James S. Olson

Last updated

James Stuart Olson is an academic and Pulitzer Prize-nominated author. In 1994, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of History at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. [1]

Contents

Olson is the author (or co-author) of over thirty books, primarily non-fiction, and usually in the field of History. His most recent book was Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History, which won the 2002 History of Science Category Award from the Association of American Publishers. Olson wrote the book while suffering a malignant growth which resulted in the amputation of his hand. [2] The book was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best non-fiction books in America for 2002. In November 2008, Olson was honored by his alma mater, Brigham Young University, with its Distinguished Alumni Service Award. [1]

Education

B.A., Brigham Young University
M.A., Ph.D., The State University of New York at Stony Brook

Works

Students

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judy Blume</span> American writer of children, young adult and adult works (born 1938)

Judith Blume is an American writer of children's, young adult, and adult fiction. Blume began writing in 1959 and has published more than 25 novels. Among her best-known works are Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (1970), Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (1972), Deenie (1973), and Blubber (1974). Blume's books have significantly contributed to children's and young adult literature. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lloyd Alexander</span> American writer (1924–2007)

Lloyd Chudley Alexander was an American author of more than 40 books, primarily fantasy novels for children and young adults. Over his seven-decade career, Alexander wrote 48 books, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. His most famous work is The Chronicles of Prydain, a series of five high fantasy novels whose conclusion, The High King, was awarded the 1969 Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature. He won U.S. National Book Awards in 1971 and 1982.

Carol Ann Shields, was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian literature</span> Field of literature from Canada

Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both geographically and historically, representing Canada's diversity in culture and region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard J. Arrington</span> American Mormon historian

Leonard James Arrington was an American author, academic and the founder of the Mormon History Association. He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his many influential contributions to the field. Since 1842, he was the first non-general authority Church Historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1972 to 1982, and was director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History from 1982 until 1986.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Fleischman</span> American writer of childrens books

Paul Fleischman is an American writer of children's books. He and his father Sid Fleischman have both won the Newbery Medal from the American Library Association recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children". For the body of his work he was the United States author nominee for the international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2012.

Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson. His fiction is often described as literary minimalism, but also draws inspiration from horror, weird fiction, detective fiction, science fiction and continental philosophy. Evenson makes frequent use of dark humor and often features characters struggling with the limits and consequences of knowledge. He has also written non-fiction, and translated several books by French-language writers into English.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bathsheba W. Smith</span>

Bathsheba Wilson Bigler Smith was an early member of the Latter Day Saint movement. She was the fourth general president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, matron of the Salt Lake Temple, member of the Board of Directors of Deseret Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah, and a leader in the western United States woman's suffrage movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aidan Chambers</span> British author

Aidan Chambers is a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orson Scott Card</span> American science fiction novelist (born 1951)

Orson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abigail Adams Smith</span> Daughter of U.S. president John Adams

Abigail "Nabby" Amelia Adams Smith was the daughter of Abigail and John Adams, founding father and second President of the United States, and the sister of John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States. She was named for her mother.

William Grant Bagley was a historian specializing in the history of the Western United States and the American Old West. Bagley wrote about the fur trade, overland emigration, American Indians, military history, frontier violence, railroads, mining, and Utah and the Mormons.

Brigham Young University Press was the university press of Brigham Young University (BYU).

Gloria Joan Skurzynski is an American writer of books for young people, including both fiction and non-fiction.

The AML Awards are given annually by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML) to the best work "by, for, and about Mormons." They are juried awards, chosen by a panel of judges. Citations for many of the awards can be found on the AML website.

Christopher Everett Crowe is an American professor of English and English education at Brigham Young University (BYU) specializing in young adult literature. In addition to his academic work, Crowe also writes books for the young-adult market, including Mississippi Trial, 1955.

Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.

Dan Louie Flores is an American writer and historian who specializes in cultural and environmental studies of the American West. He held the A.B. Hammond Chair in Western History at the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana until he retired in May 2014.

Valerie Olson van Heest is an American author, explorer, and museum exhibit designer. She is co-founder of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association.

References

  1. 1 2 SHSUOnline. "Olson Named One Of BYU's 'Distinguished'" . Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  2. History Today ; Bathsheba's Breast: Women,...; Jul 2002