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.
Roughly midway through the 2009 rockumentary It Might Get Loud, Jack White of the late-and-lamented White Stripes shares his all-time favorite song: “Grinnin’ In Your
My Dad used to muse that Sundays in college, back when he was at BYU, were always the worst, because that purported “day of rest”
In 1939, the hyper-influential Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges first published “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”. A tongue-in-cheek parody of a literary analysis, this
If it were easy to be Weird Al, there would be a lot more Weird Als. But as with any other professional, Weird Al only
Discussing Low and Mormonism has kind of been my thing for a few years now, ever since I wrote an essay on the topic for
Famed 1962 anti-war novel and dorm-room staple Catch-22 draws from author Joseph Heller’s experiences as a B-25 bomber pilot over Italy during World War II.
My identity has been uneasily intertwined with the cult TV show “Futurama” ever since my last name became the moniker of the program’s womanizing, alcoholic,
Boyd K. Packer’s “The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect” (1981) is one of those talks often spoken of in hushed, insinuating tones
Like many of the Saints in quarantine, one of my coping mechanisms in the early days of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns was to make
In the Biblical Book of Matthew, we find described the sort of so-called “primitive” society that the French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard (of Simulation and Simulacra
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