Todd Robert Petersen

Todd Robert Petersen was born in Moses Lake, Washington on August 16, 1969. He is a fiction writer and an academic currently based at Southern Utah University. He and his wife Alisa have two children.

He is one of eleven writers selected by the Utah Arts Council to represent the arts in Utah education. [http://arts.utah.gov/services/educator_resources/artist_roster/ Utah Arts Council]

Writing

Petersen's fiction has appeared in many print and online magazines. In 2007, his work was collected into the collection "Long After Dark". Petersen's work is highly regarded in the Mormon Arts community where "Long Before Dark" has been called "one of the most important works of Mormon literature to appear so far" [http://www.motleyvision.org/?p=327 A Motley Vision] and what "should be the model for LDS literature." [http://www.slweekly.com/index.cfm?do=article.details&id=F634A88E-0AF0-B28F-6A34936219A2E806&page=3 Salt Lake City Weekly]

Petersen's fiction and poems have won him several awards, including the AWP Intro Award, the Marilyn Brown Novel Award, Utah Arts Award, and Sunstone Foundation awards.

Peterson was a founding editor of The Sugar Beet, an online Mormon satire zine comparable to The Onion.

His Marilyn Brown Award-winning novel "Rift" will be released summer 2008.

Academics

Petersen received his bachelors at University of Oregon, his masters at Northern Arizona University and his doctorate at Oklahoma State University. His masters and doctorate focused on creative writing. He received his PhD in 2001 and moved to SUU the same year. [http://www.suu.edu/faculty/petersent/assets/professional.html Southern Utah University faculty page] [http://arts.utah.gov/services/educator_resources/artist_roster/artists/todd_robert_petersen.html Utah Arts Council]

His academic writing focuses on Western, Mormon, and pop culture themes.

References

[http://www.toddpetersen.org/ www.toddpetersen.org]