Two years ago when Segullah made its debut I fielded lots of questions. The most frequent was this: Why a new journal?

My answer: Because Mormon women need an independent forum that maintains a faithful perspective.

“Independent forum” rarely caused any hang-ups. “Faithful perspective” was a speed bump for some (and that’s a topic for another post). But others moved right along to the “women” part. Aren’t male perspectives just as valuable? some of them asked.

Of course, of course. I had radical feminist leanings in college, but I’ve far outgrown the deluded belief that men are, basically, chumps. I believe that the greatest heights of humanity come from the union of male and female, in intimate pairs and in larger communities. And I’d love to see a faith-promoting journal of personal writings by LDS men and women. For that matter, I’d love to see one for men only. But those are someone else’s projects. Mine, as editor of Segullah, is fostering the female voice. (read the rest).

2008 has been an exciting year on Mount Segullah. We recently published our summer issue, which features prose and poetry contest honorees. In December we’ll publish our tenth issue since our 2005 debut. Our subscriber base is steadily growing, and we’re hearing from some great new voices. You can subscribe here, view the archive here, and find our submission guidelines here. The deadline for our 2008 literary contests is December 31, so get writing!

We’re also excited about the recent release of our staff anthology, The Mother in Me: Real-world Reflections on Growing Into Motherhood , published by Deseret Book. (To my knowledge, this release marked the first appearance of the word “nipple” in mainstream LDS literature.) We blushed over Margaret Young’s glowing endorsement], and we’re looking forward to reviews around the bloggernacle. And hey–we want you to come to our book release party!

Saturday October 18, 2-4 p.m

Deseret Book at the University Mall in Orem, UT

You can hear more about the book in my interview with Doug Wright, which will be broadcast on KSL radio (SLC, 1160 AM), Sunday October 12 from 9-9:30 a.m.

I suppose that’s enough shameless self-promotion for now, but we’ll soon be back with more.  My thanks to Stephen for creating this round table (vanity mirror?)–Segullah is pleased to be part of it.