Douglas Thayer

Douglas H. Thayer (April 19, 1929 – October 17, 2017) was a prominent author in the "faithful realism" movement of Mormon fiction. Eugene England called him the "father of contemporary Mormon fiction." Returning to Provo from Stanford, Thayer taught briefly in the BYU English Department, considered studying to be a clinical psychologist, and then started a doctorate in American studies at the University of Maryland. His dislike of research led him to pursue his interest in writing. He transferred to the University of Iowa, and finished an MFA in fiction writing. At BYU he was Coordinator of Composition, Director of Creative Writing, Associate Chair in the English Department, As a teacher, Thayer influenced John Bennion, Levi S. Peterson, Brandon Sanderson, Orson Scott Card, and Brandon Mull.

Works and reception Thayer began publishing stories in BYU Studies and Dialogue during the 1960s. Thayer's writing process consisted of writing a draft from notes, then taking more notes during the draft and incorporating these notes into subsequent drafts. A short story went through over ten drafts, while a novel took between six and eight drafts. called him the "finest chronicler of the Mormon youth in the culture." Richard Cracroft called his memoir Hooligan a future classic of Mormon literature. Michael Austin, a former English professor at University of Evansville and regular contributor to By Common Consent, described Thayer as the first LDS writer to bridge the gap between "coming from a position of faith" and writing "well-crafted" literature. noted that Thayer's short stories usually explore the "fragile psyche of Mormon men" who wear their gender roles "like an ill-fitting shirt." In 1974, Karl Keller praised Thayer for using "concrete, worldly symbols" to articulate his faith, but stated that his work did not go as far as creating a world where Mormon theology was "concretely true." In 1987, Bruce W. Jorgensen, an English professor at BYU, postulated that Thayer's stories in Under the Cottonwoods followed a consistent pattern taken from Romantic lyric poetry, where the story follows "a male protagonist through some brief, decisive interval in his life."

Awards His prizes and awards for his work include Dialogue prizes for the short story and essay, the P. A. Christensen award, the Karl G. Maeser Creative Arts Award, and the Utah Institute of Fine Arts Award in the Short Story. Thayer has received many awards from the Association for Mormon Letters (AML). He won the 1977 Short Story Award for stories in Under the Cottonwoods and the Short Fiction Award in 2011 for Wasatch. He received the Novel Award for Summer Fire in 1983 and for The Conversion of Jeff Williams in 2003. He was awarded an honorary membership to AML in 1988, and received the Smith-Petit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters in 2008. As a recognition of Thayer's contributions to his community, Provo mayor Lewis Billings named Thayer's seventy-fifth birthday "Douglas Thayer Day". Doug and Donlu have six children, six children-in-law, and twenty-one grandchildren.

Works Short story collections Under the Cottonwoods and Other Mormon Stories (1977) Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone (1989) Wasatch: Mormon Stories and a Novella (2011)

Novels Summer Fire (1983) Greg & Kellie (1991) [with Donlu Thayer] The Conversion of Jeff Williams (2003) The Tree House (2009) Will Wonders Never Cease: A Hopeful Novel for Mormon Mothers and Their Teenage Sons (2014)

Memoir Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood (2007)