Gerald Lund on Writing

Author Gerald Lund has to rank up there as one of my all-time, favorite authors. He published his first book in 1971, a non-fiction book titled The Coming of the Lord. However, he took the LDS publishing world by storm with his 9-volume historical fiction series titled The Work and the Glory. The first volume was published in 1990, followed by subsequent volumes each year through 1998. Since that time, he has written many more books, fiction and non-fiction alike. He has sold about 3.5 million copies and his Work and the Glory books were made into three movies.

The first Work and the Glory book came out in 1990 while I was at BYU, and I don’t remember hearing much about it at the time. Of course, I was immersed in my studies and did not have a lot of spare time for reading non-curriculum materials. I believe that it was shortly after the third volume came out, Truth Will Prevail, my wife and I heard about these wonderful stories and started reading them.

When the fourth volume was to be released in 1994, Thy Gold To Refine, I was in graduate school in North Carolina. We decided to drive to Washington DC one summer day between semesters to visit the Washington DC Temple, which was the closest at the time. But we also had an ulterior motive — to stop at the LDS Bookstore around the corner from the temple and purchase volume four. We excitedly raced back home and took turns reading over the next day or two. My favorite volume of the series was number six, Praise to the Man, which took place in Nauvoo and covered the martyrdom of Joseph Smith.

He stands as one of the most successful and prolific LDS authors on the market today and is an inspration to other authors. I always enjoy hearing how authors got their start because it seems many of them stumble onto writing by accident. Gerald Lund is a great example of that. Below is a six-minute clip of an interview he did on the Mormon Channel where he explained how he got his start in writing. I enjoy it so much because it has a familiar ring to it, at least for me and my writing.  I will also post this video on my Author Therapy page.

Gerald Lund on writing

If you would like to learn more about Gerald Lund or some of his other wonderful books, you can visit his website at: http://geraldnlund.com/index.html which includes a list of all of his books, links to other articles, and more of the interview that he gave to the Mormon Channel.

© Copyright 2012 Jeff, All rights Reserved. Written For: Jeffrey Olsen