From the Association for Mormon Letters:

AML is pleased to announce that Margaret Blair Young has taken office as the new AML President, with J. Scott Bronson as President-Elect. Boyd Petersen, last year’s president, will now serve a term as Past President. Other new members of the board are Phillip Snyder and Charles Swift. James Goldberg and Eric Samuelsen will continue on the board. Lynn Bronson has accepted the position as Treasurer, and Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury has a new title, Membership Secretary. Jacob Profitt continues to serve as webmaster and Darlene Young as secretary.

The 2009 AML Awards were also presented at the AML Annual Meeting at Utah Valley University on 27 February 2010.
 
Drama    
Melissa Leilani Larson for Little Happy Secrets
   
Film    
Jed Wells for Fire Creek
   
Honorary Lifetime Membership    
James D’Arc
   
Humor    
Elna Baker for The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
   
Memoir    
Kathryn Lynard Soper for The Year My Son and I Were Born
   
Novel    
Todd Robert Petersen for Rift
   
Novel Honorable Mention    
Jamie Ford for Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
   
Online Writing    
Sandra Tayler for One Cobble at a Time
   
Poetry    
Lance Larsen for Backyard Alchemy
   
Publishing    
Christopher Bigelow for Zarahemla Books
   
Service to AML
Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
   
Short Fiction    
Larry Menlove for "Path of Antelope, Pelican, and Moon"
   
Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters    
Levi Peterson
   
Young Adult Literature    
Carol Lynch Williams for The Chosen One
 
The citations for the awards can be read on the AML website at http://www.mormonletters.org/Awards/Year.aspx?year=2009

Just follow the links to each award page.

Melted Hearts screened at the 2010 LDS Film Festival on Friday, January 22 to a packed theater and an enthusiastic audience. The film is about a pair of missionaries, Elder Pedro Rodriguez and Elder Brian Lauper, who have trouble getting along at first. Brian is upset at having been released from his calling as an Assistant to the President, and Pedro has a grudge against Brian because he's American. After they go through some trials together and Brian saves Pedro's life when he gets seriously ill, the two become friends and keep in touch after their missions have ended. In the second half of the film, Brian and his family take a vacation to Mexico, where they meet Pedro, who falls in love with Brian's sister, Wendy. Pedro doesn't have the courage to tell Wendy before she goes back home to Provo, but with the encouragement of his family, he takes heart and hitchhikes from Mexico City to Utah to find her and confess his love.

Melted Hearts is a heart-warming story about gaining courage to follow one's dreams–a story inspired by director Jorge Ramirez Rivera's own experience as a young man of setting off to the United States to pursue an education, against all odds. Even with an inspiring story, however, the film has some flaws. There were several times while watching Melted Hearts that I had to suspend my disbelief. Due to budget and casting concerns, the two missionaries had longish hair, and the actor who played the American Elder Brian Lauper was not a native speaker of English. I was also left wondering how Pedro made it across the border into the United States when he didn't have time to arrange a visa. Many of these concerns in addition to others I had (the plot could have been tighter, the production quality wasn't as high as I was hoping, and some of the errors in the subtitles were distracting) were diminished, though, by the sheer enjoyment of seeing an international, fully subtitled Mormon film–and being in an audience of mixed native English and native Spanish speakers who were all able to fully participate as audience members. The film is half in English and half in Spanish, with both parts subtitled. The cast and crew included English speakers, Spanish speakers, and quite a few bilinguals, which provided an interesting challenge for all involved. In the Q&A after the screening, Jorge Ramirez Rivera said that he believed Melted Hearts is the first international Mormon film. He is hoping to distribute the film on DVD and possibly on some Latin websites. There were other films screened at the LDS Film Festival this year that had foreign flair, in particular Dave Boyle's films Big Dreams Little Tokyo and White on Rice, which I hope mark a new trend in LDS cinema. Jorge Ramirez Rivera's offering is an important step forward in that trend.

The following is a review written by Davey Morrison of Mormons and Masons, one of the entries in this year’s LDS Film Festival. It was originally posted here.

Mormons and Masons was the first film I saw at the LDS Film Festival, in a special screening Thursday afternoon. It’s one of a series of book-DVD combos Covenant Communications has been putting out over the past few years (I worked on a couple earlier ones: Presidents and Prophets and Love Letters of Joseph and Emma)–an idea is pitched, a book is written, and then a documentary is put together in a few weeks (in the case of Mormons and Masons, three) from some interviews with scholars and archival material. Taken on its own terms, Mormons and Masons has a lot of very fascinating and definitely worthwhile information, even if it’s not always riveting (it’s essentially 60 minutes of five or so talking heads, with an occasional photograph or drawing), and sometimes feels like it’s probably a slightly watered-down version of the book, a bid padded out with pop Mormon feelgoodery to appease the Deseret Book crowd (including a wall-to-wall needle-drop score). Still, Covenant is to be commended for taking what have mostly been scholarly issues of Mormon studies and making them more accessible to a fairly conservative Mormon lay-audience.

By its very nature, Mormons and Masons doesn’t really get to look at many of the interesting specifics of the titular subject matter–the similarities between Mormonism and Masonry are essentially in their most sacred ceremonies, in temple work for Mormons, and, for Masons, the rituals in the Masonic Lodge, both of which are held sacred, and both of which are rarely discussed in other settings. As a result, much of the discussion here is reduced to vagaries, which is in some senses disappointing on a scholarly level, but also, of course, necessary out of respect for both Mormons and Masons. Still, there’s lots that can be talked about on the subject. The film does a lot to put into context Joseph Smith’s Masonry–he and a number of other church leaders joined the Masons in Nauvoo, after hundreds of Latter-day Saints had already joined and a Lodge had already been established; he was a Mason “at sight” (i.e., he was given the honor of Master Mason in an abbreviated amount of time). The film also talked about how Joseph Smith became a Mason in between his revelation concerning the temple endowment ceremony and the first actual endowment ceremonies that took place in Nauvoo, suggesting that Smith used his and many of the Saints’ Masonic background as a way of organizing the material that would be a part of the endowment ceremony, including similarities in “symbols and tokens” and in ritual clothing. Mormons and Masonsalso points out that Masonry was hardly considered strange in the 19th century–many public figures, including almost all the presidents through the early 20th century–became Masons.

Bottom Line: If you’re looking for an interesting Film-with-an-upper-case-F, look elsewhere, but if, like me, you’re interested in the issue of Mormonism and Masonry and haven’t done a whole lot more than spend a couple hours on the internet looking into it, this is more than worth your time.

You can buy the Mormons and Masons DVD, Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons, the book by Matthew B. Brown that was the basis for the film, or a movie-book combo at Covenant Communications’ website.

On Tuesday, graphic designer Cameron Moll announced Colosseo, a follow-up to the typographical, letterpress print of the Salt Lake Temple he released more than a year ago.

This project began 12 months ago when Suzanne and I purchased tickets to Rome. It’s consumed a good portion of my working life since then. This is a sneak preview.

Watch for an interview with Cameron later this year.

Cameron has done web design for LDS.org and the March of Dimes, collaborated on a book on CSS mastery, and currently runs AuthenticJobs.com.

We’re helping get the word out about Arx Poetica, a new social network for artists. Here’s an introduction from its founder, Robert Hall:

Arx Poetica is a newly-built social networking hub aspiring to help artists get better connected online, along with a few other lofty goals. The endeavor is strictly unaffiliated (read: it’s not just for the LDS community), but the founders behind Arx Poetica are primarily LDS and hope to raise the bar for artists and art appreciators by the very nature of the enterprise. From the website:

“We want to shine a little light on the world. Arx Poetica believes in the strange notions that everyone has a story to tell — in song, dance, word, or play — that the human soul is the most sublime creative factory, and that art and creativity constitute the bulwark of the goodness of humanity.”

The website (http://arxpoetica.com) outlines more of the founders’ aspirations — which isn’t immediately obvious to navigate, as one needs to click the main image on the home page to find out a little bit more — but it is apparent from the design that art is the dominant virtue of the enterprise. While the site has been online for over half a year, the founders feel sufficiently satisfied with its “beta” status to kick into a grassroots-style marketing effort, including a call for help (see the site’s blog).

While Arx Poetica promises to deliver on some not-yet-available features, it is clear from the outset that many tools are immediately available, and, if anything, networking with other artists online toward a good cause is not only viable, but viable now.

The 9th Annual LDS Film Festival will be held January 20-23 at the Scera Center in Orem. 

When a local video game company put out a call for theme songs for their upcoming game, recording artist Shaun Barrowes took that as inspiration. He read the book the game was based on, then came up with a theme song for the book.

[At the time] I was looking for the opportunity to sing about different situations, looking for more serious topics, and this provided me with a solid lead. As I read the book, I had an epiphany. I decided to write about a hero debating on whether or not he should continue to be the hero, or if he should let somebody else take over the fight.

I had this idea to write about someone who has lived a life of heroism and now can’t distinguish good from bad, light from dark anymore. The lines have blurred and he isn’t sure if it is all worth the sacrifice. He is struggling with the decision: Should he walk the path “where all the heroes die before long”? Or give up and let someone else fight the good fight?

At the end of the song, he chooses to continue fighting so long as he has life to give. The instrumental resolution of the song (there’s a minute long piano solo at the end) is a musical depiction of him surveying the battle in front of him, mentally preparing himself to rejoin the fight, and taking those first determined and resolved steps towards the battlefield.

The song, entitled “Light of the Day/Dark of the Night,” was selected by the game developers to appear in the game’s closing credits—the only place for a song in the game—as the game’s theme. The song will also be included on Shaun’s newest album, “Emotion Constellation,” which he plans to release in March. It is currently his best selling song.

This week only: Shaun has allowed us to offer “Light of the Day/Dark of the Night” to our readers as a free download.

UPDATE: This free download has expired (as of January 19, 2010). To download Shaun’s music, please visit his music store on his website or search for him on iTunes.)

Song and album art appear courtesy of Shaun Barrowes. Shaun was previously featured in Issue 5 of Mormon Artist.
Find out more about Shaun and his music on his website or Facebook profile.

WHAT: Farewell To Eden, a national award winning play written by Mahonri Stewart and directed by Kathryn Laycock Little.

WHEN: January 15-25, 2010. Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays.

WHERE: The Provo Theatre (100 North, 105 East, Provo, UT 84604)

TICKETS: $12 for general public; $10 for students and seniors; and $9 for groups over 10 people. Tickets will be sold at the door.

Mahonri Stewart’s play Farewell To Eden is being performed for the first time since UVU’s premiere production of the show won national awards through the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival six years ago. The newly minted Zion Theatre Company is producing the revival on January 15-25, at the Provo Theatre (100 North, 105 East, Provo).

The play tells the story of Georgiana Highett and her siblings Thomas and Catherine, living in Victorian England, 1840. Georgiana is a high bred intellectual of the upper classes who has more than a dash of progressive, pre-feminist leanings, but also has the harsh views on class, typical of the time period. Georgiana’s world is safe and secure until the entry of two men in her life: her childhood friend Stephen Lockhart, and the mysterious Darrel Fredericks. At this eventful shift, the lives of her and her siblings are turned upside down. The style of the story follows very much in the tradition of classic story tellers such as Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens.

Read the full press release: http://www.motleyvision.org/2009/press-release-_farewell-to-eden_-at-the-provo-theatre/

The 24-Hour Filmmaking Marathon starts this Friday, January 15th!

Issue eight will feature two authors: Julie Wright and Robison Wells, both Mormon novelists who have published in the Mormon market and are involved with LDStorymakers.

Julie Wright has written several romantic stories, including My Not So Fairy Tale Life, and is currently finishing several new novel series in the genre of fantasy and science fiction.

Robison Wells has served on the board of the LDStorymakers, is the founder of the Whitney Awards, and has written several books in different genres: suspense/thriller, humor, and romantic comedy.

Read about these multi-faceted Mormon novelists in our upcoming issue.