When it comes to online writing and discussion, blogging is the best mix, imo, of the formal and the informal, the authored and the conversational. I personally have gotten a lot more out of blogging and reading and commenting on blogs than participating in forums and listservs and online magazine-style publications.
But sometimes there are projects that just don’t lend themselves to the blog post format. And that’s why we’re launching AMV Projects. That’s where you’ll find links to Reading Until Dawn (Tyler and Laura’s online literary journal about the work of Stephenie Meyer) and Popcorn Popping (the Mormon narrative arts magazine that I created with Steve Evans and Brian Gibson) and Mormon Translation (Kent’s wiki-style attempt to outline which LDS books are and should be translated into other languages). The results of the recommendations for LDS book groups are listed there as well.
It’s not intended to be a huge endeavor. But there is still a lot to do in terms of bibliography and resource lists and evaluating the field. For example, once we get something set up for Kent’s idea of a list of out-of-print Mormon lit (and preferably one where people can vote on which titles they’re most interested in) it’ll be linked to from there. And these projects are intended to complement — not compete with — larger efforts like the Mormon Literature Database. A bridge between the more thorough, formal efforts of the database and similar resources and the scatteredness, sifting-through-the-chaff of a Google search.
Of course we’ll still announce all new projects with blogs posts. But if you are ever looking for these projects, I don’t want you to have to wade through the blog posts archive so I’m collecting them on a single page (a link to the page will be added to the top nav bar shortly).
I also welcome comments on other projects you’d like to see — and even help with. If you’d rather not mention them publicly, e-mail us at admin AT montleyvision DOT org.
A Motley Vision 