Our member spotlight this week is Devan Jensen of Orem, Utah. He is the current President of the Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association.
What are the books/products you’ve created?
As an author, I have written about fifty articles on people and topics in church history. These include Philo Dibble, C. C. A. Christensen, Shoshone history, and the Utah War. In addition, I also wrote God’s Greatest Gifts: 10 Reasons to Rejoice. I compiled Best-Loved Poems of the LDS People, Poems That Lift the Soul, Gradguide, and Latter-day Saint Essentials. I’m working with Rose Ram to write a book called Saints of Micronesia. (I served as a missionary in Micronesia.)
As an editor at the BYU Religious Studies Center, I have edited thousands of articles and chapters. I also manage social media for BYU Religious Education, BYU Religious Studies Center, Church History News, Religious Educator, and Pohnpei Church History.
What inspired you to become a writer/editor?
My parents and elementary school librarians hooked me on reading and inspired me to become a writer. Only later did I realize that editing could become a career.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
A repeated highlight has been traveling with friends to research or to present papers, especially on Pacific history. My favorite places to travel have included New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, Guam, Chuuk, Taiwan, and Washington, DC.
Another real highlight is working with Pacific scholars to write a history of Micronesia that will go in the Yigo Guam Temple.
What was the best advice you’ve ever been given in your creative work?
A grab bag of many years of advice:
- Find the empty spot on the shelf and write for that audience.
- Ask good research questions.
- Pluck the low-hanging fruit of the internet and libraries. Then visit archives to dig into original research.
- Network with other scholars and refine your work through informal peer review and then formal peer review.
What advice do you have for someone just starting out in your field?
Pay the price of learning to become an expert in your field.
What keeps you inspired in your daily creative work?
Traveling with friends to research or present papers is a huge motivating factor. I hope to travel to New York in 2021 to present at the Mormon History Association conference. I would like to visit the Yigo Guam Temple dedication.
What would you like others to know about you?
Like so many of you, I have a voracious appetite for learning, and for challenging my preexisting assumptions. My Facebook page shares my aspirations: As a writer and editor, I’m shaping a more just and sustainable community, nation, and world.
My wife, Patty, and I live in Orem, Utah. We have four children and an adorable granddaughter. I like to ride my electric bike all over Utah Valley. I perform magic tricks and like to sing and play the piano and ukulele.
Tell us about your work!
I enjoy helping authors to publish and helping promote their work. I have more than thirty years of experience working with books, journals, magazines, newsletters, websites, and social media. I’m volunteering as the president of the Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association (LDSPMA), which I helped to found.
I was hired in 2001 at the BYU Religious Studies Center. Since then I have led talented teams to edit about 250 books or book-length projects, which has garnered many awards.
I have been an adjunct instructor of business writing, editing, and religion for BYU and Utah Valley University. Also, I have been an editor for the Ensign magazine, Church Publishing Services Department, and Deseret Book Company. I have presented at BYU Education Week, Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association, Mormon History Association Conference, Sons of Utah Pioneers, Pacific History Association, and Utah State History Conference. As a National Merit Scholar, I received my BA (cum laude) and MA degrees in English from BYU.
Do you have a website?
BYU Religious Studies Center, my personal blog and the Pohnpei Church History Blog.
Where can we find you on social media?
- Facebook: Devan Jensen
- Instagram: @devan.jensen
- Twitter: @devan_jensen
- LinkedIn: R. Devan Jensen
- YouTube: BYU Religious Education
- Podcast: Y Religion
Wow Devan! This is fun and impressive! You’ve provided great advice here and great service in many realms.
Thanks, Steve! I hope a few ideas here help aspiring authors.
Thanks for all your service and kindness. I even enjoy your magic! The world is a better place because of you.
Chris, you’re certainly welcome. I’m glad you enjoy my magic too! I’ll add that the world is a better place because of you too!
Is there a realistic market anywhere for biographies that read like novels? After trying the established church publishers with no success, I am independently publishing my mother’s autobiography, granddaughter of Joseph F Smith, and great granddaughter of Heber C Kimball. These books have been expensive, but enjoyed by family members and close friends. I would love to widen the market. Mom was born in 1916 and has a flair for honest and vivid detail in her stories growing up in Salt Lake City. Mom wanted these stories to reach members and non-members alike.
I also want to publish my great-grandmother’s biography, Alice Ann Kimball Smith, fifth wife of Joseph F and daughter of Heber C (her mother was Ann Alice Gheen). I have access to many little known stories of her life.
Kim, thanks for this great comment about your amazing family history and the question about the marketability of histories that read like fiction. BYU Print Services specializes in printing such family histories, and there are other printers that focus on printing such histories. The market for publishing companies that would print and sell a Latter-day Saint family family that reads like fiction is quite limited because of the narrow focus, but here is a good link showing the national market for such books: https://prowritingaid.com/art/948/best-biographies-that-read-like-fiction.aspx. I hope this helps.
Nice article Devan. I’m sure you know you are lucky to have a challenging and enjoyable job! Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Denise. I appreciate your own family’s work in publishing good material.