Stress, healing, empowerment: The top 10 moments of The Utah Enlightenment in 2020

INTRODUCTION One year ago, when The Utah Review presented the 2019 edition of the top 10 moments of the Utah Enlightenment, it was a jubilant representation of Utah’s integral strengths as a community of the arts and the momentum that catapulted Salt Lake City as one of the Intermountain West’s most dynamic centers for creative … Read more

Torrey House Press’ recent spate of releases in nonfiction, fiction, essays, poetry underscores breadth and depth of fresh perspectives

EDITOR’S NOTE: Part II of The Utah Review’s feature package on Torrey House Press’ 10th anniversary offers a roundup of reviews about THP’s recent releases in 2019 and 2020. For Part I, see the centerpiece article. As Torrey House Press (THP) begins its second decade, the press continues to ramp up its pace for new … Read more

Utah arts organizations make transition to online, interactive, live stream platforms, during coronavirus pandemic

Several major arts organizations in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area have adapted their programming and classes to streaming and interactive platforms. Initial responses and numbers of participants also have been encouraging, indicating that arts and culture are just as essential (if not more so), even as regular routines have been upended by the coronavirus … Read more

Three new excellent fall releases from Torrey House Press: Desert Cabal, Mostly White, The Delightful Horror of Family Birding

Three new releases for the fall from Utah’s Torrey House Press signal this publishing house’s earnest expansion of the literary voices for the environmental and conservation movement. When considered together, two nonfiction releases (Desert Cabal by Amy irvine and The Delightful Horror of Family Birding by Eli J. Knapp) and the novel Mostly White by … Read more

Jonathon Thompson’s River of Lost Souls superbly probes long historical chain leading to Gold King Mine disaster

Near Salt Lake City, the Bingham Canyon Open Pit Copper Mine sits atop a 70-square-mile underground plume of contaminated groundwater. A burst spilling into the valleys could trigger Utah’s worst environmental disaster ever. While the Gold King Mine spill that occurred in southwestern Colorado attracted a great deal of public attention in early August 2015, … Read more

Authentic voices in the Utah Enlightenment: Plan-B Theatre, Torrey House Press, Repertory Dance Theatre

While the bomb-throwers—both metaphorical and literal – invariably claim to speak for the locals, most of the locals I’ve met prefer to speak for themselves. They’re old-timers and newcomers, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals. They’re scientists, tribal members, ranchers, and telecommuters, often more than one of the above. Some criticize the federal government, and … Read more

The top 10 of many fine moments in 2016 for the Utah Enlightenment

There were many fine moments this year for the Utah Enlightenment. In compiling the list of what I believe were the 10 best defining moments of Utah’s cultural awakening for 2016, the pool of choices was more than satisfying in breadth and depth. There has been a great deal of recent press, for example, about … Read more

Historical forgetfulness, reclaiming memory explored in two new Utah novels: Inhabited and Man in The Mirror

In different ways, two recently published novels solidly critique the American West culture that simultaneously purports to elevate history while stubbornly clinging to the convenience of historical forgetfulness. In both novels – Inhabited by Charlie Quimby (Torrey House Press) and Man in the Mirror: A man finding himself as he loses himself to Alzheimer’s by … Read more

Torrey House Press’ Edge of Morning highlights Native American voices on Bears Ears, public lands

We were the land’s before we were. Or the land was ours before you were a land. Or this land was our land, it was not your land. We were the land before we were people, loamy roamers rising, so the stories go, or formed of clay, spit into with breath reeking soul— Heid Erdrich, … Read more

Torrey House’s Alibi Creek is superb, spellbinding

Early in her novel Alibi Creek, Bev Magennis, succinctly sets the place of her story: Tucked in a fold of the Mariposa Mountains, Brand had been overrun by unfamiliar faces, the locals showing their disapproval by shunning greetings, refusing to indulge in small talk, and forgetting names. Walker, however, saw this small, steady influx of … Read more