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.

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.

In Lilly Sand kids pick lopsicles and eat dot hogs. They toddily-walk, or slide down a canyon hill inside bubbles of boiling dust. One weaves in buttery strides, two-stepping, as his neon soccer ball dances backward. An adopted child, in America where skins are a hodgepodge of hues, wonders how it would be to look like her mother. Children of all ages will enjoy the tongue-tickling, lovely squishy hugs, and honeyed hums on these pages. Marilyn Bushman-Carlton is the award-winning author of three poetry books. She has five children who have blessed her with the sixteen grandchildren who inspired this work. This is her first children's book. Justin T. Carlton holds an MBA from Vanderbilt University. He is the father of three and is one of Marilyn's five children.