In this episode, the Center celebrates with composer Steven L. Ricks the upcoming premiere of his multimedia chamber opera, Baucis and Philemon (BAH-sis and Phi-LEE-mon), which was commissioned by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in 2019. The story comes from Ovid's Metamorphosis. It is a fable about a couple who ask the gods to be turned into trees at the bank of a lake after their death. Ricks discusses how the opera came to be written and the team behind it all.

Musical rehearsal excerpts are by Steven L. Ricks (music) and Stephen Tuttle (libretto).

Robert Raleigh and Andrew Hall, the two editors of the book, The Path and the Gate: Mormon Short Fiction, gather to talk about the process of creating a new collection of fiction in this panel discussion that also includes Jennifer Quist, one of the book's authors and the fiction editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. The chat includes observations about the evolution of the Mormon literary landscape, the role of editors as gatekeepers, and readings of three excerpts. The collection of 23 stories is to be published by Signature Books October 16, 2023.

Music for the episode is by Robert Cundick, Recessional.

Three authors from the new collection, The Path and the Gate: Mormon Short Fiction, gather to talk about their stories, lives, and works in this lively panel discussion. The authors are Todd Robert Peterson, Ryan McIlvain, and Heidi Naylor. All three authors are also university teachers, and a question about responses to each other's stories turns into an impromptu literary critics' circle--full of admiration, insight, and reactions to reading each other's works. The collection of 23 stories is to be published by Signature Books October 16, 2023. Finally, the trio talk about the value of many voices representing a community.

Music for the episode is by Robert Cundick, Recessional.

Emerging painter Madeline Rupard discusses her paintings of the American landscape that include truck stops, gas stations, fast food, and stores that connect the suburban and the sublime. In atmospheric works that recall the stylistic approach of the Ashcan painters Henri, Sloan, Glackens, and Shinn of the turn of the 20th century, Rupard finds kinship with them and additional resonance of paintings inside Latter-day Saint church buildings, particularly the mix of religious paintings amid mundane decor. 

Historian and author Claudia Lauper Bushman discusses in this episode the writing of her autobiography in progress, I, Claudia, and the value of keeping records. In her frequent letters to family, Wellesley College newsletters, and her own daily journaling, she celebrates written communications, the foundation of civilization. She is joined in the discussion about undertaking projects grand and modest by guest co-host Frances LaBianca, a student of Communications and Public Relations at the University of Arizona, who is also Claudia's granddaughter.

Music for the episode is sung by Claudia Lauper Bushman.

The Dominican Jazz Project is a group of elite Caribbean jazz artists whose band leader is Stephen Anderson, Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In this interview, Anderson reminisces about his tender relationship with the musicians of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, their much decorated recordings and performances, and the joy in creating an interplay of traditional rhythms and modern jazz.

Musical excerpts for the interview are from The Dominican Jazz Project's latest CD, Desde Lejos (2021), used with permission.