Description

Beyond the careful memoirs and uplifting narratives, what dark secrets lurk in the history of Mormon women? Join novelist Linda Hamilton (The Fourth Wife, 2026)—whose debut novel is inspired in part by her polygamous ancestors—and scholar Katie Ludlow Rich (Fifty Years of Exponent II, 2024) for a conversation about how Gothic horror can illuminate the hidden history of women in patriarchal institutions. They will explore why tropes such as haunted houses and atmospheric dread provide the necessary distance to make visible the institutional harms that faithful women often omitted from their own records, offering a compelling new lens for understanding Mormon women’s complex past.

Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer, editor, and independent scholar specializing in Mormon women’s history. Her work centers women’s voices and explores their agentive decisions within a patriarchal religious tradition. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in English from Brigham Young University and is the co-author of Fifty Years of Exponent II (Signature Books, 2024), which includes an original history and an anthology of selected works from the Mormon feminist publication. Her writing has appeared in the Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Religion News Service, and Exponent II, where she also serves as a blogger.

Linda Hamilton is the bestselling author of The Fourth Wife and a historian completing her master’s degree at Sam Houston State University. She also blogs about feminist issues on Exponent II, drives her four children all over SoCal to extracurriculars, and recently took up embroidery and puzzling.