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.
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.
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.
Just like Autumn leaves/we’re in for change…
The African-American novelist[1]and ex-youth pastor James Baldwin shares the following anecdote from his essay collection The Cross of the Redemption. Billie Holiday, the famed singer
[Reviving an older series from a year ago for this Halloween season, I provide another selection from Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature
We’ve all read the books before and we’ve all seen the movies, so at this point Gollum’s role in the final destruction of the Ring
The curious paradox of how our ostensible “Low Art” is so much less accessible than our ostensible “High Art.”
Ponderizing a line from an old David A. Bednar talk.
A Latin Rocker reminds us: if we’re not preparing for eternity, then just what do we think we’re doing here?
October 2003. I was a missionary, and our top investigator agreed to watch General Conference with us at the stake center. I was worried she
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