Welcome Guest Blogger Jana Riess

We’re excited to have Jana onboard for the next few weeks. Here’s her bio:

Jana Riess is the Religion Book Review Editor for Publishers Weekly
magazine, and is also the author of The Spiritual Traveler: Boston and
New England and What Would Buffy Do?: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual
Guide. She is currently co-writing Mormonism for Dummies, forthcoming
in February 2005. A convert to the LDS Church, she holds degrees in
religion from Wellesley College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and
Columbia University. She has been interviewed by the Associated Press,
Time, Newsweek, People, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and
Newsday, among other publications, and was recently a featured guest on
NPR’s “Talk of the Nation� on trends in religious fiction. She lives in
rural Kentucky with her husband Phil and their daughter Jerusha, who
just lost her first tooth.

Welcome, Jana.

5 comments for “Welcome Guest Blogger Jana Riess

  1. Welcome!! Anyone who writes a book on Buffy (and gets it published) is automatically worth listening to, IMHO.

  2. Can we simultaneously do the “12 Questions” thing for Jana? I have a few – perhaps a few can even be the topic for blog entries.

    1. What do you think of the recent trend in “last days” literature, especially those making use of the Protestant “mythos” of the last days? Should there be an LDS version? If only to perhaps counteract the doctrines since I know of many LDS who have read the Last Days series. (Of course I’m dubm. There may already be one)

    2. What’s your take on the whole “is Mormonism a liberal theology” debate that’s been going on the last while. (For those interested there’s been an extended “debate” between Alan Goff, Dan Vogel, and Blake Ostler over on my blog. It’s fairly related and has been fascinating even if I find the overall topic rather tired and moldy.

  3. One of my regrets about my undergraduate career at Columbia (along with only taking two of Richard Bushman’s classes, instead of the three I’d hoped for) is that—despite corresponding with Sister Riess about it—I was unable to take her four-credit seminar on LDS church history due to scheduling issues. I mean, how many chances in life does one get to do *that* at an Ivy League school?

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