Pam Blackwell

Pam Blackwell (born November 9, 1942) is a Mormon playwright and novelist. She is also a psychotherapist.

A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1985, her first novel, "Ephraim's Seed", published in 1995, was nominated for the Association of Mormon Letters Novel of the Year Award in 1996. It was the first of a projected four-novel series, "The Millennial Series"—a fictionalized account of happenings in the time just before and then during The Millennium, according to the author’s interpretation of Mormon (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) prophecy. The following two novels in the series were "Jacob's Cauldron" (1998) and "Michael's Fire" (2002). The concluding novel, "David's Throne", is slated to appear in late 2008.

Her most recent work, the musical "Parley P. Pratt's Great Escape," co-written with Jazz vocalist Kelly Eisenhour (a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music and head of the jazz vocal program at Brigham Young University) (http://music.byu.edu/index.php?id=28&act=1&eid=190), premiered in 2005. It deals with one of the first Mormon apostles, Parley P. Pratt, during his imprisonment in and escape from a Missouri jail in the early 19th century. The Deseret News, Utah's second-largest and oldest newspaper, characterized the play as “joyful, energetic” and “a prime example of the diversity” in some contemporary Mormon art. [ [http://deseretnews.com/archives/arch1.html Deseret News Archives ] ] Meridian Magazine characterized it as "profound," "eclectic," and "historically educational [and] inspiring" (http://meridianmagazine.com/arts/050819musical.html). The musical was a nominee for the 2007 Pearl Award [http://www.pearlawards.org/2007_nominees.htm] for Best Musical Presentation/Soundtrack. [ [http://www.pearlawards.org/contact_us.htm Faith Centered Music Association ] ] . Blackwell’s work, although rooted in Mormon theology and prophecy, includes characters, ideas and motifs from many spiritual traditions, including Native American, Tibetan Buddhist, Catholic mystical, and Spiritualist.

Blackwell (aka Blackwell Mayes), a practicing psychotherapist with a doctorate from Southern California University for Professional Studies, is also the Director of Western Sandplay Associates. [ [http://www.westernsandplay.com/ Western Sand Play Associates ] ] She is an associate member of the Sandplay Therapists of America (http://www.sandplay.org/index.htm). She has authoredtheoretical and practical articles in Jungian psychology as well as Jungian sand play therapy in such journals as the "International Journal of Play Therapy" (2006, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 101-117) and "Psychological Perspectives" (2005, vol. 48, pp. 84-107).

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