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.
There are days when I consider the very real possibility that I don’t actually enjoy poetry, that I only muscle through it all out of some misbegotten sense of English majory duty.
On the undercurrent of Hope For Zion threading its way through the Ted Chiang adaptation.
For your end of the summer.
How quickly we forget just how quickly we can forget.
In 1999, luminaries of Mormon literary criticism like Eugene England, Gideon Burton, Neal Kramer, gathered together for a special issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought dedicated entirely to Mormon Literary Criticism, setting the stage for a revival and new vigorous engagement with Mormon literary criticism. There has yet to be another special issue of Dialogue about literary criticism.
It was a year ago today that Pitchfork first published their exposé on Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by four different people throughout the 2010s.
One more Summer re-run of Mormon lit debates of yore.
Continuing our Summer re-runs of Mormon Lit debates from years past.
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