Exmo Arts-n-Lit Roundup!

Who wants to swap some stories?

Multimedia: The exmo documentary In the Shadow of the Temple is now in the preview for focus groups stage! And our friends at Mind on Fire have added a regular video/podcast feature.

Exit Stories: The Lyoness has recently started a whole blog devoted to exmo exit stories. Swing by and share your story! Note that I know of two other banks of exit stories: one at Exmormon.org and one at Postmormon.org. But why not have a third collection, for blogspace?

Narrative: Etienne has finished posting his beautiful memoir Falling Into Life. Cynthia E. Bagley (a charter member of Outer Blogness) has just started serializing her novel Shira. So far she’s only on chapter 1, so if you hurry, you won’t be too far behind! 😀

I’ve just posted about the character’s gender vs. the author’s gender as a follow-up to my novella Orem High. And, in other LDS-interest fiction, don’t forget Zoe Murdock’s novel Torn by God which I reviewed here.

Others??? I know that others of you have also written books recently or completed other projects! If you’d like to update us with any news of how your project is going, please leave a comment.

chanson

C. L. Hanson is the friendly Swiss-French-American ExMormon atheist mom living in Switzerland! Follow me on mastadon at @chanson@social.linux.pizza or see "letters from a broad" for further adventures!!

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10 Responses

  1. chanson says:

    Update: Speaking of Torn by God, Mormon Lit blog A Motley Vision has just posted an interview with the author.

    In other news, The Sunstone Blog has opened a cafe press shop for all you Sunstone Mormons out there! 😀

  2. aerin says:

    I think you’ve covered most of the ones I’ve heard of…thanks for compiling this list.

  3. chanson says:

    No problem!

    I’ve actually found a couple more that I’d missed!

    Visual Arts: Pixelfish (whose blog I’ve cited in my weekly roundup a few times) has started an art blog, including graphic arts tutorials in addition to displaying her own work.

    Then just have a look at the paintings of Dayle Ann Stratton! Her blog doesn’t appear to say much (if anything) about Mormonism, but here’s some of what she wrote in a comment on my blog:

    I’m also ex-mo, all the way back on the white side. I like to say “Born, raised, escaped, no thank you” whenever the little boys in blue suits come to my door. It is SO wierd that I now actually live in the same state that Joe Smith and Brig Young were born in. No wonder they were so… unique.

    And there’s more. My mother’s great grandmother was a black woman who was 4th wife (of 7) to one of the early polygamists. This was apparently back in the days when they decided to “brighten” up the race by intermarriage, since converting them didn’t work exactly the way Joe claimed and they stayed stubbornly black.

    In our family, the story of our African ancestry (that’s how it was referred to) was passed down female to female, never to the boys, and we were warned to be careful who we told “because most people won’t understand”. My mother knew black history and culture and talked to me about it a lot. My brothers have no recollection.

    On top of that. my primary cultural identity is Navajo on my dad’s side. The brown mormons, though just about everyone except one aunt dropped out after a couple of generations.

    Those are the folks I learned the truth from about the mormons– we were a large, extended family and it was a kick to hear all those older folks badmouthing and laughing about the mormons. Except the one aunt, whose proud accomplishment in life was to have lots of kids grandkids and spend all her retirement money on missions. I imagine as a result, she is well-ensconced as co-goddess on her very own planet now (polygamy goes back into effect after you die, according to current mo dogma).

    Technically, I’m not an apostate because I refused to be baptized, which created a huge scene at the baptism thing. They made me sit there behind the curtain in those stupid white clothes because they wouldn’t believe me when I said I didn’t want to be baptized. When they came to get me, I literally dug my heels in and started screaming. Smartest thing I ever did. (This whole thing was my aunt’s idea, and I never forgave her for it.

    So now here I am, an escapee from mormon culture, mixed blood Navajo/Euro/African, practicing Buddhist, living in a small village where people don’t much care one way or the other, and everybody knows everyone else and how they are connected. A lot of my Euro ancestors were here from when NE was first settled by English, so I actually have relatives here. They don’t hug out here, though, which is the part I can’t get used to.

  4. It ain’t great literature, but the website Moron Church of Latter-day Saints is a site attempting to bring lightmindedness to those looking for it.

    The site is new, and will soon be soliciting submissions from others.

    http://www.moronchurch.com/main

    Also, I have been corresponding privately with an individual who has been writing some PostMo, ExMo short fiction. I think that can have a cathartic function. Does anyone know if there is already a site dedicated to short fiction by and for PostMo/ExMo folks?

    Best wishes.

  5. chanson says:

    Andrew — sorry it took so long to fish your comment out of the spam bin. (I don’t check it very often because Akismet is usually pretty good at identifying non-spam as non-spam).

    Thanks for the link — I’ll add your site to our list.

    There is no site that is specifically dedicated to PostMo/ExMo short fiction (or at least not one that is large and active). The closest thing is this site right here (Main Street Plaza) and my personal blog.

    Please have your friend email me: chanson dot exmormon at gmail dot com. I might be able to help find a good place to publish the stories (online) and/or offer other assistance.

  6. aerin says:

    hi chanson – just heard about this – it’s not fiction but exit stories. leaving the fold book.

  7. chanson says:

    Thanks for the link! I’d heard of this book before, but I’d forgotten the title.

  8. Therese says:

    Have a work in progress, a novel with the working title “A Lost Argument”. Should be finished in another month or two … 🙂

  9. chanson says:

    Therese — Sounds interesting!

    Keep in mind that there really aren’t many resources out there for exmo lit (unlike faithful mo lit which has its own publishing industry, distribution network, etc.), so there’s no straight-forward path to publication. Personally, I write reviews of exmo lit works and I try to network together what resources exist. Email me: chanson dot exmormon at gmail dot com

  1. June 18, 2009

    […] A Motley Vision’s response and T&S’s summary). And since I know Chanson is very interested in ex-Mormon literature (she’s even gotten her own) and even has theories about Mormon literature , that got me […]

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