The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship is pleased to announce the 2022 slate of writing grant recipients of the Living Faith Women Authors Initiative (for previous winners, see here). The Initiative is designed to promote women’s voices and to support excellence in academic and religious writing.
Andrea Lystrup is a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Tucson, AZ. She owns a private practice that specializes in helping Latter-day Saint couples and individuals navigate faith, addiction, and sexual intimacy issues. Writing is a passion for her, and her work has been featured in the Church’s Ensign magazine. She serves on the Therapist Board of Advisors for Leading Saints, a nonprofit organization created to help Latter-day Saints become better prepared to lead. Her husband is a doctor in the US Air Force and she is a mom to 3 young, rowdy boys.
Katharina Paxman is an associate professor in the Philosophy Department at BYU. Originally from Canada, Katie completed a PhD in philosophy, jointly awarded by the University of Western Ontario and the University of Antwerp, and then a postdoctoral program with the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Ethics. Her philosophical work focuses on David Hume and the history of theories of emotion and moral psychology. She is the mother of four wonderful children, and when not doing philosophy enjoys exploring the world with them and her partner and husband, Andrew.
Heather J. Stone is the President of TETON Sports, an outdoor gear company headquartered in Utah. Heather holds a PhD in organizational communication, with a dual emphasis in Writing and Rhetoric Studies, plus an MBA and a BA in English. She has published in Digital Humanities Quarterly and the Journal of Communication and Religion and her work was awarded Dissertation of the Year by the Religious Communication Association. She also received a CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award and the Thomas Stockham Medal for Conspicuously Effective Teaching from the University of Utah. Heather and her husband, Kelly, helped envision and launch the Mormon History Association Ardis E. Parshall Public History Award, and Heather served as the first committee chair for that award. Heather is married with four kids, one son-in-law, and a spunky granddaughter.
Alecia Hart is the Program Manager for the State Small Business Credit Initiative, a federal program administered by the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity that helps small businesses gain access to credit. She obtained her BS in Economics from Brigham Young University and is interested in the intersection between behavioral economics, public policy, and organizational communications. Previously, Alecia co-directed the Miller Competition Series for the Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at BYU. In her spare time, Alecia enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and going out for sushi with her husband, Merlin.
Author Guidelines” before submitting a book proposal. Book proposals for next year’s grants are due on January 31, 2022.Receiving a grant does not constitute an agreement with the Maxwell Institute to publish the manuscript, nor does it require authors to publish with the Living Faith series. Book proposals and manuscripts are subject to the Maxwell Institute’s regular review process.
About the Living Faith series
The Living Faith series was created in 2014 at the Maxwell Institute to offer young adults and their mentors the perspectives of Latter-day Saint scholars who integrate their academic and professional training with the principles and covenants of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. This distinctive approach offers Latter-day Saint young adults and their mentors nourishing traveling companions on their journeys of faith. Each author personally models the conviction that to live both faithfully and thoughtfully as Latter-day Saints in the 21st century is a vocation worthy of serious reflection and joyful effort. Authors narrate their diverse paths of discipleship as they seek truth, navigate tension, and discover harmony in their rich integration of the life of the mind and things of the Spirit. They articulate expansive, confident, and generous testimonies—testimonies rooted in Jesus Christ and infused with visions of fresh and creative ways to faithfully follow the Savior.