has been taught to suppress, while Orrin’s relentless pursuit of perfection masks a deep fear of failure. Together, they navigate a land of cold landscapes and colder hearts, striving to find meaning and connection in their spiritual calling. The novel delves into the complexities of identity, faith, and the universal longing to belong. As the two men confront the rigid doctrines of their religion and the unyielding truths of their own hearts, readers are drawn into a narrative of courage and redemption.
Stephen C. LeSueur was a former journalist and magazine editor. His first book, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (University of Missouri Press) won the 1987 Best Book award from the John Whitmer Historical Association. More recently, he wrote Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier: The Murders of Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons by the Wild Bunch (Greg Kofford Books, 2023). His essays and articles on Mormon history have been published in numerous journals and books. Steve served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Norway from 1972 to 1974. Steve passed away in July 2025.
Gabriel González Núñez. La dama errante en la ciudad del fin del mundo. Independently published.
Claude responded: A stranger.
Gabriel González Núñez is originally from Montevideo, Uruguay. He earned his Ph.D. in Translation Studies at KU Leuven, and a J.D. from Brigham Young University. He is a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where he trains translators and interpreters. His love of literature has led him to become instrumental in the publishing of El Pregonero de Deseret, a newsletter about Latter-day Saint literature in Spanish. His poetry collection Ese golpe de luz was an AML Poetry Award finalist in 2020, and his Estampas del Libro de Mormón won an AML 2021 Special Award in Fiction. In addition, he’s authored several children’s books in his home country.
Criticism
Mason Allred. “The Body is the Message: The Promise of Mormon Horror.” Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, August 2025.
Examining the films The Handbook (2023), Heretic (2024), and The Angel (2024).
Chanel Earl. “Atonement and Fairy Stories.“ Wayfare, June–November 2025.
A series of eight articles, using six fairy stories as springboards for discussing different ways in which Christ’s Atonement has been conceptualized.
Reid L. Neilson. “A Catholic Storyteller of the Latter-Day Saints: The Life and Writings of Utah Novelist John Dennis Fitzgerald.” Utah Historical Quarterly 93, no. 2 (2025).
Exploring the life and work of the author of Papa Married a Mormon and The Great Brain series.
Julie Swallow, Christopher James Blythe, Eric A. Eliason, and Jill Terry Rudy. The Three Nephites: Saints, Service, and Supernatural Legend. University of Illinois Press.
The authors of this volume use hundreds of legends collected by the renowned folklorist William A. Wilson from across a lifetime of research, study, and interviews to focus on the different themes exhibited by the Three Nephites and show that LDS culture, beliefs, and values are embodied by and through the Three Nephites.
Darlene Young. “Seers, Saints, Poets.” Wayfare, Dec 20, 2025.
Young discusses the attentiveness of poets, and the role attentiveness plays in a writer’s process.