Levi S. Peterson


Levi Savage Peterson is a Mormon biographer, essayist and fictionist whose best-known works include a seminal biography of Juanita Brooks, his own autobiography, and his novel The Backslider, "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 Columbia. He edited from 2004 to 2008.
Peterson's 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".
Peterson has been the recipient of several AML Awards: Short Fiction for "The Confessions of Augustine", Short Fiction for "The Canyons of Grace", Special Award for Short Story Anthology for Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories, Novel for The Backslider, Special Recognition in Biography for Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian, Honorary Lifetime Membership, Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters, and Short Fiction for "Kid Kirby". Additionally, his work has twice elsewise been a finalist in the short-fiction category: 2014 and 2019.

Partial bibliography