Jai Hamid Bashir Wins Zócalo’s Ninth Annual Poetry Prize

In ‘Little Bones,’ a Girl Considers a Utah Sunset, Intoxicated on ‘Untold Plans for Eternity’

Since 2012, the Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize has been awarded annually to the U.S. poem that best evokes a connection to place. This year, talking about “place”—a concept always open to interpretation—feels particularly poignant as people around the world must now consider its physical constraints and vast virtual possibilities as many of us stay home, in fixed spaces, to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The submissions for 2020 (which came from as far away as Doha, Qatar) dove deep into the meaning of place to explore literal, fictional, and metaphorical …

How Attending Elite Universities Helped Mormons Enter the Mainstream 

Through Higher Education, Latter-day Saints Joined the U.S. Meritocracy and Transformed Their Own Identity

The history of Mormon “Americanization” has long puzzled those who try to understand it.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, Mormons, under immense pressure from local and federal …

Will California’s Housing Shortage Epidemic Infect the Rest of the West?

A Visit to Utah Shows How the Crisis Has Spread, and Suggests Some Cures

Sorry, Utah.

And apologies to the rest of the West. California’s epidemic shortage of housing hasn’t just sickened our own state—by driving up prices, forcing residents into rentals and onto the …

Why My Mormon Mom Joined the Cannabis Lobby

Living With a Sibling With Epilepsy Has Meant Embracing a New Normal for Our Whole Family. The Fight to Legalize a New Drug in Utah Was No Exception.

My 19-year-old sister is adorable. She’s fiercely independent, a little moody, and obsessed with movies. She’s also the reason my mother joined forces with other Utah moms to form a …