CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH
AT SIGNATURE'S POETRY NIGHT
|
|
|
First inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is an annual celebration in the United States highlighting the valuable role poetry plays in our culture and in individual lives. Signature Books has a long history of proudly publishing poetry. To celebrate National Poetry month, on Wednesday, April 26, at 7:00 p.m., at Signature Books, we are gathering poets whose work we have published for an exciting evening. Our authors will read from their works, all of which will be available for signing and purchase.
Our guests will be Dayna Patterson, author of the newly released O Lady, Speak Again and If Mother Braids a Waterfall, published in 2020. Another special guest is Utah Poet Laureate Lisa Bickmore, whose book Haste has just been released in a second edition. We are also excited to have with us Signature poets Marilyn Bushman-Carlton, Warren Hatch, Alex Caldiero, Susan Howe, and Cynthia Sillitoe, reading for her mother, the late Linda Sillitoe.
Signature Books is located at 508 West 400 North in Salt Lake City. Parking is available in the westside parking lot and on the street. Come join us for a unique and special evening.
Virginia Sorensen Podcast Celebrates Biography Release
March saw the release of Stephen Carter's new book, Virginia Sorensen: Pioneering Mormon Author, the first biography of the 1957 Newbery Medal winner. Raised in Utah and a graduate of BYU, Sorensen is considered one of the most gifted literary greats to come out of Mormonism. Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to read a Q&A with the author. Carter has also posted an article about Sorenson as a guest on the Association for Mormon Letters' blog, Dawning of a Brighter Day.
Lastly, listen here to the recently released Signature Books podcast featuring an interview with Carter by Signature director Barbara Jones Brown.
"Dr. Clandestine" Event Released as Podcast Episode
and YouTube Video
On Thursday, March 9, Signature hosted a panel discussion featuring Sandra Tanner; Ron Huggins, author of Lighthouse: Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Despised and Beloved Critics of Mormonism; Gary James Bergera, editor of Confessions of a Mormon Historian: The Diaries of Leonard J. Arrington, 1971–1997; and Signature director Barbara Jones Brown, lead annotator of D. Michael Quinn's forthcoming memoir, Chosen Path. These books discuss a 1977 incident in which an anonymous writer printed hundreds of pamphlets refuting Jerald and Sandra Tanner’s Mormonism—Shadow or Reality?, placed them in a storage locker, then mailed the key and a letter to bookseller Sam Weller, asking him to distribute them. The panelists shared what each of these participants had to say about this mysterious episode, which these three books chronicle in detail. They also evaluate what the incident said about Mormon studies in the 1970s.
You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Amazon Music, or you can watch it on Signature's YouTube channel by clicking here. While there, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.
St. George Conference Celebrates Legacy of Juanita Brooks
Utah Tech University in St. George hosted a conference on March 23–25 dedicated to the legacy of Juanita Brooks, featuring presentations from many leading historians of Utah and Mormon history. You can watch a recording of the excellent conference here. Signature director Barbara Jones Brown and marketing specialist Beth Brumer-Reeve managed an exhibitors table there with books appropriate to the occasion, including John Sillito and Susan Staker's work, Mormon Mavericks: Essays on Dissenters, which features an essay on Brooks’s life. Brown and her co-author Richard E. Turley spoke on their forthcoming book from Oxford University Press, Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and its Aftermath, and former LDS Church Historian, emeritus member of the First Quorum of Seventy, and southern Utahn Steven E. Snow gave the opening plenary address, honoring Brooks and her contributions.
|
|
New and Forthcoming Titles
|
|
Stephen Carter
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Available!
|
|
|
Poems by Dayna Patterson
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Available!
|
|
|
Poems by Lisa Bickmore
paperback: $10.95
ebook: $9.99
Available!
|
|
|
Edited by Benjamin E. Park
paperback: $18.95
ebook: $9.99
Available!
|
|
|
Dan Vogel
hardback: $49.95
ebook: $9.99
Available this spring!
|
|
|
Edited by Noel A. Carmack and Charles M. Hatch
2-volume hardback: $39.95 per volume
ebook: $9.99 per volume
Available this spring!
|
|
|
Kenneth L. Cannon II
paperback: $14.95
ebook: $9.99
Available this spring!
|
|
|
D. Michael Quinn
hardback: $39.95
ebook: $9.99
Available this summer!
|
|
|
|
Q. Virginia Sorenson's work was widely recognized when she was publishing, and she even received a Newbery Medal, yet she's fallen out of modern consciousness. Why do you think that is?
A. Well, it’s happened to just about every one of her contemporaries. If you look at the New York Times Best Sellers list from 1947, which was the year she appeared on the list for her novel The Neighbors, you’ll see John P. Marquand, Kenneth Roberts, Laura Z. Hobson, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas B. Costain, and Ben Ames Williams. These are authors whose books reached the number one spot on the list for multiple weeks. Now I’ve only heard of one of those authors. If the other five can fall off the radar, we don’t need to feel too bad about Virginia.
She also wrote about niche subjects. I mean, how many novels about Mormons were ever nationally popular to begin with and then managed to maintain that popularity? The closest thing we have are Vardis Fisher’s Children of God and Maureen Whipple’s The Giant Joshua. Both of those were published by a national press and received prestigious awards. But the only people who know about them now are Mormon literature nerds.
And, when she wasn’t writing about Mormons, she was writing about Colorado sheep ranchers or the Yaqui—an Indigenous people in Mexico—or a middle-aged art professor. So, you never picked up one of her novels looking forward to an exciting ride.
As for her children’s books. Two of them, Miracles on Maple Hill, which won the Newbery Medal in 1957, and Plain Girl are still in print. But you’re right that most people don’t even remember these books. But, looking at the books that won the Newbery Medal in previous years, we see King of the Wind; The Door in the Wall; Amos Fortune, Freeman; Ginger Pye; Secret of the Andes; . . . And Now Miguel, The Wheel on the School; and Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. I’ve never heard of any of those, either. So, once again, she just followed the trajectory of most novelists of her time.
Q. How do you think modern readers will relate to her novels and Mormon themes?
A. I think today’s Mormons are much more prepared to hear Virginia than her contemporaries were. See, during the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Mormonism was working like crazy to assimilate into American culture while growing the kingdom. They had goals to reach. They didn’t have time for Virginia’s struggling characters or her exploration of human frailty.
But now, Mormonism is about as American as you can get, and it’s rich beyond its wildest dreams. We have time to think now. We can contemplate the mysteries of the soul without feeling like we’re letting God down. And most of us, even the most faithful, have been destabilized in ways that the old answers to gospel questions just can’t address. And Virginia has something unique to offer. She brings us into a small Mormon town in the 1920s or thereabouts, where we can bathe in a sweet, simple nostalgia. And from that safe place, she helps us explore the questions we have and the heartache we’re going through with her fascinating characters.
And that’s not all! You also get love stories, sibling rivalry, mysteries, polygamy, adultery, and even murder! The only thing her novels don’t have is car chases.
Q. How did you do the research for this biography? What kind of documents (besides the novels themselves) ended up being the most fruitful?
A. Virginia was an extraordinary letter writer, and between BYU, USU, and the U of U, I was inundated with her correspondence. The letters she wrote to her friend Anna Marie Smith give wonderful insight into her writing career and into her family life. And I got to see her college career, courtship, marriage, and children’s births through her letters to Wanda Snow. Some of her childhood and teenage diaries are also at BYU. Reading her letters was my favorite part of the research process. They’re personable, insightful, hilarious, heartbreaking, and . . . just addictive. I got to spend so much time reading them, that I felt like she and I were pen pals. It was glorious.
And, God bless the late Dennis Rowley, who brought photocopies of much of the Virginia Sorensen collection at Boston University to BYU’s special collections. It was the only reason I could write the biography at all, because, for some reason, the Boston collection was just never available—and not just because I was researching it during the COVID pandemic. It still isn’t available.
Q. How have the books been received in the Mormon community at the time and over the years?
A. The Mormon community generally has never fully accepted or celebrated Virginia’s books. At first, it was because her stories didn’t fit the Old-Testament/Book-of-Mormon/home-literature mold. But then her books went out of print and so we never really had a chance to re-encounter her. Even when Mormon scholars tried to re-introduce her, there just wasn’t a good way to get everyone copies of her books so that she could be widely read. That’s what’s so exciting about today. We have ebooks, so everyone can get the chance to read her stuff. My main goal with this biography is to get people excited about her. And Signature has made A Little Lower Than the Angels and Where Nothing Is Long Ago available in ebook format. And I hear that The Evening and the Morning is on its way, too. I have my fingers crossed that she’ll finally get the Mormon readership she deserves.
Q. Which book of hers would you recommend people read first?
A. Definitely The Evening and the Morning, which is why Signature needs to get that baby out in ebook format, pronto! When Dale Morgan reviewed it for the Saturday Post, he wrote, “In the space available to me it is impossible to convey the whole richness of this novel.” It really is that good. It’s written in prose, but it reads like poetry. Every sentence can be read and re-read, each time revealing another layer of beauty and meaning. I don’t think you can read it without coming out the other side changed. Not because it has a thesis that will blow your mind, but because of how deeply it takes you into the characters.
Q. What is your favorite non-ebook book of hers?
A. That would be Many Heavens. It has absolutely everything. Her signature character depth and beautiful language, but with the added bonus of her most achingly beautiful love story, her most jaw-dropping plot twists, and an ending that absolutely blew the minds of 1950s Americans. I did a search last recently and found four copies for sale, the cheapest of which is $45. But it’s totally worth it.
If you want to dive into a novel that completely understands what it is like to have a faith crisis, read On This Star. The first half of it is just a knockout. If you want a sprawling, cast-of-thousands Nauvoo epic that has a little bit of everything, go for A Little Lower than the Angels.
Q. What did you learn about life from writing this biography?
A. Probably the most interesting thing I learned is something pretty obvious: that life doesn’t follow dramatic structure. The stories we tell in our culture lead us to believe that you should always be making progress. That if you lose your momentum and start to slow down, your entire life story gets off track. The worst thing that can happen to you is to become a has-been.
Virginia’s life didn’t follow such a pattern. She is one of the best novelists Mormonism has ever had. But she published her last important work in 1963. After that, every one of her books was pretty much a flop, even by her own accounting. It was sad to watch this play out. Her editor, who had helped her bring her Newbery Medal winning book into the world, was eventually unwilling to pay for illustrations for her last children’s novel. Virginia dropped project after project. Her last book for adults wasn’t even advertised. She published her last book in 1978 and died in 1991. So, she didn’t publish during her last thirteen years. When I got to this portion of her life, there was just very little to tell about her literary career. It was as if an entirely new story had started. A quiet story about a woman growing old. Living out her days in North Carolina. Writing in her journal and walking through the hills.
So, I guess I learned that life isn’t a novel. It’s a series of short stories.
|
|
EVENTS
Poetry Night
April 26
Signature Books Offices
508 W 400 N
Salt Lake City, UT 84116
Mormon History Association Conference
June 8–11
Rochester, New York
Rochester Riverside Conference Center
Sunstone Symposium
July 27–29
Salt Lake City, Utah
Location TBA
|
|
|
|
