Levi Savage Peterson (born 1933) is a Mormon biographer, essayist and fictionist whose best-known works include a seminal biography of Juanita Brooks,[1] his own autobiography, and his novel The Backslider, a "standard for the contemporary Mormon novel."[2] He was born and reared in the Mormon community of Snowflake, Arizona and is an emeritus professor of English at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.[3] He served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in French-speaking Switzerland and Belgium from 1954 to 1957. He edited from 2004 to 2008.
Peterson's work as a writer centers in "the possibility of wrong behavior"; his works "variously examine the tension between Sainthood as fact and Sainthood as aspiration, between belief and doubt, and between expected blessings and the traumas of reality."[4] Similarly, he taught his writing students to "write from the other side of your inhibitions."[5] In an essay entitled "In Defense of a Mormon Erotica," Peterson stated that "prudery reinforces pornography" by hiding sexual feelings.[6] He encouraged Mormon authors to include sexual content and obscenities (in an appropriate amounts) in their work, writing that "there is a vitality in sexual imagery and obscenities."[6]
Peterson has been the recipient of several AML Awards: Short Fiction (1978) for "The Confessions of Augustine", Short Fiction (1982–1983) for "The Canyons of Grace", Special Award for Short Story Anthology (1982–1983) for Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories, Novel (1986) for The Backslider, Special Recognition in Biography (1988) for Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian, Honorary Lifetime Membership (1988), Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters (2009), and Short Fiction (2016) for "Kid Kirby". Additionally, his work has been a finalist in the short fiction category twice: 2014 ("Jesus Enough") and 2019 ("Bode and Iris").