Celebrating a Life in the Arts: Glen Nelson Receives AML Lifetime Achievement Award

Co-founder of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts honored for decades of creative impact

The Association for Mormon Letters has named Glen Nelson the recipient of its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing a remarkable career spent creating, promoting, and chronicling the work of Latter-day Saint artists. Nelson will be honored at the upcoming AML/Mormon Scholars in the Humanities Conference Awards Ceremony on May 30, 2025, at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. A video interview featuring Nelson in conversation with Laura Allred Hurtado (Utah Museum of Contemporary Art) and Michael Hicks (Brigham Young University) accompanies the announcement.

Glen Nelson co-founded the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in 2017 alongside Richard Bushman and others, building on his decades of earlier work with the Mormon Artists Group. His vision has helped create a vibrant and inclusive space where artists, scholars, and audiences come together to explore the richness of Latter-day Saint creative expression. Under his leadership, the Center has become a home for collaboration, inquiry, and celebration.

In the official award citation, AML praises Nelson’s “signature energy and warmth” and notes that his vast creative output includes over 30 books, dozens of libretti, and hundreds of essays, articles, and works of fiction. Yet, Nelson sees his purpose not as production, but in “living an artful life” filled with surprise, beauty, and insight.

Read the full award citation on the AML website.