Ships of Hagoth is a digital-first literary magazine featuring creative nonfiction and theoretical essays by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Where other LDS-centric publications often look inward at the LDS tradition, we seek literary works that look outward through the curious, charitable lens of faith.
Ships of Hagoth is pleased to announce its first book-length message in a bottle, AND ALL ETERNITY SHOOK, by
Jacob Bender, released April 2022.
Jacob L. Bender is also the author of Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), a work similarly rooted in his Puerto Rican mission service and his mother's passing. In LDS studies, he has previously written for Dialogue, Sunstone, Peculiar Pages, Ships of Hagoth, the Eugene England Foundation, and The Association of Mormon Letters.
Enraged, he wrestles with his God in passionate prayer as he pleads for her life; images and memories of his mission and his Mom jump, cut, and splice together in a cinematic crescendo, flashing furiously before his eyes as though he were the one dying and not her; all as he feels after some miracle, some impossibility, and the peace which surpasses understanding.
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A CALL FOR
We are hoping—for “one must needs hope”—for creative nonfiction, theoretical essays, and craft essays that seek radical new ways to explore and express theological ideas; that are, like Hagoth, “exceedingly curious.”
We favor creative nonfiction that can trace its lineage back to Michel de Montaigne. Whether narrative, analytical, or devotional, these essays lean ruminative, conversational, meandering, impressionistic, and are reluctant to wax didactic.
As for theoretical essays: we welcome work that playfully and charitably explores the wide world of arts & letters—especially works created from differing religious, non-religious, and even irreligious perspectives—through the peculiar lens of a Latter-day Saint.
We read and publish submissions as quickly as possible, and accept simultaneous submissions.
Almost too on the nose, I had to fly to a funeral over Easter weekend. Even more on the nose, I watched the 2024 film Conclave as my in-flight movie just three days before Pope Francis passed away Easter Monday.
The dead will rise!
A few reruns, in case your Good Friday and/or Ward Easter program is insufficiently brooding for your tastes.
Also a reminder to rewatch Ben-Hur for Holy Week.
Or, what an old General Conference gaff, a seminal Post-Punk album, and the failures of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, all share in common.
Were the Nephites illegal immigrants?
You do it to yourself, and that’s why it really hurts.
On the eternal ephemerality of The Cranberries, Flogging Molly, and Dropkick Murphys.
Don’t waste your time or time will waste you.
You knew what I was when you picked me up…
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