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Truth: I am far from being the most knowledgeable person here on the subject of Mormon Letters.

However: I have tried to impart what I do know to the wide world of knowledge via Wikipedia. For instance, I started the articles on Paul Dayton Bailey and Douglas Thayer and wrote the bulk of Dean Hughes's article.

Also: On June 10 of last year I made Brigham City's page suck a little less.

However: No one's touched that article since and it is, to be frank, still terrible.

I just scoured Wikipedia, looking for missing notables, and these are whom I found:

*Liz Adair
*Phyllis Barber
*Jerry Borrowman
Marilyn Brown
Ann Chamberlin
*Neal Chandler
*Michael R. Collings
Richard Cracroft
*Cheri J. Crane
Chris Crowe
Eugene England
*Judith Freeman
Terry Givens
*Sharon Downing Jarvis
*Randy Jernigan
*Clinton F. Larson
*John Lyon
*Susan Evans McCloud
*Carol Hoefling Morris
Coke Newell
*Tamra Norton
*Levi S. Peterson
*Shirley Sealy
*Linda Sillitoe
*Robert Farrell Smith
*Rick Walton
*Maurine Whipple
Carol Lynch Williams
*David Wooley
*Blaine M. Yorgason
*Brenton G. Yorgason

The asterisked names are those listed in the article LDS Fiction without articles attached; the others are ones I thought to check*. I don't even know who some of these people are--perhaps some are not notable enough to get their own pages?--but some are unfortunate. No article on Levi Peterson? I mean--should he and "The Backslider" have their own pages? What about Marilyn Brown? And what about Ann Chamberlin who is, to my knowledge, the only LDS writer to write Turkish bestsellers? These seem like pretty egregious people to leave out.

I know I still haven't forked over my money so I'm speaking as an outsider, but it seems to me that it would be a worthy goal of the AML to fill some of these holes. Not an official goal, but a goal of us as individuals who care. Someone needs to write the article on Chris Crowe--if not you, who?

Again, I'm not the most knowledgeable person here, so I can't say who should be prioritized, but surely at least some of these people desperately need articles written about them. Wikipedia is the primary encyclopedia in the world, after all. Don't we want to be represented?

Anyway, these are my thoughts / call to action. I'll keep doing what I can but, well, I've never even heard of Tamra Norton.


*I tried to avoid people who show up here on the forum (probably without complete success) for two reasons: 1) I would undoubtedly forget someone and offend them and 2) you're not supposed to write article about yourself, silly.

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Ann Chamberlin is not Mormon.

Yes, I did, too. And she is a member of my husband's writing group. I asked her specifically if she were LDS so I'd know whether to add her to my Mormon SF Bibliography (www.MormonSF.org) and she said she was not. It was a few years ago, so it is possible she's converted since then but I doubt it.

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Marny---

In addition to mea culpa, let me also say thank you thank you. I feel rather idiotic. I haven't bandied her about much as an example of LDS lit, but I have a few times. It will nice not to be spreading lies for a change.

(note to all: when you catching me spreading lies, please stop me)

I've fixed her Wikipedia article (it only required deleting a couple category notices).

I think this whole incident really emphasizes my claim not to be the most qualified person to be doing this......

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That's a very good point. And I'm just geek enough to find it fun.

Also, I'm learning all sorts of neat stuff in my research about everything from Ottomans to Opera.

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