Introduction
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". 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." Similarly, he taught his writing students to "Write from the other side of your inhibitions".
Partial bibliography
- Peterson, Levi S. (1982), The Canyons of Grace, Signature Books, ISBN 0-941214-26-5, OCLC 8306271
- Peterson, Levi S., ed. (1983), Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories, Orion Books, ISBN 0941214125, OCLC 10118168
- —— (1986), The Backslider, Signature Books, ISBN 0941214451, OCLC 14378627
- —— (1988), Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian, Utah Centennial Series (5), University of Utah Press, ISBN 978-1-60781-151-0, OCLC 18106573
- —— (1990), Night Soil: New Stories, Signature Books, ISBN 1560850035, OCLC 21873653
- —— (1995), Aspen Marooney, Signature Books, ISBN 1560850787, OCLC 33166649
- —— (2006), A Rascal by Nature, A Christian by Yearning: A Mormon Autobiography, University of Utah Press, ISBN 978-0-87480-851-3, OCLC 62766043