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.
Several years ago, as part of my continuing quest to find Christmas music I don’t hate, I stumbled upon this hidden gem: Harvey Danger’s “Sometimes
I wonder if some ancient Hindu mathematician (ancient India was renowned for its mathematicians, who were the first to understand the elementary yet essential concept
Once upon a time, when I was on the verge of the impossible age of 30, I set out on a quest to find Christmas
Once, there was a Catholic nunnery in Nauvoo, IL, the Mississippi river-town founded by Joseph Smith after the Saints were mobbed out of nearby Missouri.
OK, story time. Once, while interning for an English-language newspaper in Mexico during tail-end of the Bush years, I went with my office to Hard
[Apropos of the season, we present here a third and final selection from Modern Death in Irish and Latin American Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), available
Early in William Gaddis’s sprawling 1955 debut novel The Recognitions, a gifted young artist named Wyatt is recruited by an unscrupulous art dealer to paint
From the vantage point of 2021, what now stands out to me most about Low’s 1999 Indie-classic Christmas is how much it anticipates their development throughout the 21st century–and our own.
Once upon a time, I went floating in the Great Salt Lake. The experience is uncanny: there, there are no tides, no currents, no waves,
Thus far we’ve spent the bulk of our time discussing that Sunday morning feeling–the one you sometimes get in the harsh light of the dawn
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