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.
A Study in Scarlett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1887 debut Sherlock Holmes novel, memorably finishes with roughly 5 chapters of salacious anti-Mormon caricatures. Whereas Part
But why do any of us believe in the first place? Church meetings are boring, Church history is sketchy, and Church leaders are (by their
This is not an essay about The Da Vinci Code. I haven’t seen the movie; I haven’t read the book. But it’s not because I’m
Appearing on his massive (in every sense of the word) 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly and cited as a favorite track by no less
It is a fact universally acknowledged that Mormons love Star Wars; it is also a fact universally acknowledged that not nearly as many Mormons love
Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, and hence it feels apropos to examine a pair of religious songs that fit in with the holiday’s
Upon that night, when fairies[1] light On Cassilis Downans[2] dance[3] Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze[4], On sprightly coursers prance; Or for Colean the
I had a mission companion who was convinced that the Patrick Swayze film Ghost was written by members of the Church. His reasoning? Because when
I was never a particularly big fan of ye olde Screamo-Emo during its mid-2000s hey-day (I was already in college at the time, so was
[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
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