Marketing specialist Beth Brumer-Reeve talks with author Richard D. Hanks about his new book, To Be a Friend of Christ: The Life of Marion D. Hanks, just released by Signature Books. In this discussion, Richard shares how his father, Marion, was always willing to champion the underdog while a prominent leader within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Drawing on thousands of letters and journal entries, we get a glimpse of the man behind the calling, and why mercy and compassion played such prominent roles in his forty years of service.

Richard D. Hanks is an author and retired senior business executive, having served at several of the largest multinational companies in the world, including Marriott, PepsiCo, and Price Waterhouse. Also a successful serial entrepreneur, he was named by Ernst & Young as Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010. Rich obtained his bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University and his MBA from Northwestern University and taught as an adjunct professor at Cornell for ten years. He has served as a board director of profit and nonprofit organizations and as an in-demand public speaker and well regarded lecturer at many universities. 

Join special guest host Rachel Rueckert, editor-in-chief of Exponent II magazine, for an insightful conversation with Katie Ludlow Rich and Heather Sundahl about their soon-to-be-released book, Fifty Years of Exponent II.

They explore the common themes that feminist women have been facing since the inception of the Exponent II in 1974.

Katie Ludlow Rich is a writer and independent scholar of Mormon women’s history. Her work focuses on centering women’s voices and their agentive decisions even while functioning within a patriarchal tradition. She has a bachelor’s in history and a master’s in English, both from Brigham Young University. Her writing has appeared in Exponent II, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Journal of Mormon History, and the Salt Lake Tribune. 

Heather Sundahl believes in the power of stories. In pursuit of this, she has volunteered with Exponent II for 28 years. As a writer and editor, Heather works to amplify marginalized voices and has collected the oral histories of Botswanan, South African, Native American, and queer Mormon women. She received a master’s in English from BYU and a master’s in Marriage & Family Therapy from Utah Valley University. Heather works at a residential treatment center where she helps her teenage clients find narratives that promote growth and healing. 

In addition to Rachel Rueckert’s work at Exponent II, she is the author of several books, most recently If The Tide Turns.

Follow them on Instagram at:
Katie @katieludlowrich 
Rachel @rachelrueckert

Listen as contributors to the new volume, Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy, delve into the complex history of early Mormon polygamy. The discussion covers Joseph Smith's controversial marriage proposals, the enduring fascination with the practice, and the pivotal role of Fanny Alger in the narrative. The guests emphasize the importance of centering women's experiences and perspectives when examining this chapter of Mormon history, shedding new light on a topic that continues to captivate scholars and the public alike. Signature Books editor John Hatch is joined by the volume’s editor and contributor, Cheryl L. Bruno, and authors Mark Tensmeyer, Christopher C. Smith, and Mary Ann Clements in this fascinating discussion.    

Marketing specialist Beth Brumer-Reeve is joined by Kerry Spencer Pray, editor and one of more than thirty essayists in The Book of Queer Mormon Joy, just released by Signature Books. In this discussion, Kerry addresses how this book came to life, the importance of focusing on joy in the queer community, and why everyone should read it. 

Kerry Spencer Pray teaches writing at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland. Mormon by birth, she taught at Brigham Young University for fourteen years and spent nearly twenty years in a mixed orientation marriage. She lives with and co-parents with her wife and gay ex-husband, putting her nonnuclear family in the category of a polycule. You can follow her on X @swilua and on Instagram @swilua_.

Signature Books held a captivating evening of poetry to celebrate National Poetry Month with our amazing authors.

Utah Poet Laureate Lisa Bickmore emceed the event and introduced our two most recently published poets, Maureen Clark, author of This Insatiable August, and Darlene Clark, author of Count Me In.

Other poets who read include Marilyn Bushman-Carlton, Warren Scott Hatch, Steven L. Peck, Laura Hamblin and Lisa Bickmore.

Listen to the power of the spoken word from the poets as they speak to love and loss, loneliness and grief, and faith and joy.

You can also watch this on Signature Books YouTube channel. 
Recorded on April 16, 2024 at Signature Books.

Poet Darlene Young talks with Signature marketing specialist Beth Brumer Reeve about her latest book, Count Me In, and how it is a testament to showing up within her faith community and in life. Aubrey Chaves, co-host of the Faith Matters podcast, says Darlene “does the soul work of connecting us to the divinity and richness of the everyday.” 

Count Me In is now available for purchase wherever Signature Books are sold. She will be reading from her collection on April 16 at 7 pm at Signature Books’s annual poetry night. 

Darlene has published two previous collections: Here (BCC Press, 2023) and Homespun and Angel Feathers (BCC Press, 2019). She teaches writing at Brigham Young University. You can follow her on Instagram @darlylar.

In honor of Women’s History Month, Signature Books director Barbara Jones Brown talks with just some of the many women authors and editors who are soon-to-publish their books with Signature, including:

Cheryl L. Bruno, editor of Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy
Katie Ludlow Rich & Heather Sundahl, authors and editors of a 50-year retrospective on the Exponent II
McArthur Krishna & Anne Pimentel, on change-making women in church history
Robin Ritch, editor of a collection of perspectives of Mormon women on the Equal Rights Amendment
Alice Faulkner Burch, author of a book on the Genesis Group and an essay in Writing Mormon History 2
Laurie Lee Hall, memoirist on her life as a transgender woman
Kerry Spencer Pray, editor of The Book of Queer Mormon Joy

We know you’ll enjoy hearing the varied perspectives of these women and their groundbreaking works in progress!

At this recent event at Signature Books, D. Michael Quinn’s two daughters and the annotators of Quinn’s posthumously published book, Chosen Path, shared what they learned about this enigmatic historian and father—and about twentieth-century Mormonism—through reading his remarkable new memoir. Listen in to this candid conversation as Mary Quinn, Lisa Quinn Harrison, Calvin Burke, Connell O’Donovan, Sue Bergin, and Barbara Jones Brown discuss the complexities of Quinn’s  relationship with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and its history, along with his sexuality as a closeted gay Mormon for much of his life. 

Quinn (1944–2021) will long be remembered as one of the most prominent historians of Mormonism. Born and raised in southern California, he taught history at Brigham Young University for twelve years after earning his PhD at Yale. He is the author of many groundbreaking articles and books on Mormon history, including his three-volume Mormon Hierarchy series (subtitled Origins of Power, Extensions of Power, and Wealth and Corporate Power), Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark, and Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, for which he won the Mormon History Association’s Best Book Award in 1988. 

In this episode, Signature marketing manager Devery Anderson talks with director Barbara Jones Brown and marketing specialist Beth Brumer-Reeve about our forthcoming titles over the next several months.

 Seven books will be released during the first half of 2024. First are two volumes of poetry, Maurine Clark’s This Insatiable August and Darlene Young’s Count Me In, superb additions to our catalog. An anthology edited by Cheryl L. Bruno, Secret Covenants: New Insights on Early Mormon Polygamy, contains twelve new essays on the Nauvoo era, shedding more light on this period of early Latter-day Saint marriage practices. We are thrilled that Richard D. Hanks is publishing the first biography of his father, titled To Be a Friend of Christ: The Life of Marion D. Hanks. Hanks served as an LDS general authority for forty years in the latter half of the twentieth century. Kerry Spencer Pray is editor of The Book of Queer Mormon Joy, an anthology  featuring stories of joy from dozens of essayists across the LGBTQ spectrum. Joseph Geisner is back with the second volume of Signature’s Writing Mormon History series, in which authors tell  the fascinating backstories behind their published historical works, all of which are fascinating. Devery Anderson will contribute the seventh volume in our brief Mormon biographies  series with Bruce R. McConkie: Apostle and Polemicist. McConkie’s writings, sermons, and teachings won him many friends and not a few critics.

Learn more about these forthcoming titles at signaturebooks.com.

In this episode, we talk with Maureen Clark about her collection of poetry, This Insatiable August, which releases in February 2024 wherever Signature Books are sold. Clark, a writer and poet living in Bountiful, Utah, redefines her voice in what poet Dayna Patterson calls "a tender miracle of a book." Listen in as she speaks about growing up Mormon, losing her religion, yet finding herself in the process of pouring her truth out through her words. She also reads two poems from her book that show, with humor, hope and vulnerability, why there must be passion in the heaven she envisions. Clark recently retired from teaching at the University of Utah. Her poetry can be found in Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Southeast Review, and Sugarhouse Review. You can follow Maureen on her website at MaureenClark.art.

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