Hello LDS Publisher Readers,
I’m writing from a new group blog called Mormon Renaissance (www.mormonrenaissance.org) that focuses on improving the craft, critical discernment, and the quality of Mormon artistic efforts. In a recent post, I discussed the idea of Mormon literature as an aesthetic that spreads across multiple genres, rather than limited to a single genre. In continuing our discussion of this issue, we’re thinking about a follow-up series of guest posts by Mormon authors on how they can write something uniquely Mormon without betraying the expectations of their genre. If you are a published Mormon author from any of the following genres and are interested in writing a few paragraphs on how your genre fiction can also be “Mormon” fiction, please send me an e-mail:
Science fiction/fantasy
Romance
Mystery
Historical Fiction
Literary Fiction
Liz Busby
lizbusby [at] byu [dot] edu
“In continuing our discussion of this issue, we’re thinking about a follow-up series of guest posts by Mormon authors on how they can write something uniquely Mormon without betraying the expectations of their genre.”
Will the national market publish something uniquely Mormon?
And in regards to the Mormon market — what if the expectations of the Mormon audience change/warp slightly the expectations of the genre?
You pose some good questions. I don’t know if the national market is ready to publish something uniquely Mormon. With that said, I have found that the number of people who are not LDS who read my books seems to be growing.
Perhaps rather than the national market publishing uniquely LDS fiction, those of us writing it need to try to break down some of the distribution barriers to get our books out to mainstream readers. If we can strive to improve the quality of LDS fiction, perhaps our readership will grow beyond just members of the LDS church.