Boyd Petersen: presidential address
(Woops. No pic.)
One last motivator for donating to AML: Boyd and Eric contemplated doing AML shirtless, beefcake calendar.
Conf. Title: Mormon Literature: Past, Present, and Future
Do I really want to live my life over and over?
Recursion fairly common literary device. Moves through various examples: Harry Potter, Kurt Vonnegut, Star Trek movie, Groundhog's Day. What if there is no tomorrow? Phil Connors asks. Finally uses the recursion to better himself, the world.
What might a Mormon Groundhog's Day look light? What might it look like for God? And how does He feel about it?
Endless repetitons in Mormon lit:
Anti-Mormon tracts: derivative, banal, stock, cliched.
Didactic literature: suffers from much of the same. XR Eugene England's "Danger on the Left, Danger on the Right. Anthologies he discusses fail due to vein repetitons. Away with sterotyped Mormons!
Mormon writers must dedicate selves to devloping talents and must be charitable.
As do this, leave cycle of mundane repetition, enter eternal repetitons.
Renaissance coming from "spooky place" of radical middle: new themes, issues being explored. BP wants to celebrate these movements.
"Given God's love, there's no boredom" in what he does round after eternal round: Neal A Maxwell.
(Notes taken during Boyd's address.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
Showing posts with label AML2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AML2010. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
AML Announcements & Awards
(Sounds like a sacrament mtg releasing/calling & sustaining of church officers)
Eric Samuelson (past-president): Boyd and I decided AML wouldn't die on our watch. Kept it healthy through difficult times. Revamped website; Irreantum in good hands; new blog, etc.
Margaret Blair Young, new prez: won't die on my watch either. Mormon letters on the cusp of great things.
Ask not what AML can do for you, but what you can do for AML.
Support options:
1. $10 contribution for next year's conf.
2. $25 sustaining member of AML (gets membership in AML + Irresntum subscription)
3. $50 honor contribution, helps fund mtgs
4. $100 makes AML contests possible
5. $200+ allowing movement beyond AML's present boarders
Part of vision for AML: go international. Forge connections beyond present boundaries.
Scott Bronson: awards
*Award for online writing: Sandra Taylor, onecobble.com
one cobble at a time, blog
Collection of/connections b/w entries
*Humor: wit leads to wisdom
Elna Baker: New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
*Short Fiction: Larry Menlove, Path of Antelope, Pelican, and ??? (published in Irreantum)
*Memoir: Kathryn Lynard Soper, The Year My Son and I Were Born
*YA Lit: Carol Lynch Williams, The Chosen One
Struggle against polygamy. Williams' heart is in every word of this book.
*Poetry: Lance Larsen, Backyard Alchemy
Speaks softly and leads our poems where they yearn to wander. Awakens in our minds subtle new insights into what we've taken for granted. He draws us toward the Divine.
*Publishing: Chris Bigelow, Zarahemla Books
Critically acclaimed and culturally relevant books for the Mormon market. Serving with diligence and conviction.
*Film: Dennis Packer/Packard (?), et al., Fire Creek,
Compelling exploration of being fallen, then raised up. Commitment to redemption through Christ. "This film aspires to great things."
*Drama: Melissa Leilani Larson, Little Happy Secrets
Dark and dangerous spaces where the political and personal crash, choosing to light a candle. Compassionate, compelling.
*Honorable Mention: Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Romance b/w Japanese-American girl and Chinese-American boy. Chance to heal.
*Novel: Todd Petersen, Rift
Get out of Jens Thorsen's way. Each sentence artfully crafted, cajoling readers on. Great sense of humor. Explores rift b/w two men in small community.
*Special Award—Service to AML: Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
*Smith-Petit Lifetime Achievement Award: Levi Petersen
Gifted, ironic, pressing. Found grace in unsuspecting places. Mormon-others are always in God's hands. (No sure what I think of that term: Mormon-others.)
*Contribution for the study of Mormon Film: James D'Arc
The giant upon whose shoulders we all stand when studying Mormon Film.
(Notes taken during the changing of the guard and the awards "ceremony")
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
AML Session: Patricia Karamesines
Patricia Karamesines: “When is a Platonic Friendship Not Platonic? Husbands, Wives, and Significant Others in Shannon Hale's The Actor and the Housewife”
(Got here late: missed her opening.)
Uses Hale's text to explore trans-gender relationships. Friendships that cross gender boundaries.
Becky making ripples through her community. And thriving because of it. Acting hero's role of crossing established boundaries. That she's open about it forces others to question such limits, to shake off rhetorical limits.
Becky: being forced to find new words to explain her experience. Invoking rhetorical power of puns, metaphors in order to negotiate space b/w the pair for the existence of the relationship.
Expanding previous experience to make such space. Taking up language to change the world. Novel taking a good run at confronting the lack of lang. for such relationships as those b/w the actor and the housewife.
How to deal with the discomfort the lack of lang. for such experiences?
Thus we see, that through the actor and the housewife, some men and some women can work through the intricate complexities of attraction and build space in their lives for the intimacies of "platonic love," whatever that means—
(Notes taken during the session.)
(Product placement: The Fob Bible, courtesy of Eric and MoJo of Peculiar Pages Press and B10 Mediaworx.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
(Got here late: missed her opening.)
Uses Hale's text to explore trans-gender relationships. Friendships that cross gender boundaries.
Becky making ripples through her community. And thriving because of it. Acting hero's role of crossing established boundaries. That she's open about it forces others to question such limits, to shake off rhetorical limits.
Becky: being forced to find new words to explain her experience. Invoking rhetorical power of puns, metaphors in order to negotiate space b/w the pair for the existence of the relationship.
Expanding previous experience to make such space. Taking up language to change the world. Novel taking a good run at confronting the lack of lang. for such relationships as those b/w the actor and the housewife.
How to deal with the discomfort the lack of lang. for such experiences?
Thus we see, that through the actor and the housewife, some men and some women can work through the intricate complexities of attraction and build space in their lives for the intimacies of "platonic love," whatever that means—
(Notes taken during the session.)
(Product placement: The Fob Bible, courtesy of Eric and MoJo of Peculiar Pages Press and B10 Mediaworx.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
AML Session: Gideon Burton
Gideon Burton: Avatars for Latter-day Expression
Avatar: manifestations of higher forms, Hindu gods
Have made way into online culture. FB, Second Life, etc. Avatars have moved into the mainstream. Adults are avatar-ing now.
Defers to David A. Bednar's remarks on the body and the digital world.
Of course: Avatar comes up. (GB seen it six times in theaters.) Generates real interest in what it means to be embodied beings. Takes us more closely into understanding how the body mediates our experience in the world. Pro. allowed a fuller range of being through the avatar.
In Mormon Doctrine, as if our bodies are the avatars for our spirits. Allowing us to transcend certain limits.
In Avatar: There is joyousness to the body. Learns to tame the body. Jake: I'm learning to enjoy my body. (Reading Avatar through the lens of Mormon experience.)
Mormons: temporarily embodied to the end of permanent embodiment. Our glory: that by which our bodies are quickened.
Challenge of this life: learning to deal with the temporal/corporeal demands of relationships.
Personal body => social body. Formation of identity.
Avatar; Richness of Pandora lays not in it's ore, but in it's connections. A people at once corporeal and spiritual. Jake's body becomes a mode of existence. A station on the way to a more exalted station, to full authenticity.
Perhaps this life is the ultimate avatar state. Our technologies can best be used to help us into higher understandings of ourselves.
When and how must our experience be mediated, unmediated, or re-mediated?
If we don't take the leap into new media, we may miss something of our embodied experience.
(Notes taken during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
Avatar: manifestations of higher forms, Hindu gods
Have made way into online culture. FB, Second Life, etc. Avatars have moved into the mainstream. Adults are avatar-ing now.
Defers to David A. Bednar's remarks on the body and the digital world.
Of course: Avatar comes up. (GB seen it six times in theaters.) Generates real interest in what it means to be embodied beings. Takes us more closely into understanding how the body mediates our experience in the world. Pro. allowed a fuller range of being through the avatar.
In Mormon Doctrine, as if our bodies are the avatars for our spirits. Allowing us to transcend certain limits.
In Avatar: There is joyousness to the body. Learns to tame the body. Jake: I'm learning to enjoy my body. (Reading Avatar through the lens of Mormon experience.)
Mormons: temporarily embodied to the end of permanent embodiment. Our glory: that by which our bodies are quickened.
Challenge of this life: learning to deal with the temporal/corporeal demands of relationships.
Personal body => social body. Formation of identity.
Avatar; Richness of Pandora lays not in it's ore, but in it's connections. A people at once corporeal and spiritual. Jake's body becomes a mode of existence. A station on the way to a more exalted station, to full authenticity.
Perhaps this life is the ultimate avatar state. Our technologies can best be used to help us into higher understandings of ourselves.
When and how must our experience be mediated, unmediated, or re-mediated?
If we don't take the leap into new media, we may miss something of our embodied experience.
(Notes taken during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
AML Session: Stephen Carter
Stephen Carter: “Channeling the Muse: Using Outlines to Strengthen Literary Fiction”
(No pic again: sorry!)
Feels like Oliver Cowdery: wanting to translate, hadn't prepared himself
SC not a natural born writer, but "I'm a persistent cuss!"
Presentation: the musings of a high-fxning-autistic writer (son high-fxning-autistic, learned to read emotions on a person's face, just as SC learned to write effective stories)
Of the idea that planning is an essential part of putting a story together. Writing a story like literary architecture.
Using this basic idea more consciously could improve their work
Base of every story: character arc
"these are the basic bones of how I put together a story"
1: give character a goal
2: make something to oppose that goal: antagonist/antagonism
First two things: essentially plan of salvation: antagonism in all things
3: kick the conflict up a notch: test the protagonist in larger and larger conflicts
We want to see increasing levels of conflict: once past level one, don't want that level again; increase intensity
4: Need dramatic need; goals transitory, but dramatic need is in opposition to goal: dramatic need: change the protagonist needs to make inside: interior spiritual need
Getting dramatic need to work is key to making story work, to get character to change, even to make reader change
The Sopranos is a good example of this model
Tony Soprano afraid of losing family b/c of his job as mob boss, but can't leave the job b/c made an oath, won't break his oath
Constant larger and larger conflicts
Structure of tragedy: pro. gets goal at expense of dramatic need
Structure of drama: pro. gets dramatic need at expense of goal
Ideal: stretching pro. b/w dramatic need and goal
Another ex: Avatar
Disappointed w/movie: pro. only had a goal, no dramatic need
Conclusion: Increase tension b/w goal and dramatic need: stretch it, make them almost mutually exclusive
(Notes taken on my iPhone Notes app during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
(No pic again: sorry!)
Feels like Oliver Cowdery: wanting to translate, hadn't prepared himself
SC not a natural born writer, but "I'm a persistent cuss!"
Presentation: the musings of a high-fxning-autistic writer (son high-fxning-autistic, learned to read emotions on a person's face, just as SC learned to write effective stories)
Of the idea that planning is an essential part of putting a story together. Writing a story like literary architecture.
Using this basic idea more consciously could improve their work
Base of every story: character arc
"these are the basic bones of how I put together a story"
1: give character a goal
2: make something to oppose that goal: antagonist/antagonism
First two things: essentially plan of salvation: antagonism in all things
3: kick the conflict up a notch: test the protagonist in larger and larger conflicts
We want to see increasing levels of conflict: once past level one, don't want that level again; increase intensity
4: Need dramatic need; goals transitory, but dramatic need is in opposition to goal: dramatic need: change the protagonist needs to make inside: interior spiritual need
Getting dramatic need to work is key to making story work, to get character to change, even to make reader change
The Sopranos is a good example of this model
Tony Soprano afraid of losing family b/c of his job as mob boss, but can't leave the job b/c made an oath, won't break his oath
Constant larger and larger conflicts
Structure of tragedy: pro. gets goal at expense of dramatic need
Structure of drama: pro. gets dramatic need at expense of goal
Ideal: stretching pro. b/w dramatic need and goal
Another ex: Avatar
Disappointed w/movie: pro. only had a goal, no dramatic need
Conclusion: Increase tension b/w goal and dramatic need: stretch it, make them almost mutually exclusive
(Notes taken on my iPhone Notes app during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
AML Session: Marilyn Brown
Marilyn Brown: "Bones and Buns: Growing the Body of Mormon Literature"
(Should've taken her pic to include, but didn't: my bad)
Off-the-cuff, shares her experiences with woman Mormon writers
Drawing connections: bones, muscles connected with tendons, metaphor for her presentation
George Eliot, Adam Bead (?) read by MB as a ten-year-old: thought, This is the kind of book I want Mormons to write, but where is it? Wrote first novel in a 100 page notebook
Read Nephi Anderson, Maureen Whipple: okay, but not the best that could be done.
Mormon audience rejected Whipple because "we knew better"
Wanted inspiring Mormon lit: that portrays us in a positive light?
(Veda Hale: biography of MW abt to be published)
MB did not want to be like Maureen: "good Mormon girl that I am"
Virginia Sorensen: another writer she admired: "I liked Virginia Sorensen, but she still wasn't what I wanted"—something really Mormon
Then Clinton Larson then Carol Lynn Pearson (Beginnings)
MB published Rain Flowers then Head/Heart book w/Elaine someone (on own printing press)
Doug Thayer and Doug Marshall: thought, Finally here we have truly Mormon writers
Considers Wallace Stegner: wrote abt Mormons, but as an outsider, and I could tell (couldn't you?)
Continued her impossible dream
Wrote book; almost published in NY; reworked now, made it "more Mormon"
Then another prize winner in UT that Mormons wouldn't buy
Then Earthkeepers
Mentions Brady Udall, likes what he did; various YA writers
Still waiting for the national Mormon literary novel
What abt a best selling woman artist from DB?
Arianne Cope, John Bennion, Todd Petersen, (good novel, despite dead space in the middle), Jeanine Justin (sister of Linda Sillitoe), Marilyn Arnold, Levi Petersen (just not happy with his Mormonism)
Lance Larsen is good
Anybody who's successful I bow at your feet! (Mentions Tolkien's success at 74: she's 73, says there's still hope)
(Notes taken on my iPhone Notes app during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
(Should've taken her pic to include, but didn't: my bad)
Off-the-cuff, shares her experiences with woman Mormon writers
Drawing connections: bones, muscles connected with tendons, metaphor for her presentation
George Eliot, Adam Bead (?) read by MB as a ten-year-old: thought, This is the kind of book I want Mormons to write, but where is it? Wrote first novel in a 100 page notebook
Read Nephi Anderson, Maureen Whipple: okay, but not the best that could be done.
Mormon audience rejected Whipple because "we knew better"
Wanted inspiring Mormon lit: that portrays us in a positive light?
(Veda Hale: biography of MW abt to be published)
MB did not want to be like Maureen: "good Mormon girl that I am"
Virginia Sorensen: another writer she admired: "I liked Virginia Sorensen, but she still wasn't what I wanted"—something really Mormon
Then Clinton Larson then Carol Lynn Pearson (Beginnings)
MB published Rain Flowers then Head/Heart book w/Elaine someone (on own printing press)
Doug Thayer and Doug Marshall: thought, Finally here we have truly Mormon writers
Considers Wallace Stegner: wrote abt Mormons, but as an outsider, and I could tell (couldn't you?)
Continued her impossible dream
Wrote book; almost published in NY; reworked now, made it "more Mormon"
Then another prize winner in UT that Mormons wouldn't buy
Then Earthkeepers
Mentions Brady Udall, likes what he did; various YA writers
Still waiting for the national Mormon literary novel
What abt a best selling woman artist from DB?
Arianne Cope, John Bennion, Todd Petersen, (good novel, despite dead space in the middle), Jeanine Justin (sister of Linda Sillitoe), Marilyn Arnold, Levi Petersen (just not happy with his Mormonism)
Lance Larsen is good
Anybody who's successful I bow at your feet! (Mentions Tolkien's success at 74: she's 73, says there's still hope)
(Notes taken on my iPhone Notes app during the session.)
- Tyler-at-large: chasing clouds, blogging live
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