The Association for Mormon Letters presents an Award in Criticism for 2005 to A Motley Vision weblog and its principal authors, Patricia Gunter Karamesines, Kent Larsen, William Morris, and Eric Russell.

While cultural pundits have been debating the significance of that curious new practice of online journaling known as blogging, the writers at A Motley Vision, a weblog devoted to discussing Mormon art and culture, have proven that this new literary form fulfills the goals of good criticism that the Association for Mormon Letters has long promoted.

Like the AML-List that preceded it, A Motley Vision is an online forum where LDS books and movies are reviewed and discussed. Its writers have made serious efforts to give sustained discussion to important issues, rather than simply aggregating fragments and chatter. The organization and coherence of the site, with its archives and references, has made possible the very sort of communal discussion of art and literature that AML encourages at its conferences, but does so asynchronously and electronically, allowing a greater breadth of participation across space and time.

We have yet to see where the world of blogging will develop, but any new frontier needs trustworthy pioneers, and the Association for Mormon Letters wishes to encourage through this award the ongoing serious effort shown by A Motley Vision to energize and broaden the discussion of Mormon literature and culture.

© 2006 The Association for Mormon Letters