Levi S. Peterson

Levi Savage Peterson (born 1933) is a Mormon biographer, essayist and fictionist whose best-known works include the seminal biography of Juanita Brooks, his own autobiography and his novel TheBackslider, "standard for the contemporary Mormon novel".^[1] He was born and reared in the Mormon community of Snowflake, Arizona and is an emeritus professor of English at Weber State University. He edited Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought from 2004 to 2008.

His work as a writer centers in "the possibility of wrong behavior"; his works "variously examine the tension between Sainthood as fact and Sainthood as aspiration, between belief and doubt, and between expected blessings and the traumas of reality."^[2] Similarly, he taught his writing students to "Write from the other side of your inhibitions".^[3]

Partial bibliography

• The Canyons of Grace: Stories (1982)
• Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories (1983)
• The Backslider (1986)
• Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian (1988) ISBN 978-1-60781-151-0
• Aspen Marooney (1995)
• A Rascal by Nature, A Christian by Yearning: A Mormon Autobiography (2006) ISBN 978-0-87480-851-3

References

External links

• Levi S. Peterson at the MLCA Database
• Mormon Expression interview with Levi Peterson
• Mormon Stories interview with Levi Peterson