‘A Most Outrageously Ambitious Project’: A History of the Sunstone Review, 1981-84

‘A Most Outrageously Ambitious Project’: A History of the Sunstone Review, 1981-84 Designed to make money, expand ‘Sunstone’s’ influence and readership, and open up a new area of journalistic investigation, the ‘Sunstone Review’ lasted just three years. While it proved to be a financial failure, the ‘Review,’ in the words of Elbert Peck ‘grandly stretched the boundaries of both the magazine and the foundation.” In its pages were feature articles on current events, people, the arts, book reviews, and the Mormon media image. This paper will examine the origins of the ‘Sunstone Review,’ its goals, its failure, the people who produced it, and its ultimate impact on ‘Sunstone.’

John R. Sillito, Lorie Winder Stromberg