Phyllis Barber

PHYLLIS BARBER {[email protected]} is a cyclist, hiker, editor, teacher, and award-winning author of eight books—a novel, two books of short stories, two children’s books, and a trilogy of memoirs which includes: How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir (a coming-of-age story that won the Associated Writing Program Award for Creative Nonfiction in 1991 and the Association of Mormon Letters Award in Biography in 1993); Raw Edges, a coming-of-age-in-middle-age story; and To The Mountain: One Mormon Woman’s Search for Spirit, a collection of personal essays about her twentyyear hiatus from Mormonism and experiences with a wide variety of religious persuasions. She has been inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, is the mother of four sons, and taught for the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program for nineteen years.

Honorable Mention: Butterflies

Articles/Essays – Volume 55, No. 4

Trying to get to the nursery proper and all of the blooming plants—bright colors, heady smells, early summer at its best—Mona almost walked past his table. It was one of those fold-up numbers with foldout…

The Elegance of Belief

Articles/Essays – Volume 49, No. 1

Prophet by the Sea

Articles/Essays – Volume 27, No. 3

One late afternoon just before sunset, the Prophet with white hair like the mane of a lion was walking by the sea with his friend, Fernando. They walked and talked about many things as the…

Intimacy in a Three-Piece Suit | Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy: Illusion & Reality

Articles/Essays – Volume 17, No. 1

What is this human intimacy, this condition that human beings seek “at every stage of life .. . as urgently as we seek food and drink . . . this need so powerful that we…

Wild Sage

Articles/Essays – Volume 20, No. 2

I sit here by my gate, sniffing the stalk of sage in my hand, and wonder about the leaves drifting down on me. They float past my eyes and settle on my folded legs. Summer…

The Whip: A Modern Folktale

Articles/Essays – Volume 20, No. 4

Headed west, Brother and Sister Gustavson pushed their handcart for many miles singing, “Some must push and some must pull” before their miracle happened. They inherited a wagon -— all in the moment a hand…

The Mormon Woman as Writer

Articles/Essays – Volume 23, No. 3

Once while I was wandering through my life, I had a need to say something. I’m not sure where this something came from, but opinions and observations grew on the interior walls of my mind…

Bird of Paradise

Articles/Essays – Volume 24, No. 3

A drum was beating that night as my family and I entered the elementary school gymnasium. Animal skins were stretched across a portion of hollowed-out tree, two flat brown hands pounding on their surface. Instantly…

Dust to Dust: A Mormon Folktale

Articles/Essays – Volume 27, No. 4

The morning promised no bright sun. No blue sky. Only dust from the desert’s chalky red soil. “Lord in heaven,” Rosalinda said to herself. She stared out the window, worried about her garden. She couldn’t…

The Precarious Walk Away from Mormonism, All the Time With a Stitch in My Side

Articles/Essays – Volume 29, No. 3

CAUTION: Men in Trees by Darrell Spencer

Articles/Essays – Volume 32, No. 4

Where the Walls of the World Wear Thin: Red Water, by Judith Freeman

Articles/Essays – Volume 35, No. 4

Body Blue

Articles/Essays – Volume 36, No. 2

Singing the Differences to Sleep: Grace Notes: The Waking of a Woman’s Voice by Heidi Hart

Articles/Essays – Volume 38, No. 1

Writing: An Act of Responsibility

Articles/Essays – Volume 41, No. 1

At the Cannery

Articles/Essays – Volume 42, No. 2

Sinners Welcome Here (2002)

Articles/Essays – Volume 47, No. 1