A Motley Vision

Welcome to A Motley Vision. We were a Mormon literature and culture blog for more than a decade.  Now we’re mainly a hub for the Mormon lit activities of blog founder William Morris.

Feel free to explore all the many wonderful posts in our archives by using the search bar and archives drop down in the side bar (or at the bottom of the page if you’re on a mobile device).

LATEST POSTS:

AMV: THE NEWSLETTER

A Motley Vision founder William Morris has started a newsletter that takes a closer look at topics related to Mormon literary history and criticism.

Season 1, which focused on the Marden J. Clark essay collection Liberating Form, concluded in Fall 2022.

Season 2 will launch sometime in late spring/early summer 2023. Want a say in what William covers next? Fill out this survey

SUPPORT AMV: BUY OUR BOOKS

William Morris’s latest story collection is now available in trade paperback and ebook from BCC Pres.

This story collection is for Mormons of all stripes who are open to exploring core questions of Mormonism–including history, speculative theology, gender and family dynamics, and the future of both the LDS Church and Mormonism more generally–in alternative, weird, strange, sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing (but not too harrowing) ways


Cover of States of Deseret featuring a Casey Jex Smith pen and ink illustration of a Mormon temple with the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate bridge in the background

States of Deseret is a mini-anthology of alternate Mormon history stories edited by William Morris.

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iBooks

What if the territory of Deseret had never joined the Union and instead became its own nation? What if Leo Tolstoy or Nikola Tesla had converted to the LDS Church? What if Brigham Young had gone all the way to California instead of stopping in Utah? These eight stories provide glimpses at alternate historical trajectories for Mormons and Mormonism—of other states of Deseret.


Cover of Dark Watch and other Mormon-American stories

William’s first story collection.

Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iBooks

These stories–which start in the 1980s and go up through today and into the near future–explore how Latter-day Saints navigate the challenges of living in the modern U.S. and participating in the modern Church. These 16 stories portray moments that are uniquely, thoroughly and sometimes bittersweetly Mormon-American.


This groundbreaking anthology edited by William and Theric Jepson collects a wide range of responses to the question: what if instead of being the villains, Mormons were the heroes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories?

Learn more