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.
Whether you’re an interested writer or reader, subscribe below and we’ll keep you in the loop.
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.
“I think the central question of all story—and thus possibly of every form of human culture—is just this: How shall we greet the Other? Shall we devour, or annihilate, or welcome?”
Summer reruns of Mormon Lit debates of years gone by.
The Brian Evenson controversy at BYU in the mid-1990s is one of those Rorschach tests that almost invariably reveals more about yourself than about Evenson.
“Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me?” -Moses 7:48
The first time I saw E.T. had become available on Netflix streaming, I realized I hadn’t seen it since I was Elliott’s age. That fact
The National Anthem
That apple you hold in your hand,
what is it? Envy? Jazz? Cosmic Crisp?
On the groanings beyond utterance (we promise to let this theme take a breather after this).
In 1965, Andy Warhol gave a tape-recorder to Odine–an actor, fixture at Warhol’s “Factory,” and dedicated amphetamine user–and asked him to carry it around recording his conversations over the course of a 24-hour period.
Whether you’re an interested writer or reader, subscribe below and we’ll keep you in the loop.