Vol. 40 No. 3 – Winter 2021
Letters speak directly….We write letters to find love… We write letters to say thank you… We write letters to make connection…
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Letters speak directly….We write letters to find love… We write letters to say thank you… We write letters to make connection…
Dear Exponent Reader, As I write this letter, I imagine you reading it. You discover the magazine in the mailbox, and paging through, pause to
October 29, 1987Dear Amy (on the dark porch thrusting up your sleeves):I am writing to bring you your name. Fifteen years old, you know the letters, but all your life is left for you to learn its meaning if you don’t leave this early. You can find my name in novels and sacred texts, printed in encyclopedias and etched on stone: Atalanta, Saraswati, Ix Chel, Seshat, Cerridwen. My gifts are distinct and thus my names — Guanyin, Olwen, Maat, Saraswati, Sophia. I take many shapes so some call me Hecate, Kali, Hestia, Branwen. I have many tasks and so, many names: Freyja, Innana, Hathor. I […]
The editor spoke with mail carrier Jaelynn Francis as she went about her delivery route in Smithfield, Utah, on a December afternoon. With her cell on speakerphone in her Postal Service uniform pocket, she drove the mail truck from house to house, stuffing letters and magazines into mailboxes, jumping out to take packages to porches, all while watching out for children, dogs, and after-school traffic. Our interview has been edited for concision and clarity.What is your official job title?I am a mail carrier. I like to call myself a “Mail Ma’am.” I have worked with the post office off and […]
Dear Mr. Oscar Wilde,Are you still gay? I know it’s an offensive question. I’m asking because I think I may have been raised to become an offensive person.When I was a young, inoffensive, church-going girl, my Sunday School teachers explained to me that souls are different from bodies, and that when the body dies, the soul goes somewhere else. Like a hand sliding out of a glove. If this is true, and souls really do exist after death, if they go to heaven or the Great Beyond, then your select and special soul must be out there, somewhere, in the ether. Now […]
Dear Zillah,Greetings, sister-mine. I send best wishes and prayers for the continued health and safety of your family. And mine? Well, remember what Imma used to say? “Never marry a prophet; you will always come second.” “You’ll want to have supper, but him? He’ll want to go and talk to Yahweh. You’ll be sitting down to eat, but he’ll be off climbing some mountain. Perhaps it makes him feel closer to heaven. Perhaps he thinks he can see and hear Yahweh better from there. But meanwhile, the milk curdles in the jug and the bread goes stale.” Remember when she said that? And […]
Katherina Magdelena, a pioneer who married her stepfather at fifteen & died from childbirth at seventeen I keep trying to write my way to you what you were you were seventeen you always will be the book of your life ended in birth delivering the son of your step father your husband & step father is my great great grandfather but I am not your daughter you were the second or third wife depending on who does the counting & you never knew the fourth or fifth wife who dominates the documents that mention the wives she had the most […]
The Woman’s Exponent published many letters. Some were personal correspondence, for instance, Susan B. Anthony’s letters to Emmeline B. Wells. Most were letters to the editor or to readers at large, such as those reprinted here. Letters nearly always made an effort to admonish others or to effect change, as did the letter from Exponent II included here. Petitionary letters are a meaningful tradition for Mormon women. For instance, in April 2013, women were asked to pray in General Conference for the first time after more than 1,600 letters from 300 individuals were sent to church leaders requesting, “Let women […]
Dear God,We haven’t spoken in a while, and that’s on me. But, it’s also a little bit on you because, well, you’re not really there anymore. That’s an awkward way to start this letter, but we have to have it out, you and I. Why don’t we start four years ago, when you dematerialized from my life as the culmination of an ongoing religious deconstruction? All the confusion, frustration, and anger I’d been feeling over the contradictions of your teachings came to a screeching halt when my last thread of hope unraveled before me with a sudden realization: you were not […]
Dear Exponent Reader,Your editor-in-chief recently asked me to write you about the ins and outs of writing advocacy letters and I am more than happy to oblige. I’ve become a bit of a missionary over the last few years since my job has me drafting one to three op-eds a month. And this summer I started to help with MWEG’s (Mormon Women for Ethical Government) Op Ed Lab, guiding writers through the process of crafting letters to the editor (LTE) and op-eds on political topics. Strictly speaking, op-eds are not letters, but the more I write, the more I think of […]
Exponent II provides feminist forums for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum to share their diverse life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. Through these exchanges, we strive to create a community to better understand and support each other.