Praise for Wayfare

“Wayfare is the most encouraging development that I've seen in Mormon letters for some time.” -Nate Oman

“I couldn't be more impressed with Wayfare.” -Joe Spencer

“An astonishing and beautiful publication.” -Ardis Parshall

“Wayfare is amazing.” -Steven Peck

“I love what Wayfare is doing.” -Sam Brown

About Us

Wayfare seeks to be a companion and guide on the journey of faith. We publish a range of original writing: essays, interviews, dispatches, profiles, poetry, miracles, sermons, and works of book, film, and art criticism.

The Restoration began with a sincere question and the reception of divine truth. Wayfare embraces that hunger for new light with the conviction that our Heavenly Parents always desire to reveal more to their children. 

Because truth is often stranger and more subtle than we imagine, we follow Jacob’s example of wrestling with complexity, mystery, and eternity. For that reason, Wayfare welcomes new voices and ideas that transcend, explore, and expand familiar boundaries—we seek after the true, the good, and the beautiful wherever they may be found. 

Our aim is to cultivate within individuals and communities the more abundant life that is found in Christ through writing that is leavened with faith, brightened by hope, and deepened through charity. 

Finally, we affirm the revelation Joseph Smith received May 9, 1831: That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.


Wayfare is a publication of the Faith Matters Foundation. We publish weekly through our newsletter as well as in biannual print issues. 

Our name was partly inspired by two songs: A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief and Wayfaring Stranger. 

If you are interested in writing for Wayfare, you can find more information in our pitch guide.

Get in touch! Write us at wayfare@faithmatters.org.


Masthead

Editor

Zachary Davis

Associate Editors

Rachel Jardine

Rachael Johnson

Benjamin Peters

Managing Editor

Lori Forsyth

Senior Editor

Kristine Haglund

Poetry Editor

Kathryn Knight Sonntag

Art Editor

Esther Hi'ilani Candari

Books Editor

Scott Raines

Fiction Editor

Jeanine Bee

Film Editors

Barrett Burgin

Celene Mitchell

Contributing Editors

Shayla Frandsen

Tyler Johnson

Allison Pond

Charlotte Wilson

Social Media Editor

Cece Proffit

Digital Editor

Katie Lewis

News Editor

Jaxon Washburn

Creative Directors

Doug Thomas

Cole Melanson

Editorial Assistant

Mark Melville

Production Assistants

Rosie Serago

Hannah Wilson

Advisory Board

Matt Bowman

Richard Bushman

George Handley

Jennifer Frey

James Goldberg

Randall Paul

Sharrona Pearl

Jana Riess

Charles Stang

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Rosalynde Welch

Subscribe to Wayfare

Explorations in Faith

People

Terryl Givens 

Terryl Givens is Maxwell Senior Research Fellow at BYU. His books include studies in theology, biography and intellectual history. The New York Times has called his scholarship “provocative reading,” and he has been a commentator on PBS, CNN and NPR.

Benjamin Peters 

Wayfare Associate Editor. A media scholar, author, and editor interested in Soviet century causes and consequences of the Information Age. See more work here: Benjaminpeters.org @bjpeters

Zachary Davis 

Executive Director of Faith Matters // Editor at Wayfare // Host of Ministry of Ideas.

Faith Matters 

Exploring an expansive view of the Restored Gospel.

Kristine Haglund 

Kristine Haglund is the author of Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal and a past editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. She should have been a music major, but holds degrees in German Studies from Harvard and the University of Michigan.

Kristian Heal

Kristian Heal is a scholar of early Syriac Christianity and a Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

Shayla Frandsen

Wayfare contributing editor. MFA student at BYU, MA in English literature from the City College of New York. Her writing can be found in Under the Sun, Exponent ii, Dialogue, JAKE, Beaver Magazine, and more.

George B. Handley

I am a professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities and Comparative Literature at BYU where I have taught since 1998. I am the author most recently of The Hope of Nature, If Truth Were a Child, and the novel, American Fork.

Natalie Brown

Writer, scholar, mother, lawyer, and Latter-day Saint living in Boulder, CO.

Matthew Bowman

Matthew Bowman is Howard W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University and the author of several books.

Jordan Watkins

Assistant Professor of Church History and Doctrine at BYU and author of Slavery and Sacred Texts: The Bible, The Constitution, and Historical Consciousness in Antebellum America.

Lori Forsyth 

Wayfare Senior Editor. Lori is happiest when connecting ideas and discussing them with friends. She edits in several places and writes in a few (often LoriNotes.wordpress.com). She has a hard time passing up a good analogy.

Trina Caudle

Trina Caudle is an editor & writer focused on personal stories, and graduated from Western Oregon University with a BS in history & journalism. She and her family live in Washington DC.

Charles Shirō Inouye

Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at Tufts University and the author of The End of the World, Plan B; zion earth zen sky; and Hymns of Silence (forthcoming from BCC Press).

Richard Bushman

Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University and the author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography.

Joseph Spencer

A philosopher and student of scripture, as well as the author of a lot of different things (books, book chapters, articles, and other academic things).

Gideon Burton

Gideon Burton is Assistant Professor of English at Brigham Young University where he teaches Renaissance literature, literature of the Latter-Day Saints, and rhetoric.

Ariel Bybee Laughton

Ariel Bybee Laughton, an independent scholar in Houston, Texas, holds a B.A. in History from BYU and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Early Christianity from Duke University. She writes on women, gender, asceticism, and Biblical interpretation in late antiquity.

Cece

Wayfare Social Media Editor.

Nate Oman

I'm a law professor at the College of William & Mary with thoughts on the world, mostly about law, politics, religion, and books.

Allison Pond

Contributing Editor

Rachael Johnson 

Associate Editor of Wayfare; Mom of three, scholar of early modern religious history, and happiest with a mug of hot chocolate and cozy conversation.

Merrijane Rice

Lead Editor for DMBA and secretary on the Mormon Lit Lab board. My poetry has been published by BYU Studies, Ensign, New Era, Segullah, Wayfare, the Mormon Lit Lab, and the Utah State Poetry Society. For more information, visit www.merrijanerice.com.

Michael Ferguson, PhD

Instructor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School. First-Year Wellness Director at Harvard College. Fellow at Harvard Divinity School's Center for the Study of World Religions.

Adam Haver

Adam Haver received the 2022 Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry. He was most recently published in The Pierian and Braided Way and will be included in an upcoming edition of Ballast. You can connect with him on Twitter: @ac_haver.

James Goldberg

James Goldberg is a poet, novelist, and champion of Mormon literature. His works include The Five Books of Jesus and A Book of Lamentations.

Blair Hodges 

Amateur seeker, professional communications person.

Tyler Johnson

Editor-at-large. Stanford medical oncologist. Clinical Assistant Professor. Podcaster @TheDoctorsArt. Author writing on spirituality, meaning, and medicine.

Lizzie Heiselt

Lizzie is a writer, reader, runner, mother, lover, and seeker. She lives in a small Brooklyn, NY apartment with her family and a lot of bikes.

Rosalynde Welch

Research fellow and associate director at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

James Talmage Egan

Songwriter who wishes he were a novelist. http://www.jameseganmusic.com/

Andrew Maxfield

Composer of Music & Words • 2021 King's Singers New Music Prize, Special Commendation • “Rhythmically vital … superbly judged … [and] tender”—Fanfare Magazine

Kathryn Knight Sonntag

Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the author of The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother (Faith Matters Publishing, 2022) and The Tree at the Center (BCC Press, 2019).

Scott Raines

“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

Tony Brown

Professor of Russian at BYU

Rachel Jardine 

Associate Editor at Wayfare. Mother, road-tripper, and part-time attorney. Always in pursuit of more hours in the day, always up for a chat about the secret of life.

James R. Swensen

Art and photo historian, curator, and proud father of four skiers.

Elizabeth Garcia

Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s work has recently appeared in Tar River Poetry, Orchards Poetry Journal, and Artemis. She is the current Poetry Editor for Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought. Read more of her work at elizabethcgarcia.wordpress.com.

Jason R. Combs

Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University. Master’s degrees from Yale Divinity School and Columbia University. Ph.D in Religious Studies specializing in New Testament and early Christianity from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Moe Graviet

Moe is a graduate student from Emmett, Idaho, studying religion and literature at Yale Divinity School.

Esther Hi'ilani Candari

Esther is an Asian-American fine artist and educator from Hawai'i. Across genres and disciplines her work explores the intersections of religion, gender, race, ecology, and sense of place. She currently serves as the Art Editor for Wayfare.

Chanel Earl

Chanel Earl is a writer—mostly of fiction—who currently teaches writing at Brigham Young University.

R. de la Lanza

I'm just a man who reads the world... and sometimes writes on it.

Dallin Lewis

Dallin Lewis is an associate professor of English at Southern Virginia University.

Steven L. Peck

Steven L. Peck is an ecologist at BYU and a fellow of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. In addition to his scientific work, he has published four award-winning literary novels, poetry, short stories, and essays.

Bill Turnbull

Just some dude

Jaxon Washburn

Wayfare News Editor; Masters Student at Harvard Divinity School.

Katie Lewis 

Wayfare digital editor. Freelance editor for Eschler Editing and Cedar Fort Publishing. Annie Dillard fangirl.

M. Esperanza Dotto

Argentinian transplant studying Psychology at BYU.

Cole Melanson 

I like quarto sized books.

Ben Ogles

Clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at Brigham Young University.