The 1980 publication of revised German language editions of the LDS Standard Works represents an important legacy for German-speaking Mormons. The story of how and why the new translations arose and how they differ from…
I was anxious to review this biography of the founder of eight nineteenth-century newspapers in and near western Illinois (including the Warsaw Message), the author of The History of Hancock County, and, especially, the author of…
The scene was written
In advance,
Rehearsed as often
As the days of waiting
Would allow.
My parents grew up conditioned toward racial prejudice—as did most Americans, including Mormons, through their generation and into part of mine. But something touched my father in his early life and grew constantly in him until he and my mother were moved at mid-life gradually to consecrate most of their life’s earnings from then on to help Lamanites.
Good fiction strikes me with that same mysterious combination of exhilaration and grief that comes from new knowledge, from new visions that replace the dear old ones. Because they are good fiction, I recommend that…
The sight of seventeen venerable women smiling confidently from the dust jacket is intimidating. I know I’d better like this book. Please let me like this book! Well, it did prove motivating. One day after…
I guess it wasn’t really much of a river, only thirty feet wide or so where it had enough fall to ripple over the rocks. Except during the spring runoff. Then it filled and sometimes…
From By Common Consent. For another beautiful example of Ashley’s writing, check out her piece from the Winter 2014 Issue: “In Light” released for free for everyone to enjoy.
Ashley Mae Hoiland received a BFA in studio arts and an MFA in poetry, both from Brigham Young University. She served a mission in Uruguay. She now lives in Palo Alto, California with her husband, Carl, and two children, Remy and Thea. She has written and illustrated several children’s books and once headed a project that printed poetry on billboards. More of her writing can be found at www.birdsofashmae.com. We are glad to welcome Ashmae as a guest of BCC.
There I am, a little sprite of a girl, lion-haired and scrape-kneed, taking bouncy skipping steps along the dirt path. Quiet morning sun peers through the leaves like the light through stained glass at the front of a cathedral. As a thirty-year-old, I stand at the top of my childhood hill and look down. I can see my 8-year-old self stopping to bend near the ground and hold some leaves between her fingers. I hear the scuffle and scrape of dust and rocks beneath worn tennis shoes. My tiny self is alone and canopied by the canyon oaks and crooked spruces.
Podcast version of this Personal Essay. My brain is slightly broken. The natural lows and highs of life are amplified by chemical imbalance into deep emotional troughs and crazed manic waves that can strike anytime…
Dialogue 28.4 (Winter 1995): 105–119
This was a prelude to his book-length treatment Same-Sex Dynamics in 19th C. America: A Mormon Example, that looked at “intimacy” broadly defined, before the rise of homophobia in the post-WWII period. It is a fascinating study of changing norms and practices that once allowed for a huge range of bonding practices between people of the same-sex. Quinn himself had come out in the course of researching this article and the book a few years before, and this work remains influential.