If it’s not fiction, it’s a note or an essay, and this is the place. Choose a recent post, scroll down to choose a category, or scroll further for a much longer list of posts—er, notes and essays. Thanks for reading!
Most Recent Notes & Essays
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Wanted: 250 American Fork Memories
The American Fork Memories project: From May 1 through August 31, we’re gathering and publishing 250 short, positive memories of life and work in American Fork. read this now
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What I, the Reader, Owe the Author
As we wander deeper into the 21st century, I grow more conscious of a more important way to honor authors’ work: being a good reader—which many people are instinctively, but others don’t seem to expect of themselves. read this now
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How to Solve the NBA’s Tanking Problem
Here’s how to fix the NBA’s tanking problem. I haven’t heard this idea anywhere, amid the endless discussion. read this now
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All the Notes & Essays
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Wanted: 250 American Fork Memories
The American Fork Memories project: From May 1 through August 31, we’re gathering and publishing 250 short, positive memories of life and work in American Fork.
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What I, the Reader, Owe the Author
As we wander deeper into the 21st century, I grow more conscious of a more important way to honor authors’ work: being a good reader—which many people are instinctively, but others don’t seem to expect of themselves.
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How to Solve the NBA’s Tanking Problem
Here’s how to fix the NBA’s tanking problem. I haven’t heard this idea anywhere, amid the endless discussion.
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A Personal Tribute to Jeffrey R. Holland
Multitudes of BYU students, Latter-day Saints, and others met Jeffrey R. Holland at a pulpit or in his writings, where he changed lives, including mine. Relatively few of us sat at his feet day after day in a classroom.
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We Still Need Public Libraries
Maybe the people we elect can buy all the books they want on Amazon or elsewhere. But we cannot afford to limit Americans to the books they can afford to buy. We need public libraries. If we ever find we’ve elected people locally who don’t get that, we must either persuade them or overwhelm and then retire them.
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A Very Short Christmas Story in Lieu of a Column
I opened the pink box and smiled. It was a coffee mug showing a girl with a stack of books. “Just a girl who loves books,” it said. It was perfect. I wanted to hide it so another girl wouldn’t steal it, but that wasn’t allowed. I imagined sipping cocoa while I read my books.
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Be More Human, Not Less
When we delegate a thing to our machines, our own ability in that thing decreases. When that thing is our thinking, we invite oppression and exploitation. When we turn to our machines as an alternative to connecting with fellow humans, we diminish our ability to be human at all.
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Teaching Children to Read Books
I reluctantly learned another useful perspective from my own children. It’s important to help them find something they like to read, put it in their hands, and—this may be difficult—celebrate the fact that they’re reading.
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Reading Aloud (again)
I’m back with three more things to read aloud, a note on how I use reading aloud in my writing, and an activity which may feel adventurous and will likely turn out beautifully.
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This Writer and That Marching Band
I defy any cynic, any outright pessimist, to come away from that many hours with the youth of the American Fork High School Marching Band without feeling hope, without thinking the future might be in good hands after all.
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The Lusty Month of May (Bookish Version)
We’ll chat here with two Utah romance authors. I’ll note some believable and unbelievable statistics I found. And we’ll visit a romance bookstore in Lehi to ask, of all things, do men read romance? Should they? Why? We’ll finish with a line from Shakespeare.
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We Also Read to Heal
If we’re not taught to loathe reading from an early age, we soon find many reasons to read, including learning and enjoyment. . . . We also read to heal.
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For Holy Week: Mostly Music
Music, mostly, for each day of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday.
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Bookstore Memories
I like to listen to people in bookstores. I’ve overheard one sort of conversation many times, especially at used bookstores. The child in it can be a first-grader or a teen, and it goes about the same.
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Reading Aloud Is for Adults Too
The benefits of reading aloud for youth and adults get far less attention, but they’re real. I don’t mean just reading a witty or scandalous social media post or a short excerpt of an article. I mean reading entire essays, stories, even books aloud.
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In Which I Read My Fiction Aloud for World Read Aloud Day 2025
Today is World Read Aloud Day — or WRAD, because the world needs more acronyms. In celebration, I read some of my fiction aloud, so you can listen.
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Poke the Algorithms in the Eye: Read Books in 2025
When we roam a real bookstore or browse the library stacks, we brush against the larger world and its infinite realities. The algorithms would never think to offer all the perspectives which beckon there, all the voices of the living and the dead, waiting and wanting to go home with us.
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Abolishing Christmas (a short story)
Vern intoned ponderously, “We are on the verge of a very bad headline nationwide, perhaps worldwide. It will read something like this: ‘Utah city council abolishes Christmas.’”
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“Sacrifice the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving”
Thoughts on a phrase from Psalm 107: “sacrifice the sacrifice of Thanksgiving.” What might my sacrifice be?
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Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 3)
The writerly thrills I chase are quotidian. It’s fine with me if others fill their books with the magic of wizards, castles, and all things speculative and paranormal. For my part, I want to tease the magic – and light and darkness – out of ordinary moments.
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Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love (Part 2)
This may sound shallow or Pollyannish. But lately I am drawn more to questions of how we live together in families, neighborhoods, and communities – including religious communities – and less to similar queries on a larger scale. We navigate these things throughout our lives, but with special intensity during adolescence, so perhaps it makes sense to write of youth.
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Writing What I Believe, Writing What I Love
I want to enjoy a novel in all the usual ways – laughing, savoring the building suspense, shedding the occasional manly tear. But I especially want to think. I want to think new thoughts and test and rearrange old ones. I want to see and understand the world, myself, and other people in new and unexpected ways. I want to finish the book with a sense that there are still things for me to learn from it, by pondering it or even reading it again. I want a book with a heart and a mind.
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He Was Something: A Tribute
I went to a man’s funeral this week. He died shortly after his 94th birthday. Was he a man-out-of time? Are we a time out of men?
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My New Year’s Bookbuying Resolution — Join Me!
A new Barnes and Noble bookstore coming to American Fork prompts a bookbuying resolution for the new year.
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That Teetering Stack of Books I Read in 2022 and 2023 (ish)
In which David Rodeback chats about 33 books he’s read in the past two years, give or take, and lists a few more. Fiction, non-fiction, and non-fiction about writing.
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“A Light to Lighten the Gentiles”: Christmas Reflections
Christmas reflections on the Light, the Life, the Truth, the Way — and why I think even secular Christmas celebrations can have some sacred effects.
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Come As You Are: Reflections on Reunion
This is a reprint of a blog post from 2013, which in turn was based on something I said at my 30th high school reunion that summer. In helping to plan a 40th reunion, I’ve had a few classmates mention it. I’m reposting it here so I can share a link to a current blog, not a long-defunct one. It is abridged and otherwise slightly edited. Come As You Are One of the things people need to know about an event is what they’re expected to wear. What we recommended for our 30-year high school reunion was “nice casual.” What…
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Ten Ways to Celebrate Easter (Alone or Together)
Christmas looms large on the Christian calendar, but I’ve long thought that Easter should loom larger. There is no greater cause for celebration in all of earthly Christianity than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let’s celebrate Easter!
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Christmas Reminds Me
By nature reminders are not new thoughts, but Christmas reminds me of important things, I think.
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There Might Be Another Way (a short story)
After a sleepless night and a distracted morning at church, an impromptu lunch date may be Pia’s last chance to tell Doug how she feels.
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Books I Read Lately – Winter 2022 Edition (in September)
When I finish reading a book, I stack it on a certain shelf near my desk in my home office, away from but in sight of the UCRC, my Unconscionably Comfortable Reading Chair. There it sits until I write of it in a “Books I Read” blog post such as this one. The stack is now 24 books. It’s getting precarious. And I should long since have written this post and two or three more like it. Such is life. Here are five books from that stack. I’ll tell you where I found them, unless it was Amazon. I’m trying…
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Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, My Two Favorite Authors, and Mother’s Day
My two favorite authors, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vasily Grossman, treasured Raphael’s Sistine Madonna from different perspectives. What that has to do with Mother’s Day …
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Radiant Moments: A Thanksgiving Reflection
I began this Thanksgiving morning by setting myself a task: to describe my gratitude for specific things which are not controversial. (I have little taste for controversy today.) I thought first of the largest things, such as God, family, and country, but the very ideas of these are currently controversial. You may safely assume my profound gratitude for them, but after a few moments I turned my thoughts toward smaller things. Granted, all things are smaller than the largest things. So I made a list of specific things for which I have felt grateful in recent weeks, and nothing is…
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Her Voice (a short story)
A man gets up and goes to work in a burned-out forest which resembles what has become of his life.
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I Already Did (a short story)
An old stone ruin is the setting for a simple picnic, dramatic news, and a fateful choice.
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Wildfire (a short story)
Returning to the path was a relief. I belonged there, with my runner’s build and shoes to match. She belonged off the path, not so much with the grass and trees as with the soil underneath and the blazing sunlight. Her full figure belonged to nature, and her hair and skirt were fire. I shook off the impression and jogged away.
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Where We Do Difficult Things:
Good AF WritersLike Good AF Writers, most critique groups have three nerve-wracking activities in common: reading an excerpt of your writing aloud, hearing others’ feedback on your writing, and giving others your feedback on their writing.
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Open Windows (a very short story)
A writer takes her short story about a marriage breaking up to her critique group. They debate what it’s about, and she tries to explain. A very short story (flash fiction).
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Not Here (a short story)
I had never been here before this hour, but I could feel that here was my home. This place had made war on itself for decades, then simply stopped and made peace. … My next song began where the first left off. A short story.
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Recent Reading: 10 More Books and a Memory
The more I read, the more I want to talk about what I read — and I’ve been reading more lately. I don’t mean more than I’ve ever read before. There was graduate school at Cornell — in Russian literature, a landscape of giant novels (which I still love), countless poems and short stories, and sprawling artistic manifestoes. Long before that were nineteen days at my grandparents’ farm in April 1975. Do you mind very much if I remember for a few moments before I list the books?
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Invisible (a short story)
A seventh grade boy, a precocious artist, draws portraits of his family. Then he draws his sister’s best friend, when she doesn’t know he’s doing it, and that’s trouble. A short story.
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“I triumph still, if Thou abide with Me” (a reflection)
One of the unsung joys of Christian worship — there may be a pun there, alas — is encountering verses of a beloved hymn which aren’t in the hymnal you happen to use. A double blessing is discovering (or later remembering) them in a time when they are immediately relevant to you, your loved ones, or the state of things around us generally. This week, I was struck by these lines from the well-beloved hymn on Henry Francis Lyte’s text, “Abide with Me”: I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.Where…
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I Dreamed You Died Thursday Night (a very short story)
A man’s dream causes him to wonder if certain things are as they appear. Gently dystopian. A very short story (flash fiction).
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Clipped (a very short dystopian story)
In the dystopian but still familiar near future, a divorced man’s hopes die in a barber shop. A very short story (flash fiction).
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Two Kinds of Christmas, Both Good (an essay)
Here we are, in the shortest days and longest nights of the year. It’s cold and getting colder — a dark season with less life about it, in some ways, than the warmer, greener months. But we don’t hibernate, and most of us don’t fly south for the winter, though by February we may wonder why not. What we have — Christians and non-Christians alike — is the Christmas season. There are two basic versions of Christmas, sacred and secular. A few people openly oppose both and do their best to erase them from our public life. Some folks embrace…
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Thou, Lord (a poem)
For Max Olsen (1930-2020)** Thou, Lord, who groaned in agonyWhen darkness ruled GethsemaneAnd daylight mocked on Calvary,Whose perfect gift has ransomed me,O turn my wand’ring heart! Thou, Lord, who spilt thy blood for meTo answer justice’ stern demands,That sin might keep no claim on me,Whose grace is graven on thy hands,O shrive* my selfish heart!
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Books I’ve Read Lately (14 of Them)
Lately I’ve been finishing books I started reading in the last year or two — and enjoyed, but left unfinished. Today I’ll tell you about some of those, plus some books I finished more quickly, without leaving them to languish for months or years. Meanwhile, the poster child for my problem is still unfinished: Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (first published in 1862). I got about 150 pages in, loved it, and stopped. I recently restarted from the beginning. I’m further in now, but I still have over 1,200 pages to go; it’s the unabridged translation. I’m still loving it, but…
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For Latter-day Saints, the Temple Is for Life Outside the Temple (an essay)
These thoughts are primarily for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who generally understand what we do in our temples and why, and how the temple connects to the gospel of Jesus Christ as we understand it. In case that’s not you, and you’d still like to make sense of the following, let’s take a few paragraphs first and try to give you a foothold. The Temple: Quick Background In ordinary times Latter-day Saints meet for worship every Sunday, on our Sabbath, in the local chapel. (Sometimes we call it a meetinghouse or simply a church.)…
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I Made Muffins (a short story)
An awkward early-morning scene on a man’s front porch causes a woman to reflect on what she really wants for her life. A short story.
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Marie (a very short story)
For a seventh grade boy, the last few days of the school year don’t turn out as he had hoped. A very short story (flash fiction).
About Me
Not all my notes and essays are about faith, religion, or scripture. Not even remotely. But when they are, it’s relevant that I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I won’t complain if you use the nickname Mormon. By my definition (not everyone’s) I’m a Christian. Whatever you call yourself, you’re welcome here. I write to explain and inspire, if I can; to discuss and explore — not to proselyte.
My religious writings are sometimes apologetic, in the sense of reasoned argument justifying or defending my faith by explaining it. But I make no apologies (in the conventional sense) for having faith, for having a faith, or for presuming to discuss and ponder.
While we’re on the subject, James said, “Faith without works is dead.” I’ll buy that. Here are some other postulates:
- Faith without brain cells is mostly dead, too, but probably doesn’t know it.
- Yesterday’s faith is of little use today.
- Faith and action are not contradictory concepts.
- Thinking and believing are not mutually hostile activities. They are the most natural and necessary partners in the universe.
- Sometimes Latter-day Saints (Mormons) need to be translated, before what they do or say makes much sense to other people, even other believers. I do some of that here.
Favorite Links
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Disclaimer
Disclaimer: I am in no way or degree an official spokesperson for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its leaders. They don’t tell me what to write. They don’t tell me what not to write. I’ll take credit for any errors here. If you find any truth here and care to give proper credit, please aim it far, far above my pay grade, where it belongs.
From the Author
Comments are always welcome, within the bounds of common civility and relevance. There’s a place for them below.
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And if you’re interested in my published fiction, which mostly isn’t about politics, check out my new novel and my two award-winning collections of short fiction at 60 East Press.
