In Baring Witness, Holly Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.| Cover Title Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Attempting Mormon Marriage Holly Welker Part I. For Better or for Worse Projects Heather K. Olson Beal Make It Up Every Day Heidi Bernhard-Bubb The Language of Marriage Amy Sorensen The World We Share Marilyn Bushman-Carlton Leave the Rest to Fairy Tales Melissa G. I Am Never Without It Stephanie Lauritzen Long, Tall, Square Peg Kira Olson This Great Happiness Tiffany Moss Part II. Complicated Paths to the Temple (Or Not Getting There at All) Plan A Naomi Watkins Pull a Handcart Without Giving Up in Missouri Christmas Jones Dinner and a Movie Marie Brian I, Katherine, Having Been Born of Goodly Parents . . . Katherine Taylor Allred The Law of the Harvest Lia Hadley Mormon Marriage Surprise Mary Ellen Robertson Dreams Denied Katrina Barker Anderson Part III. Divorce and Other Endings Reversal Erin Hill Departures Bernadette Echols I Do . . . to You and You and You Nancy Ellsworth Signs Michelle Weeks My Next Scene Brittny Goodsell Acquiescence Kate Porter The Crash Amy Williams The Last Valentine's Day Viv B. Sole Anita Tanner Part IV. Second Chances Best Friends Lynne Burnett Becoming a Couple Jari Carlton Cannon Its Own Reward C. L. Hanson Sacrifice and Sacrament A Mormon Marriage Margaret M. Toscano The Architecture of Marriage Observations of a Bastard Gina Colvin Part V. Expectations: Met, Unmet, or Exceeded Saying Yes Joanna Brooks Across Racial and Cultural Divides Jamie Davis The Shared Table Rebekah Orton The Marriage Pact Alisa Curtis Bolander A Breath I Held Too Long Deja Earley Lucky Despite Myself Rachel Whipple Thirty-Three Reasons Why: A Partial List Dayna Patterson Glossary Bibliography Contributors | Honorable Mention in Creative Non-Fiction, Association for Mormon Letters, 2017 — Association for Mormon Letters
|Holly Welker is an award-winning poet and essayist living in Arizona. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Best American Essays, and other publications.