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.
With apologies to Hugh Nibley
“You think you can drive a car and change the world? It doesn’t work like that.”
“Maybe not, but it’s all I know how to do and I gotta do something.” –Pops and Speed Racer, Speed Racer (2008)
“And verily I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world, and seek for the things of a better.” -D&C 25:10
Like Waiting for Godot, only longer…
I don’t know why this bothers me so much, but I feel like I’m taking crazy-pills every time I poke around online and see that virtually no one else seems interested in the fact that Miles Davis directly samples the opening track of 1969’s In a Silent Way on Side B of Jack Johnson.
Contemporary U.S. perceptions of Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 novel Don Quixote are heavily filtered through the 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha, whose big show-stopper “Dream the Impossible Dream” (featured most recently in the trailer for John Wick: Chapter 3) creates the impression that the novel’s thesis is that the world can be changed by those who dare to dream, or some such.
It’s love, it’s love…
The Welsh iconoclastic John Cale has spent virtually his entire career better known for his influence than his music. Co-founder of The Velvet Underground (always
I am still processing my grief at the recent passing of Low, whom I have previously argued was secretly the most Mormon band to ever exist, in all the best ways possible. So, I created this album guide.
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