No One Knows My Editing
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| Patty and I at the Provo Utah Temple. |
All my jobs have been marvelous adventures. I started my career at Deseret Book, the Church Curriculum Department (now Publishing Services), and the Ensign magazine. Then in 2001 Richard Draper, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, hired me to help take the Religious Studies Center, in his words, to “a higher level of professionalism, efficiency, and organization.” We have certainly done that, and we continue to grow. Over the years, publications directors such as Richard Draper, Richard Holzapfel, Robert Millet, Richard Bennett, Dana Pike, Thomas Wayment, Scott Esplin, and Jared Ludlow each provided vision and leadership that contributed to the RSC's current vitality. Whereas the original annual output of the RSC was two books and a two-color newsletter, we now produce about thirteen to fifteen high-quality books (winning many awards), a journal, a magazine, a robust website, and social media output for both our college and the center.
When initially hired, I told Andrew Skinner, dean of Religious Education, that I felt OK committing to five years and then reevaluating. During that five-year period, Covenant Communications copublished many books with the RSC. Richard Holzapfel firmly established the Religious Educator as a viable journal. We began relying even more on BYU editing students to shoulder the increased editing load that Richard Draper, then Richard Holzapfel encouraged through their proactive recruitment of authors. Designer Carmen Cole redesigned the RSC Newsletter. Student Matt Grey started Studia Antiqua to publish student papers on the ancient world. Our students have always shouldered much of the editing load.
At the end of that five years, I told the new dean, Terry Ball, that I felt comfortable staying another five years. It was tricky to keep up with Richard Holzapfel's creative mind, new projects, teaching, and travel schedule. He asked us to push hard to get all past content on the RSC website and translate selected materials into Spanish, Portuguese, and German. He encouraged us to create a magazine, which we designed with the help of Hales Creative and named BYU Religious Education Review. I recommended that we hire a publicity/production superviser to build the RSC brand. That spot was filled by Stephanie Wilson (part-time and then full-time) and then Brent Nordgren. Richard and Brent did an admirable job negotiating a copublication agreement with Deseret Book that dramatically increased our distribution network. That laid the foundation for financial stability.
After Richard Holzapfel's departure, we had another five or so years with quick transitions between publications directors—leading to greater staff autonomy. Publications directors were Robert Millet, Richard Bennett (interim), and Dana Pike. While working under Richard Bennett, Religious Education began to pay for a staff member to take a professional development course each year. After I asked if he would send me to the Mormon History Association conference, he said that he couldn't unless I had a paper accepted. So I began to craft and submit history presentations. That turned into a personal challenge—to document many interesting Church history and family history stories, branching out into related areas. Writing was done nearly always in my personal time but occasionally on RSC time when projects slowed down.
BYU Religious Education began sponsoring its Church History Symposium in 2006, and the Religious Studies Center soon published the proceedings with Deseret Book. Alexander L. Baugh initiated the event by proposing a conference to acknowledge the two hundredth anniversary of Oliver Cowdery’s birth. Since that time, this event has become a premier venue for rigorous and faithful scholarship on Church history. The topics have been Oliver Cowdery, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, preserving the history of the Latter-day Saints, church organization and administration, Latter-day Saint missionary work, Joseph F. Smith, Joseph Smith’s study of the ancient world, the international church, Mormon women’s history, the intersection of business and religion, and religious liberty and Latter-day Saints.
The next five-year segment began when Thom Wayment began serving as publications director. His leadership contributions included pushing for greater quality in our books and journal, expanding the author pool, adding strong members to our team, and promoting staff training that resulted in an increase in social media outreach and thus better sales. Challenges during this period were redoing contracts, increasing book production, dropping the review board, wrestling with design issues, and holding fewer RSC team meetings to coordinate efforts. After we resumed RSC team meetings to coordinate efforts, productivity soared. Brent hired Madison Swapp and then Emily Strong, a 3/4-time designer. Both have worked hard. Thom asked me to attend a conference of the Association of American University Presses, and I realized that we could do much more to build the RSC brand and promote our books. As an editor, I was inundated each year with editing sixteen academic books, two journals, and a magazine. When I mentioned that I was struggling to keep up, Thom brought in two editors from the Maxwell Institute. That has been a boon to our organization because Don Brugger and Shirley Ricks have been marvelous team members. (Shirley has since retired, and talented editors Julie Newman and Alaina Dunn have worked here.)
And about that time we started social media pages for the BYU Religious Studies Center, Religious Educator, BYU Religious Education, and Y Religion podcast. We began hiring student media specialists and creating a digital format of the RSC Newsletter that now included videos and suggested readings for Come, Follow Me. We began cross-promoting our work with BYU Studies, Book of Mormon Central, Latter-day Saint Insights, and Seminaries and Institutes. Such partnerships feel productive.
Scott C. Esplin became publications director, followed by Jared W. Ludlow. The Religious Studies Center has extended its outreach to a broader audience by copublishing with other partners. In 2016 it teamed up with Abilene Christian University to copublish Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith: Nineteenth-Century Restorationists. In 2018 it worked with the Maxwell Institute to publish a Maxwell Institute Study Edition of the Book of Mormon. In 2020 it partnered with the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Understanding Covenants and Communities: Jews and Latter-day Saints in Dialogue. In 2022 it partnered with the John Whitmer Historical Association to publish Restorations: Scholars in Dialogue from Community of Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it 2023 it partnered with the Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies to publish Battlefields to Temple Grounds: Latter-day Saints in Guam and Micronesia.
During my career, I mentored about sixty interns. Leah Welker, who worked with me at the RSC and LDSPMA, shared a kind email to me: "I thought I would drop a note and give you a belated thank you for your mentorship toward me during that time. It came at a very important point in my life, and you helped connect me with some special and formative experiences. I also always appreciated your kindness, empathetic nature, and unassuming leadership. You made the RSC a wonderful, safe place to work and grow. You let us try things and fail, but you tried to set us up to succeed. You treated everyone equally, no matter their gender, age, or ethnicity, and you always valued our well-being above the work. You taught me a lot, and about far more than just editing: about writing, publishing, administration, leadership, and being a good leader and authentic disciple of Christ. I have been so very lucky to have had so many good bosses, but I count you as one of the best."
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