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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.

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OUR BOOK IN A BOTTLE

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.

About the Author

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.

A young missionary comes home after two years in Puerto Rico only to find his mother on her deathbed.

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

SUB
MISS
IONS

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. 

Submit Your Work

Tradition and the LDS Talent

Blaise Meursault November 18, 2022

The quotation haunting any conversation of Mormon literature (whatever that may mean), is the Orson F. Whitney prophecy that “we shall yet have Shakespeares and

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Day of the Dead in English

Jacob Bender November 1, 2022

An older creative piece (and sort-of sequel to “And All Eternity Shook”) that blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction, the same way that the Mexican Day of the Dead (not to mention our own theology) blurs the line between the living and the dead.

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The First Presidency Halloween Devotional

Hagoth October 28, 2022

We have mentioned before how odd it is that we have a First Presidency Christmas Devotional but not an Easter Devotional. We frankly believe that we shouldn’t stop there. We believe there should also be a First Presidency Halloween Devotional.

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hagoth in a bottle

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