SIGNATURE ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBER LISA BICKMORE NAMED UTAH'S POET LAUREATE
Signature advisory committee member and author Lisa Bickmore has been named Utah's new poet laureate, Governor Spencer Cox recently announced. Bickmore is a retired professor of English at Salt Lake Community College and is the author of three books, including Haste, a book of poetry she published with Signature in 1994. Read more about her new appointment here.
Bickmore is the recipient of the Utah Arts Council poetry award, as well as the winner of the 2015 Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize—awarded annually to a single unpublished poem. Bickmore's poem, "Eidolon," explores themes of grief, loss, and love both sublime and ordinary. Her collection, flicker, was released by Elixir Press in 2016 after the collection won the publisher's 2014 Antivenom Prize. In addition to her collections, individual pieces of Bickmore's poetry and video work appeared in Caketrain, Mapping Salt Lake City, The Moth, Quarterly West, Southword, Sugarhouse Review, Tar River Poetry, and Terrain.
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Sunstone Sessions to Feature New Signature Biographies
of D. Michael Quinn and Jerald and Sandra Tanner
The annual Sunstone Symposium, which this year runs from July 27–30 at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah, will feature two sessions sponsored by Signature Books. The first runs Thursday, July 28, from 12:20 to 1:20 p.m., and is titled, "Exploring the Life and Legacy of Mormon Historian D. Michael Quinn." In this session, speakers will discuss three new books that chronicle Quinn's life and contributions. Participants include Mike's son Moshe, who along with his sisters, entrusted Signature Books to publish Mike's memoir that they found after his death; Gary Topping, author of the recently released biography, D. Michael Quinn: Mormon Historian; Benjamin Park, editor of a forthcoming anthology of essays on Mike's life and works; and Calvin Burke, a contributor to that anthology. The panel will be chaired by Signature Books director Barbara Jones Brown, who is working on the publication of Quinn's memoir, titled Chosen Path. Gary Topping will be available to sign the biography after the session.
On Saturday, July 30, from 12:20 to 1:20 p.m., author Ron Huggins and Sandra Tanner will discuss Ron's newly released biography, Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism. The Tanners are best known as critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but there is so much more to their story. Moderated by Signature's managing editor John Hatch, Sandra and Ron will answer questions about topics covered in the biography, including the Tanners' multifaceted work exposing Mormon forgeries, opposing the phone tapping of a polygamist, being accused as Communist agitators and suing the FBI, defending a future president of the LDS Church against false accusations of sexual impropriety, refuting other Evangelicals who produced shoddy and sensationalistic critiques of the church, producing a number of firsts in Mormon history, and yes, saving the internet. Think this is exaggerating? Come hear the rest of the story! A book signing of Lighthouse will happen immediately after the session.
Signature Author and Company Director Highlighted
in National Magazine
A recent article in Newsweek highlights an important discussion among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the role of Heavenly Mother in church doctrine and in the lives of Mormon women. In an article called "God's Wife?," writer Julia Duin interviewed author Maxine Hanks, whose 1992 Signature anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, remains an important source on this and many relevant subjects. "[Heavenly Mother has] been lurking in Mormon theology and history as the silent god who is there from the beginning," explained Hanks. "She was present at the origins of Mormonism but not as actively engaged by leaders and members as the male Father and Son Jesus Christ due to the male-centric norms of the 1820s and '30s."
"It is definitely part of church doctrine, but church leaders don't want [members] to pray to Heavenly Mother rather than Heavenly Father," Barbara Jones Brown, Signature's company director added. But when asked if we could expect a change, she said, "I would hope so."
New Podcast Episode Features Company Director
Company director Barbara Jones Brown is the guest on Episode 5 of the Signature Books Podcast. Brown has now been with Signature for nearly five months and shares her thoughts about the company, what she envisions for its future, and her own forthcoming book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and its aftermath. You can listen to the episode by clicking here.
Last year Signature celebrated its fortieth anniversary, and this is an exciting time to begin looking at the next forty. You can check out our new releases, forthcoming titles, and everything currently in print at signaturebooks.com.
The Latest in Ebooks
Signature's ebook offerings continue to grow. New release titles always appear as ebooks immediately, occasionally before the print version, as with Todd Compton's new book, In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents, which you can purchase for $9.99. Our newest release, Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism is now available in ebook format, as is Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith's Revelations in Their Early American Contexts.
Four of our older titles have also just been released as ebooks! These are Martha S. Bradley and Mary Brown Firmage Woodward, 4 Zinas: A Story of Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier; Jessie Embry's, Black Saints in a White Church: Contemporary African American Mormons; Maxine Hanks, ed., Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, and Eugene E. Campbell, Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847–1869.
Also, don't forget to check out our Pioneer Day ebook sale! This sale will last from July 22–25 and features twelve of our titles at 50 percent off or more.
YouTube Channel Features New Fillerup Videos
Check out Signature's YouTube channel for our latest videos, including the first two of three created by Michael Fillerup discussing his new book, The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood and Other Stories. Signature published this collection just before Michael and his wife, Rebecca, left to serve an LDS Spanish-speaking mission together in Jacksonville, Florida. You can watch his YouTube videos, as well as those by other Signature authors, by clicking here.
Michael has long been a favorite among those who enjoy Mormon fiction, and his novels and short stories are always thought provoking, taking readers outside their comfort zones. If you are new to Fillerup's works, take a look at his website to learn more.
Signature Library Site Discontinued
For years Signature has offered dozens of its out-of-print titles for free at its library site. Due to the cost of maintaining this site it has been discontinued. Not to worry, many of the titles formerly featured there are now available for a minimal cost as ebooks. We also have many titles at archive.org, which you can access by clicking here. They are fully searchable and can be downloaded for free.
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Todd Compton
hardback: $39.95, forthcoming this fall!
ebook: $9.99, available now!
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Michael Fillerup
paperback: $16.95
ebook: $9.99
Available now!
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Romney Burke
paperback: $29.95
ebook: $9.99
Available now!
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Ron Huggins
hardback: $39.95
paperback: $24.95
ebook: $9.99
Paperback available now!
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D. Michael Quinn
hardback: $39.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming this fall!
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Gregor McHardy
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming this fall!
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Michael Hicks
paperback: $19.95
ebook: $9.99
Coming this fall!
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The following is an excerpt from a longer interview with Romney Burk from the blog, "From the Desk." Click here to read the entire interview.
Q- How Did Romney Burke become interested in Susa Young Gates?
A- I had heard of Susa Young Gates in passing when I was a youngster interested in Latter-day Saint history, but did not know much about her until I met my wife, Mary Sue Wilkinson, who is a great-granddaughter of Susa. Mary Sue's mother, Lurene Gates Wilkinson (1914–2016), during her freshman year of college at the University of Utah (1932–33) was secretary to Susa during Susa's last year of life. Lurene's father, Franklin Young Gates (1893–1979), was Susa's last surviving child. From Lurene and Franklin I gleaned substantial information.
Q-Describe Susa Young Gates for Latter-day Saints hearing about her for the first time.
A- Susa Young Gates was a human dynamo. She served on the general boards of the Young Woman's Mutual Improvement Association and the Relief Society. She started the journals for both organizations. She served as an officer in the National and International Councils of Women. Her work in genealogy really established the guidelines we still use today in family history.
She knew virtually all the important figures in the women's rights movement, including Susan B. Anthony. She met two queens, Liliuokalani of Hawaii, and Victoria of Great Britain, as well as three presidents of the United States. She wrote extensively, including novels, poems, plays, histories, editorials, and a biography of her father, Brigham Young. She initiated the departments of music and domestic science at Brigham Young Academy (University), where she was the longest-serving member of the Board of Trustees in its history.
She was historian Leonard Arrington's favorite "Mormon damozel." She received the sobriquet of "the thirteenth apostle." All this was in addition to giving birth to 13 children.
Q- How Did Susa Young Gates get her unusual name?
A- Susa was originally named Susanne after the midwife who delivered her. When Susa was an adult, her father Brigham Young insisted (erroneously) that he had named her Susan as an infant after his sister. Susa acquiesced to his desires that she become Susan, but when Brigham's will was read several months later after his death, one of Brigham's clerks had mistakenly written her name as "Susa." It was insisted that Susa sign all of the legal documents as "Susa," and thus, she became Susa for the rest of her life.
Q- What was it like to be a child of Brigham Young? Did Susa Young Gates and her sisters have a different perception of him than their brothers?
A- The Young children led a very privileged life. From about 1850 until Brigham's death (1877) the Young family was probably the closest thing to royalty that the Latter-day Saints have ever had. They had their own family compound, a private school with the best tutors Utah Territory could offer, music lessons, special seating at the Salt Lake Theater, fancy gym equipment from the East, their own swimming hole, and the Brigham Young farm several miles away. Susa later asserted, "Our home life was the very happiest domestic drama ever enacted." (p. 8, Susa Young Gates).
The Young children all learned to work, although the brunt of heavy labor fell on the boys. By report, Brigham was somewhat stern but quite flexible, kind, and forbearing as a father, as a result of negative experiences with his own rough-hewn father. Susa's sister, Clarissa Young Spencer, claimed that Brigham Young had a close relationship with each of his children, although it is difficult to imagine how this might have been, considering his large number of children. I have not discerned any particular differences in how his sons regarded him, as compared to his daughters.
You can also check out this excellent article on Susa Young Gates by Romney Burke in the Association for Mormon Letters's Dawning of a Brighter Day.
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EVENTS
July 21–23, 2022
Held Virtually
July 27–30, 2022
Mountain American Expo Center
Sandy, Utah
September 15–18, 2022
Community of Christ Temple
Independence, Missouri
October 26, 2022
Marriott Hotel and Convention Center
Provo, Utah
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