![]() | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(March 2024) |
Benson Y. Parkinson | |
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Born | 1960 |
Nationality | American |
Education | B.A. in Comparative Literature from Brigham Young University, 1985 |
Occupation(s) | Writer, editor |
Years active | 1994- |
Organization | The Association for Mormon Letters |
Notable work | The MTC: Set Apart Into the Field S. Dilworth Young: General Authority, Scouter, Poet |
Spouse | Robin Parkinson |
Children | 5 |
Awards | 2000 AML Award for Criticism |
Benson Young Parkinson (born 1960) is a Latter-day Saint novelist, literary critic, and biographer. He has published two novels concerning fictional LDS missionaries, entitled The MTC: Set Apart and Into the Field, as well as a biography of S. Dilworth Young, an LDS general authority. In the mid-1990s he became involved in the Association for Mormon Letters (AML), primarily by creating an email forum for the discussion of LDS literature called AML-List, for which he was awarded the 2000 AML Award for Criticism. Parkinson then co-founded the literary journal Irreantum and served as co-editor for a year. His criticism of LDS literature has been featured in multiple publications. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University.
Parkinson was born in Provo, Utah. He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France. In 1985 he graduated from Brigham Young University [1] with a degree in Comparative Literature. [2] He and his wife Robin are the parents of five children and live in Ogden, Utah. [3]
Parkinson's novel The MTC: Set Apart was published by Aspen Books in 1995. [4] It follows four new LDS missionaries as they enter the Missionary Training Center. Robert M. Hogge praised the "rich language, symbolism, ... and allusion" present in The MTC, [5] but writer Brian Evensen called the novel's characters stereotypical and the dialogue "hackneyed and predictable." [4] Parkinson continued the missionaries' story with 2000's Into the Field, which follows the four young men as they travel to France. In a review in Irreantum, Neal Kramer commended the realistic nature of the novel, saying: "I wondered whether I was reading a novel or a memoir. I had to shake myself a little to remember I was reading LDS fiction." [6] Parkinson has also published a biography of his grandfather S. Dilworth Young, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, entitled S. Dilworth Young: General Authority, Scouter, Poet. [3] The author presented this work at the AML's symposium that year. [7] In a review for the Journal of Mormon History , Gary Huxford called the biography "a good read that deserves a wide audience," citing Parkinson's inexperience as a biographer as both a strength and a weakness to the work overall. [8] In 1996, Parkinson hosted a session at the Fourth Annual LDS Writers Conference entitled "How to Sell Your LDS Novel." [9]
In addition to full-length books, Parkinson has written reviews and articles about Latter-day Saint fiction, many of which have been published in issues of Irreantum. [10] [11] The 1998 edition of AML Annual featured his essay "Electric Talk: Twenty Months of AML-List." [12] "The Deseret School and the Missionary School," Parkinson's take on the different approaches to LDS writing, was published in the first volume of Irreantum in 1999. [10] In addition to publishing such essays, Parkinson worked as an editor for the Church Educational System in the early 2000s. [3]
Beginning in the mid-1990s, Parkinson was an active participant in the Association for Mormon Letters (AML). In 1995, he created AML-List, an email forum for the discussion of LDS literature sponsored by the association. [13] He also served as moderator [14] until the year 2000. [15] The forum received an average of 30 posts per day, [16] which included reviews of various LDS films and books. Over time, AML-List received more than 1000 entries from users. [17] Parkinson wanted to facilitate an energetic environment that would allow people with different interests to share their opinions. During this time, he also worked on AML-List Magazine, which showcased authors' works online. [2] Parkinson won the 2000 AML Award for Criticism for his work on AML-List: including establishing the forum, moderating it, editing thousands of posts, and creating regular columns of literary news and reviews. [18]
Then, in 1999, [19] he co-founded the literary magazine Irreantum with Chris Bigelow. The publication featured some content first produced on AML-List [20] as well as "original fiction, poetry, essays, reviews, interviews, and literary news." [2] Parkinson and Bigelow were Irreantum's first co-editors, with Parkinson serving as the first reader of submissions and collaborator with the editing staff. Similar to his goal of inclusivity for AML-List, Parkinson wanted the magazine "to give broad coverage and support to every sort of Mormon literature and to promote all kinds." [2] During this time he also served as an ex officio board member of the AML. [11] He ended his time as co-editor after the Summer 2000 issue. [21]
Mormon fiction is generally fiction by or about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are also referred to as Latter-day Saints or Mormons. Its history is commonly divided into four sections as first organized by Eugene England: foundations, home literature, the "lost" generation, and faithful realism. During the first fifty years of the church's existence, 1830–1880, fiction was not popular, though Parley P. Pratt wrote a fictional Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. With the emergence of the novel and short stories as popular reading material, Orson F. Whitney called on fellow members to write inspirational stories. During this "home literature" movement, church-published magazines published many didactic stories and Nephi Anderson wrote the novel Added Upon. The generation of writers after the home literature movement produced fiction that was recognized nationally but was seen as rebelling against home literature's outward moralization. Vardis Fisher's Children of God and Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua were prominent novels from this time period. In the 1970s and 1980s, authors started writing realistic fiction as faithful members of the LDS Church. Acclaimed examples include Levi S. Peterson's The Backslider and Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun. Home literature experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when church-owned Deseret Book started to publish more fiction, including Gerald Lund's historical fiction series The Work and the Glory and Jack Weyland's novels.
Missionary Training Centers (MTC) are centers devoted to training missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The flagship MTC is located in Provo, Utah, adjacent to the campus of Brigham Young University (BYU), a private university owned and operated by the church.
Brian Jeffrey Fogg is an American social scientist and author who is a research associate and adjunct professor at Stanford University. He is the founder and director of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab, formerly known as the Persuasive Technology Lab.
Royal Jon Skousen is an American linguist and retired professor of linguistics and English at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he is editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. He is "the leading expert on the textual history of the Book of Mormon" and the founder of the analogical modeling approach to language modeling.
Seymour Dilworth Young was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1945 until his death.
Douglas H. Thayer was a prominent author in the "faithful realism" movement of Mormon fiction. He has been called the "Mormon Hemingway" for his straightforward style and powerful prose. Eugene England called him the "father of contemporary Mormon fiction."
George Eugene England, Jr., usually credited as Eugene England, was a Latter-day Saint writer, teacher, and scholar. He founded Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the oldest independent journal in Mormon Studies, with G. Wesley Johnson, Paul G. Salisbury, Joseph H. Jeppson, and Frances Menlove in 1966, and cofounded the Association for Mormon Letters in 1976. He is also widely known in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for his many essays about Mormon culture and thought. From 1977–1998, England taught Mormon Literature at Brigham Young University. England described the ideal modern Mormon scholar as "critical and innovative as his gifts from God require but conscious of and loyal to his own unique heritage and nurturing community and thus able to exercise those gifts without harm to others or himself."
Brigham Young University Press was the university press of Brigham Young University (BYU).
Louis C. Midgley is a Mormon apologist and retired professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Since his retirement he has been closely involved with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, writing many book reviews, articles, and book chapters defending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from perceived critics.
Boyd Jay Petersen is program coordinator for Mormon Studies at Utah Valley University (UVU) and teaches English and literature at UVU and Brigham Young University (BYU). He has also been a biographer of Hugh Nibley, a candidate for the Utah House of Representatives, and president of the Association for Mormon Letters. He was named editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought for the term 2016-2020.
The Association for Mormon Letters (AML) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 to "foster scholarly and creative work in Mormon letters and to promote fellowship among scholars and writers of Mormon literature." Other stated purposes have included promoting the "production and study of Mormon literature" and the encouragement of quality writing "by, for, and about Mormons." The broadness of this definition of LDS literature has led the AML to focus on a wide variety of work that has sometimes been neglected in the Mormon community. It publishes criticism on such writing, hosts an annual conference, and offers awards to works of fiction, poetry, essay, criticism, drama, film, and other genres. It published the literary journal Irreantum from 1999 to 2013 and currently publishes an online-only version of the journal, which began in 2018. The AML's blog, Dawning of a Brighter Day, launched in 2009. As of 2012, the association also promotes LDS literature through the use of social media. The AML has been described as an "influential proponent of Mormon literary fiction."
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher is a historian and editor of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She studied at Brigham Young University (BYU) and the University of Utah. She worked in the History Department for the LDS Church from 1972 to 1980, and became a professor of English at BYU in 1981 while continuing her work in Mormon history at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. She published a popular book of Eliza R. Snow's writings.
Steven L. Peck is an evolutionary biologist, poet, and novelist. His literary work is influential in Mormon literature circles. He is a professor of biology at Brigham Young University (BYU). He grew up in Moab, Utah and lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Eric Roy Samuelsen was an American playwright and emeritus professor of theatre at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is considered one of the most important Mormon playwrights, and has been called a Mormon Charles Dickens or Henrik Ibsen. He won the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) drama award in 1994, 1997, and 1999, and was AML president from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 he received the Smith–Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters.
Irreantum is a literary journal compiled and published by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) from 1999 to 2013, with online-only publication starting in 2018. It features selections of LDS literature, including fiction, poetry, and essays, as well as criticism of those works. The journal was advertised as "the only magazine devoted to Mormon literature." In its first years of publication, Irreantum was printed quarterly; later, it was printed twice a year. A subscription to the magazine was included in an AML membership. Annual Irreantum writing contests were held, with prizes for short stories, novel excerpts, poems, and nonfiction awarded. The journal's creators, Benson Parkinson and Chris Bigelow, sought to create a publication that would become a one-stop resource where companies interested in publishing LDS literature could find the best the subculture had to offer. They also hoped Irreantum would highlight various kinds of LDS writing, balancing both liberal and traditional points of view.
Mormon missionary diarists are the Mormon missionaries who kept records in the form of diaries and journals recounting their activities on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in various parts of the world. Both male and female missionaries kept these diaries and were encouraged to do so by the church. Many of these documents have been donated to the Brigham Young University's Harold B. Lee Library, and since 2003, a large selection of these have been transcribed and digitized.
Dendō: One Year and One Half in Tokyo: A Missionary Memoir is a graphic novel missionary diary written by Brittany Long Olsen while she was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan. It is the first published missionary diary in graphic novel form, and won the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) award in 2015 for comics. After returning from her mission, she scanned and edited it, before self-publishing it after being rejected by traditional publishers. Dendō received good reviews, praising Olsen for her wit and spirituality. It was purchased and displayed by the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University (BYU).
Garrett Batty is an American film director, writer, and producer known for his film The Saratov Approach. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and a native of Park City, Utah. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his films are part of Mormon cinema, but with a more general audience. He has written, directed, and produced four full-length films, including Freetown (2015) and Out of Liberty (2019), and will begin work on a fifth in 2020. For Freetown, he was awarded the 2015 Ghana Movie Award for Best Screenplay alongside Melissa Leilani Larson.
Nothing Very Important and Other Stories is a collection of interconnected short stories written by Béla Petsco and self-published in 1979 with illustrations by his friend Kathryn Clark-Spencer. The stories are about missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints working in Southern California. Signature Books reprinted the book in 1984 under their Orion imprint. Petsco wrote the stories for his master's thesis at Brigham Young University (BYU). The book won the 1979 Association for Mormon Letters award for short fiction. The stories were adapted for theater and performed in 1983, but without BYU's endorsement.
Béla Petsco was an American writer who was the author of Nothing Very Important and Other Stories, a collection of connected stories about missionary work in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was born to Hungarian immigrants and grew up in Queens in New York City. He converted to the LDS Church after watching the film Brigham Young. He served an LDS mission in the California South mission.