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.
[Apropos of the October season, here is another selection from Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), available for order here
Continuing our discussion from last week concerning the role of romance (or lack thereof) in those Sunday Morning moods, we now flip genders to consider
Note: this is the first in a series of Annotated Readings, in which we reimagine and annotate diverse texts as if they were written from
[The following is excerpted from the Introduction to Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). If you are a college librarian,
It appears that every missionary gets the pop-song they deserve. When my Dad was serving in England in the early-’70s, every trunky elder he told
You don’t have to have a relationship on the rocks to wake up with that Sunday morning mood, but it definitely doesn’t hurt. More often
If you served your mission anywhere in or near the Bible belt in the early-aughts, you heard all about Bruce Almighty. Contacts and investigators would
It almost feels like cheating to put Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” on a playlist about feeling down on a Sunday morning–it’s just too
With apologies to Gil-Scott Heron You will not be able to stay home-centered, brother and sistersYou will not be able to just check off your
For our second entry in songs for those morose Sunday mornings when the Tab choir just won’t cut it, we start with Ben Folds’ “Jesusland,”
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