Bøger udgivet af Zarahemla Books

Weeks away from turning sixteen, Kyle Hooper longs to get his license and (legally) drive the old Suburban his Grandpa Hooper left him. Sardonic, light-hearted, a prankster, Kyle wants more freedom in his Colorado Mormon life, including the freedom to date any number of lovelies, as he calls them. His mother, Lucille, a part-time trauma nurse and a devoted Mormon mom, wants Kyle to get serious about school and preparing for his mission. In vivid detail she often warns him about the consequences of a misspent youth-drug addiction, arrest and imprisonment, expulsion from school, early marriage to a pregnant girlfriend, poverty, STD, alcoholism, highway death. Filled with missionary zeal, Lucille works to bring Mark, Kyle's best friend, to the waters of baptism. Disobeying his mother one Saturday morning, Kyle, driving unlicensed, heads for the ski slopes. In Silver Canyon an avalanche sweeps his Suburban off the road. Trapped but getting air, grateful for the two roll bars Grandfather Hooper installed, Kyle knows he has to dig an escape shaft or die. Exhausted, starving, freezing, he begins to understand what his mother has been trying to teach him about the need for faith.

Over the past half century Robert Rees has distinguished himself as a teacher, scholar, essayist, critic, social activist, and observant believer. Those familiar with his publications in the Huffington Post, Dialogue, Sunstone, and elsewhere will recognize in his poems the same moral purpose and confidence in right action that he expresses in his other endeavors. And once you have read his poems, it should not surprise you that they were written by a person who believes the creative process does not end with literature, music, and art but is also manifest in feeding malnourished children, defending LGBTQ rights, and testifying of the necessity of Christ in the world. The purpose is as important as the poem. This may alarm those whose aesthetic is disciplined by the New Criticism and who insist a poem can be interpreted only in terms of itself, that no extraneous evidences of the unremarkable world may intrude, whether personification or pathetic fallacy. In the poetry of Robert Rees, there is deep empathy for those who suffer, but also rejoicing in the possibilities of the physical and metaphysical worlds, both of which are infused with signs and wonders. There is an intentionality in Rees's poetry that informs even stones. And in this way, it may be more classical than modern, because whereas modern writers agree with Archibald MacLeish that "A poem should not mean/ But be," the poetry of Bob Rees is a conversation about that being that leads-when it is most successful-to meanings deeper than the poems themselves as, to quote Auden, a poem "survives in the valley of its making." However, those who come to Rees's poems expecting a didactic rehearsal of his social politics or his religious devotions (as expressed in his essays and scholarly essays) will be disappointed. Because there is very little of the political or even the practical in the subjects of his poems. Rather, there are the joys and challenges of family and community life; the conundrum of trying to comprehend suffering in the world; the faithful anticipation of a pilgrim continually in search of truth; and the joy abundantly evident in the natural world-all of which Rees sees as evidence of both the reality of God and the necessity of love. Triangulating between mind, heart, and body and receiving the truth of each equally, these poems represent not only an aesthetic but a philosophy. In conversation Bob insists that the heart knows what the mind cannot and actually participates not only in feelings but in cognition and imagination. And that there are truths of the flesh that cannot be held in either mind or body. But none of this is taught by Bob's poems. This poetry is not instructional but inspirational, experiential; not a map to the light, but a refraction of light. Each poem is a separate color participating in the greater, unbroken brilliance recognized by a poet who feels, who believes, and who knows...as though revelation were a singular moment encompassing experience, and he were a stone through which the light refracts.

A novel in seven stories These stories trace the arc of a family narrative in which mothers abandon their children for the best of reasons, fierce daughters reclaim their heritage, and the gap between spiritual health and the expectations of LDS culture affects the outcome of every episode. Poet Annie MacDougal, feminist Riva Maynard, and Riva's daughter Katie spiral in and out of these seven "incidents" spanning more than three decades, along with the men and women they learn from and love. "Just as God's eye is on the sparrow, Julie Nichols's clear-sighted, penetrating eye is on the lives of Mormon women and men and our yearnings and shortcomings." -Joanna Brooks, Book of Mormon Girl "These linked stories . . . are consistently faithful and questioning, intelligent and spiritual, essentially Mormon and essentially inclusive of those who inhabit the fringe." -John Bennion, Falling Toward Heaven "In this intricately patterned collection, [Nichols] addresses the violence, mystery, and most of all the messy beauty of marriage, motherhood, love, and forgiveness in a lush, lyrical prose which honours the magical in the everyday." -Jenn Ashworth, The Friday Gospels

Mystical Plays of Magic, Meaning, and Romance A self-exiled man finds himself in a mythical Australia. A Victorian woman has closeted herself in her home to hide herself from an ancient secret. A woman stumbles into a shop whose glassware contains more than she bargained for. The Greek Eurydice wakes up on a boat with a mysterious man. The Lady of Shallot is discovered in an ancient castle by a ragtag group of adventurers. A trio of post-apocalyptic survivors faces a changed world that contains sphinxes, fairies, griffins, goddesses, and the fearsome Emperor Wolf. In these plays, national-award-winning playwright Mahonri Stewart explores his enchanted side. "[Evening Eucalyptus] does a good job of weaving together several storylines with a sense of magic . . . the last lines of the play linger in the mind long after curtain call . . . an exciting climax and compelling resolution. There is a lot to recommend Evening Eucalyptus for a night of thought-provoking entertainment." -Kristin Perkins, Front Row Reviewers "[A] shining achievement . . . Retellings that bring to light new ideas in ancient stories . . . are some of my favorite things in the world, and Stewart pulls this off beautifully!" -Bianca Dillard, Utah Theatre Bloggers Association "Mahonri Stewart is a masterful writer . . . and it is always a pleasure to grapple intellectually with what his clever mind produces time after time." -Marilyn Brown, Dawning of a Brighter Day

Five Plays About the Search for Spirituality National-award-winning playwright Mahonri Stewart continues to explore the contours of spirituality in an increasingly complicated world. This volume includes: - A Roof Overhead-The Fielding family's Mormon values conflict with their tenant's atheistic beliefs. Can mutual tolerance be found, or will tragedy ruin their chances for finding common ground? - Friends of God-This play dramatizes the history of Joseph Smith's martyrdom and the controversies and dangers that led up to it. - "White Mountain" and "The Prince's House"-These two short plays explore the light and dark sides of the spiritual world. - Yeshua-The New Testament Gospels are explored in new and beautiful ways. "Stewart's skill at dialogue and characterization, mingled with just the right amount of humor, drama, and pathos, anchors us to the play-we become more than mere observers. . . . What [A Roof Overhead] says to Mormons is, 'We are not alone in the world. We need to learn to get along with others of different or, sometimes, no faith.'" -Excerpt from the AML Award Citation for Drama, 2012 "I'm getting more and more impatient to see great Mormon literature before I die! Thanks to Mahonri Stewart, we're coming closer. . . . I loved his A Roof Overhead. . . . Hooray for quality! It's coming!" -Marilyn Brown, Association for Mormon Letters "Mahonri Stewart's Yeshua tells the familiar story of Jesus, but unlike so many retellings of the Savior's life, it does not play like a highlights reel of the Gospels. At its heart, Yeshua is about our need for deeply personal relationships-not only with the divine, but with all of humanity." -Scott Hales, literary critic and award-winning cartoonist of Garden of Enid

In his second collection of short stories, Darin Cozzens returns to his fictional Balford, a little Wyoming town whose mostly Mormon inhabitants illustrate, over the last sixty years, the pains and ironies of what one character in the title story calls "normal mortality." Bride-to-be Fonda Penroy struggles to reconcile judgment and compassion when a more popular cousin's hastily arranged wedding upstages her own. A washtub at a farm auction is catalyst for the motives and emotions of half a dozen different characters. Sitting at the bedside of her dying twin brother, eighty-four-year-old Ivy Teague must confess a long-held and most unlikely grudge. And on his way to tell a farm couple that their livelihood is no longer "a paying proposition," banker Frett Maxwell Jr. can't help but question his dead father's philosophy regarding the gamble of life. All together, whatever the predicament of their central figures, these eight stories evoke the poignancy of regret, forgiveness, and, ultimately, redemption. "This gathering of eight stories is first rate. As much a novel as a story collection, these fictions are united by milieu, by the gritty reality of rural farming life, and by the characters who appear in more than one story. More than anything else, they are united by Mormonism as culture and faith." -Gordon Weaver, winner of two Pushcart Prizes and the O. Henry Award "The narratives are as sturdy as sawhorses, yet they are animated by quirky, earnest, genuine personalities. The Last Blessing of J. Guyman LeGrand is a rare and invaluable accomplishment." -Fred Chappell, novelist and poet laureate of North Carolina from 1997 to 2002 "The stories fulfill two requirements of realistic fiction beautifully: to teach and entertain. Cozzens writes skillful prose, never wastes a word, holds the reader's attention with every line. The collection is a very welcome addition to Mormon fiction." -Douglas Thayer, author of Hooligan and The Tree House "There is humor in Cozzens's work, but more than anything there is yearning, heartbreak, and the tantalizing hope for connection and redemption. This collection deserves a readership as wide as the Wyoming sky." -Angela Hallstrom, author of the novel Bound on Earth and editor of Dispensation: Latter-Day Fiction

"These stories sink deep and rise high. And along the way, they gleam with love." -Lavina Fielding Anderson The female protagonists of these fourteen short stories are daughters of devout Mormon women. Some choose to leave the family faith; some choose to stay. All hum the hymns of their forebears. They are women of the American West, but some have also journeyed a bit beyond those borders. One swims in a tributary of the Colorado; another dips her elbow into the Ganges. Each finds her own way to ask (not answer) the big questions. They represent four distinct families. They are separated by mountain ranges and deserts. But they share a common birthright. They are sisters. "Rosenbaum probes the feminine soul with deep empathy." -Levi S. Peterson Karen Rosenbaum's published work comprises short stories, personal essays, and newspaper articles, some of which have won awards from Sunstone, Exponent II, and Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.

It is Thanksgiving Day and the Palmers have gathered to celebrate. But one person is missing: Kyle, Beth Palmer's young husband and a once integral member of this close-knit Mormon family. Kyle's bipolar disorder has spun out of control, and each family member's reaction to his disease reveals tensions that have been at work among the Palmers for generations. In the interconnected narratives that follow, the family's past is revealed, illuminating themes of loyalty, betrayal, forgiveness and, ultimately, love.

"Wandering Realities gathers together much of the Mormon-themed short fiction of perhaps Mormondom's best living writer," says Michael Austin. "The collection is strange, wonderful, eye opening and amazing. It is a book of revelations and spiritual gifts from an immensely talented author to his religious community, which has long needed somebody to show us how strange and wonderful (and strange) we can actually be." "Wandering Realities is perfectly satisfying, a treat from beginning to end," says Steven Evans. "It is alternatively touching and funny and poignant, with horrors and wonders. Steven Peck is a gift to Mormon literature, and any opportunity to read his stories is not to be missed." "This collection is one of the freshest, most engaging, and most entertaining contributions to Mormon literature that I've seen in a long while," says Jonathan Langford. "Steve Peck is an alien. . . . That's the only explanation I can come up with for how, in this set of 16 stories, he so consistently manages to provide such startlingly different, yet at the same time deeply insightful, perspectives on the culture and religion he has adopted for his own." Peck's highly imaginative stories run the gamut from Mormons reverting to a medieval society on Mars to a bishop who is killing the neighborhood dogs. These stories not only entertain and delight, but they challenge and provoke as well. This collection includes several award-winning stories, including: "Two-Dog Dose"-best short story of 2014, Association for Mormon Letters "A Strange Report from the Church Archives"-second place, Irreantum fiction contest "Avek, Who Is Distributed"-first place, Four Centuries of Mormon Fiction Contest 2012 "When the Bishop Started Killing Dogs"-second place, Four Centuries of Mormon Fiction Contest 2012 "Every story Steven L. Peck writes seems to lead Mormon fiction in exciting and innovative new directions," says Scott Hales. "I hate hyperbole, but Peck might be the Moses of Mormon letters in the twenty-first century." Wandering Realities "may be the book of the year," says Andrew Hall. Peck is "perhaps the most interesting contemporary author of Mormon fiction." "Peck is the best LDS science fiction writer currently out there," says Steven Evans. "Wandering Realities is an immensely enjoyable and powerful collection of short fiction, one that highlights both the possibilities and inevitabilities of Mormonism."

Jens Thorsen's retirement is not what his wife, Lila, was expecting. Rather than tending to things around the house, Thorsen has thrown himself into a life of charity: visiting the sick, the widowed, and the incarcerated. Between these acts of service, Thorsen finds the time to nurse his feud with local bishop Darrell Bunker. The two have hated each other for as long as anyone in Sanpete, Utah, can remember. Even though the valley is much too small for the both of them, Thorsen and the bishop have managed a tense ceasefire that allows daily life to carry on. But when the bishop's daughter moves home, there are suddenly too many egos in one place, and Sanpete starts to pull apart at the seams.

In the days before sunscreen, soccer practice, MTV, and Amber Alerts, boys roamed freely in the American West--fishing, hunting, hiking, pausing to skinny-dip in river or pond. Douglas Thayer was such a boy. In this poignant, often humorous memoir, he depicts his Utah Valley boyhood during the Great Depression and World War II. Known in some circles as a Mormon Hemingway, Thayer has created a richly detailed work that shares cultural DNA with Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and William Golding's Lord of the Flies. His narrative at once prosaic and poetic, Thayer captures nostalgia for a simpler time, along with boyhood's universal yearnings, pleasures, and mysteries.

In 1991, Wallace Jeffs was coerced to become an FLDS polygamist. In 2011, he rebelled against the sect, and the FBI helped him reclaim his kidnapped children. Then an "accident" put Wallace into a 45-day coma. Though he fears FLDS sabotage caused his car crash, he continues fighting against his half-brother, imprisoned FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs.