One of the most interesting questions you can ask about a culture is what it considers to be within the realm of humor. What subjects and people can humor be about? Where is sacred ground—where humor is not allowed—and where is mundane ground—where it is? As Sunstone started its humor career, it stuck mainly with …
In honor of Sunstone’s 50th anniversary, I decided to put together a collection of the physical and cultural detritus that has collected in Sunstone’s office over the past few decades. But, to do so, I had to descend into the office’s bowels. You remember that creepy basement from Heretic—that horror movie about Hugh Grant luring …
Part I of the Sunstone Classics series. Leonard Arrington served as the Church Historian beginning in 1972, establishing an unprecedented era of historical openness. In 1982, he was unceremoniously replaced and sent to BYU. He gave a speech at Sunstone in 1985, which is excerpted here. His whole speech can be found on page 36 …
The first 100 years of Mormonism produced almost zero published humor. The closest thing we have is Parley P. Pratt’s short story about Joseph Smith meeting the devil. And, of course, it was meant as proselytizing material. You would be completely within your rights to point out that J. Golden Kimball contributed a lot of …
During its three years of publication, the Sunstone Review covered everything from movies to books to politics to current Church events and everything in between—all from an LDS perspective. Gathered here are a few snippets and some covers.
By Stephen Carter I‘m certainly not the youngest person to helm Sunstone Magazine, but I am the first editor to be as old as the magazine itself, both of us being born in 1975. Though I was not raised in a household that subscribed to Sunstone, or any other independent Mormon publication (I was kept …
By Connie Disney MY FIRST AND ONLY real memory of my father is focusing on the pens securely clipped in his shirt pocket, because he died during the fall just before my second birthday. My mother later told me how much my dad enjoyed using his fountain pens, how he didn’t share them because the …
By Robert A. Rees When Peggy Fletcher and Scott Kenney were contemplating starting a new Mormon journal in 1974, they came to see me in Los Angeles. I liked them and I liked their energy and imagination. Being the editor of Dialogue at the time, I immediately offered to help by sending them any manuscripts …
By John Hatch Although I had attended and even presented at the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium a few times, my first real immersion in the Sunstone experience came in 2002: the year I coordinated my first symposium. Dan Wotherspoon had hired me in December 2001 as the managing editor of the magazine and the symposium …
By Dan Wotherspoon “The most important thing is simply to let people know who you are—who it is that’s editing Sunstone.” So said Elbert Peck in early 2001 during one of our many long conversations in the Sunstone office. Though his advice came in response to my query about how he approached the task of …
