At the Association for Mormon Letters annual conference at Westminster College Feb. 20, several LDS writers received cash awards and certificates for their contributions to the culture's literary output during the past year.
After a morning of poetry readings and seminars on LDS literary themes, AML members gathered at a luncheon to hear remarks by AML president Neal Kramer and learn the names of the winners.Tom Plummer won in essay -- the genre many feel produces the best and brightest LDS writing. Plummer's collection of light-hearted pieces, "Eating Chocolates and Dancing in the Kitchen" (Shadow Mountain), was lauded for showing how to be "day to day devoted" to one's spouse, one's religion and one's self.
Plummer's wife, Louise (the woman who dances with him in kitchen), is a nationally known children's writer and a former AML winner.
Dean Hughes won the AML award in the novel category for "Far from Home" (Deseret Book), part of his on-going "Children of the Promise" series." Hughes was hailed as the "authoritative spokesman for the Wasatch Chapter of the The Greatest Generation."
"I write for money," he said in a winking reference to a debate earlier in the day. "I know what I do has its limitations. But I try very hard to adhere to principles of good fiction."
The devotional award went to Clark L. and Kathryn H. Kidd for "A Convert's Guide to Mormon Life" (Bookcraft). Their book, judges said, "runs against the grain of traditional expectations of devotional literature. It's not meditative, it's practical."
The Kidds, who live in Virginia, could not attend.
Alex Caldiero, the Salt Lake peformance poet, was given an award for "Various Atmospheres: Poems and Drawings." His poems "hold a mirror up to us," judges wrote, "but the mirror is a fun-house mirror."
Always a firebrand, Caldiero said the award made him feel claustrophobic.
"I'm not used to having a roof over my head," he said, using a classic Caldiero term for feeling pigeon-holed.
A story by Helen Walker Jones was named outstanding short story of the year. "The Six-buck Fortune" from the anthology, "In Our Lovely Deseret" (Signature Books) was praised for being "graceful in the risks it takes."
The most intriguing writer to be honored was Martine Bates, an LDS Canadian author who has yet to be published in the United States. Her children's book, "The Taker's Key" (Red Deer) was published in Alberta. It is part of a trilogy.
Eugene England was also awarded a lifetime membership in the association. He joked how other people who'd received lifetime memberships had "departed unexpectedly soon after.