Wayne Booth as Wanderer Wayne Booth is one of our nation’s most honored teachers. He is also considered by many one of our finest scholars. He has published numerous books, several of which, including ‘The Rhetoric of Fiction” and “The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction,” are standard reading in college English departments. He also happens to be a life-long Latter-day Saint, serving a mission (including a period when he was the companion to Elder Marion “Duff” Hanks), and attending Brigham Young University. This hour-long conversation will focus on key events in his life, often told in Wayne’s own voice from that period (he has been an avid journal-keeper since the age of fourteen, and he is currently working on his autobiography). It will also focus on his primary identity as a teacher, (and we’ll force him to discuss his impact on the wider scholarly world.) Finally, it will turn to his Mormon identity, especially his BYU years and youthful hope to liberalize Mormonism from within. Wayne has recently referred to himself as an “ill-defined Mormon.” Well, however self-defined, we define ourselves very fortunate every time we have the chance to have him with us.

Mark D. Thomas