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BYU Studies Quarterly

BYU Studies Quarterly

Keywords

Mormon studies, book review, sensationalism

Abstract

Short story anthologies are oddly rare in Mormon literature. We publish plenty of single-author collections, but multi-author anthologies tend to be fewer and further between. As such, they tend to be viewed as manifestos of sorts, snapshots of the current state of the Mormon literary art--at least over the past two decades. From Eugene England's Bright Angels and Familiars through M. Shayne Bell's Washed by a Wave of Wind to Angela Hallstrom's Dispensation, we look to these anthologies as signposts of our collective literary maturity and use them as introductions to notable names that we might not hear of otherwise.

That is not precisely what editors Wm Morris and Theric Jepson were trying to accomplish with Monsters and Mormons--or at least it was not their sole goal. In many ways, this anthology is an act of aggression, an almost antagonistic response to the abuses heaped on Mormonism by the pulps and other popular genres over the years. The editors stated it best in the original call for submissions: "We propose to recast, reclaim and simply mess with that tradition by making Mormon characters, settings and ideas the protagonists of genre-oriented stories . . . a project of cultural re-appropriation. But even more than that, we just want us all to have fun with the concept."

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