Q&A with Chad Nielsen, Author of A Barn Full of Angels May 11 2026

Greg Kofford Books approached Chad L. Nielson with some questions about his research and writing of A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher.

Preview A Barn Full of Angels April 28 2026

A Barn Full of Angels:
The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher

by Chad L. Nielsen

• "This is one of the most important Mormon biographies of the decade." — Kurt Manwaring
• "In Nielsen’s skillful retelling, readers will delight in the front row seat they are offered into a cosmic contest that played out somewhere between heaven and earth." — W. Paul Reeve
• "A compelling narrative. . . . Pulsipher’s story is full of contradictions, hard-won life lessons, and doggedly devoted discipleship." — Kristy Wheelwright Taylor

A Barn Full of Angels: The Spiritual World and Pioneer Journey of Zerah Pulsipher explores the extraordinary life of an early Latter-day Saint whose faith was shaped by visions, spiritual encounters, and unwavering conviction. Born into the religious ferment of early nineteenth-century America, Zerah Pulsipher experienced what he believed were visitations from angels, confrontations with unseen powers, and personal revelations that guided his conversion to Mormonism. From a defining vision in his barn that confirmed the Book of Mormon to a lifetime immersed in an “enchanted” spiritual world, Pulsipher’s story offers a rare window into how ordinary believers understood heaven, hell, angels, and demons as active forces in daily life.

At the same time, this deeply researched biography situates Pulsipher within the gritty realities of the Latter-day Saint pioneer experience. As a president of the Seventy, missionary, migrant leader, and family patriarch, he helped translate prophetic vision into lived reality—organizing mass migrations, enduring persecution, navigating plural marriage, and building communities across the American frontier. Written with both empathy and critical rigor, A Barn Full of Angels presents Pulsipher in all his complexity: faithful yet flawed, visionary yet pragmatic. The result is a compelling “history from the middle” that illuminates the spiritual imagination, institutional growth, and human costs of early Mormonism through the life of one remarkable man.

Q&A with Nathan Oman, author of Welding Another Link April 27 2026

Greg Kofford Books recently chatted with Nathan B. Oman about his new book, Welding Another Link: Latter-day Saint Essays on Faith and Intellect.

Q&A with Reid Neilson, author of Unlocking the Chinese Realm April 24 2026

Greg Kofford Books recently talked with Reid L. Neilson about his new history book, Unlocking the Chinese Realm: Apostle David O. McKay and Latter-day Saint Encounters in East Asia, 1852-1921.

Preview Welding Another Link March 31 2026

Welding Another Link:
Latter-day Saint Essays on Faith and Intellect

by Nathan B. Oman 

• "Offers indispensable insights into Mormonism's place in the political and intellectual culture of America today and the shape of Latter-day Saint faith for the twenty-first century." — George Handley
• "Oman's provocative claim is that the Restoration's intellectual promise lies in what discomfits the cosmopolitan mind: namely, its refusal to shear off place, history, and authority. Welding Another Link is a worthy addition to Oman's growing stack on Latter-day Saint thought." — Rosalynde F. Welch
• "Oman asserts that the vital project of thoughtful Latter-day Saints in the twenty-first century ought to be 'finding new language in which to celebrate the Restoration.' . . . These essays are an illuminating example of a distinctive voice consecrated to this challenge." — Kristine Haglund
• "Nate Oman is one of the best writers and most interesting thinkers in the Church. . . . We need more from him and more like him." — Daniel C. Peterson

Welding Another Link: Latter-day Saint Essays on Faith and Intellect is a collection of deeply reflective essays in which Nathan B. Oman explores the intersections of belief, reason, history, and community within Latter-day Saint life. Across topics ranging from scriptural interpretation and religious authority to Zion, pluralism, and the challenges of modernity, Oman examines how faith is lived and understood in a complex world.

Running through the volume is a consistent plea for Latter-day Saint intellectual life grounded not in alienation but in “delight and wonder,” echoing the philosophical lineage of thaumazo and Orson F. Whitney’s charge to keep “welding another link in wonder’s chain.” Oman argues that the Church’s future depends on the ability of its thinkers and members to celebrate the Restoration in ways that are honest, compelling, and attuned to contemporary challenges—while remaining faithful to its divine core. This means acknowledging flaws, responding to hard questions, and imagining new, responsible ways of articulating timeless truths, much as earlier generations of Latter-day Saint thinkers once did in their own eras. The result is a work that models a mature, generous, and hopeful form of discipleship—one that sees the life of the mind as an expression of devotion and an essential part of the ongoing Restoration.

Q&A with Scott Hales, author of Sacred Scar March 24 2026

Greg Kofford Books recently asked Scott Hales about his new collection, Sacred Scar: Poems.

Q&A with Kevin Klein, author of Loved Ones March 13 2026

Poet Kevin Klein answers questions about his new collection of verse, Loved Ones.

Preview Unlocking the Chinese Realm February 05 2026

Read of Preview of Unlocking the Chinese Realm: Apostle David O. McKay and Latter-day Saint Encounters in East Asia, 1852-1921, by Reid L. Neilson.

Preview Loved Ones February 04 2026

Read a preview of Loved Ones, by Kevin Klein.

Preview Sacred Scar: Poems February 04 2026

Read a preview of Sacred Scar: Poems, by Scott Hales.

Q&A with Justin Pack, author of Grace or Money: Rediscovering the Gift of Grace in an Age of Greed January 13 2026

Justin Pack, author of Grace or Money: Rediscovering the Gift of Grace in an Age of Greed, answers questions about his new book.

Preview Grace or Money: Rediscovering the Gift of Grace in an Age of Greed January 06 2026

Read a preview of Grace or Money: Rediscovering the Gift of Grace in an Age of Greed.

Q&A with Craig S. Smith, Author of The Juvenile Instructor Office November 25 2025

Greg Kofford Books recently talked to Craig S. Smith, author of The Juvenile Instructor Office: The Growth of Specialized Publishing in Utah in the 1880s, about his new book.

Preview The Juvenile Instructor Office October 24 2025

Read a preview of The Juvenile Instructor Office: The Growth of Specialized Publishing in Utah in the 1880s.

Q&A with Reid Neilson, editor of Elias—An Epic of the Ages: Critical Edition October 10 2025

Greg Kofford Books recently chatted with Reid L. Neilson, editor of Elias—An Epic of the Ages: A Critical Edition, about his process in creating this new edition of the Latter-day Saint literary classic.

Q&A with Robert A. Rees, author of Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration August 22 2025

Greg Kofford Books recently asked Bob Rees, author of Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration, about his new book.

Preview Elias—An Epic of the Ages: A Critical Edition August 19 2025

Read a preview of Elias—An Epic of the Ages: A Critical Edition.

Q&A with Don Smith and Mark Austin, authors of Bring Them to Zion: The 1856 Handcart Emigration Organization, Leadership, and Issues August 04 2025

Greg Kofford Books recently chatted with Don H Smith and Mark C. Austin, creators of Bring Them to Zion: The 1856 Handcart Emigration Organization, Leadership, and Issues, about their experiences in writing and editing the book.

Preview Imagining and Reimagining the Restoration July 23 2025

Stephen C. LeSueur. January 6, 1952 – July 1, 2025 July 22 2025

An editor's dream is a solid manuscript with flowing prose and in need of only a copy edit. Stephen C. LeSueur fulfilled my dreams not only once, but twice. Entering the Mormon Studies scene with his award-winning 1987 study, The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri, which was one of the first major works to highlight the complicated and often mutually violent conflicts between Mormons and their Missouri neighbors, Steve returned in 2023 with another exploration of violence involving a Mormon community, but this time something a little more personal.

Life and Death on the Mormon Frontier: The Murders of Frank LeSueur and Gus Gibbons by the Wild Bunch is one of the most captivating books on Mormon history that I have worked on (or even read). At its face value, it's Wild West history investigating the murders of Steve's ancestors by members of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch and what followed. However, it is much more than that. Although Steve was no longer a believing Latter-day Saint, Life and Death is a powerful, sympathetic, and insightful study on the faith that led Mormon settlers to establish a community in the barren desert of Arizona and how that same faith informed their response to this violence—even contributing to the eventual building of the Mesa Arizona Temple.

Then, about a year ago, Steve reached out to me to ask if we would be interested in following that up with a novel he had recently finished. While I very much liked the idea of working with him again, a large novel was outside of what we normally do, and so I initially pointed him to other publishers that might be a better fit. (We have published a pair of graphic novels and some news editions of nineteenth-century dime novels, but those were more Mormon studies related.) Unfortunately, within a few months after this, Steve informed me that his cancer had returned. To be honest, because I had so much valued my previous experience working with him and knew that his writing wouldn't require too much labor on our end, I chose to take on the novel as a favor to make sure that it would be out in time for him to see it in print—on condition that the manuscript (which I had yet to read) didn't have anything objectionable.

Once I began reading, I couldn't put it down. I finished the 300+ page manuscript in less than two days and knew that we had to publish it. In a melding of Richard Dutcher's God's Army and Levi Peterson's The Backslider, Every Man a Prophet takes place in the Norwegian Mission in the 1970s and is informed by Steve's own time serving there as a young elder, but the foundational missionary experience he captures felt like it could have come out of the much warmer and later experiences I had in Hawaii at the turn of the millennium. (Apparently the Mormon missionary experience transcends both time and space.) Mirroring the Steve I had come to know and just like his previous book with us, Every Man a Prophet is brilliantly smart, compassionate, sympathetic, and brimming with love for the religious community he knew well. Thankfully, because of Steve's talents as a writer, we were able to push his manuscript through with record speed, and I am happy to know that he was able to hold finished copies in his hand and even sign a dozen of them.

A few weeks ago, the Man Upstairs (aka Greg Kofford) told me that he we needed to find out how to get Every Man in more hands because he thought it could change lives for the better. I couldn't agree more.

The world would be a better and kinder place with more people like Stephen C. LeSueur in it, and sadly there is now one less.

Loyd Isao Ericson
Managing Editor

Preview Bring Them to Zion: The 1856 Handcart Emigration Organization, Leadership, and Issues June 27 2025

Limited Signed Editions Available from Kofford June 24 2025

Most of the volumes offered by Greg Kofford Books are available in paperback. Some are only available in hardcover. Many have an option to select either. There are a few books, however, that have additional editions available.

Whenever you are browsing our website, be sure to click the dropdown arrow under the heading of "Cover" on each book your are looking at. The available paperback and/or hardcover variants will be listed there, but occasionally you might find more options, such as "paperback - signed copy," "paperback binding error 10% off," or "paperback shelf-worn 10% off." (Note that some hardcovers are available in these categories as well.)

Every time we see one of our authors at an event where we are displaying some of our inventory, we aske them to drop by our table and sign copies of their books. These books are available while supplies last at no additional charge. Just select the "signed copy" from the dropdown menu.

(Books with signed editions are listed here: https://gregkofford.com/collections/signed-copies-available.)

In addition, if you are looking to save a few dollars and care more about reading rather than displaying your books, we have a few "scratch 'n' dent" volumes show up from time to time that we make available for 10% off of the list price. These will have strange binding errors, or shelf wear like bent covers, dented pages, or scuff marks, but are otherwise intact and readable. All sales are final for books in these categories.

Please note that due to a glitch currently on our website, specialized inventory like our signed, shelf-worn, or binding error books will still show up after they are sold out, only to be removed from your cart when you go to pay. We apologize for any inconvenience that this might cause.

Supplies of all of these unique editions are strictly limited, so order yours today!

Report from MHA 2025 June 10 2025

The 60th Annual Conference of the Mormon History Association was held June 5–8, 2025, at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center in Ogden, Utah, and had a theme this year of Junctions and Communities.

Greg Kofford Books sponsored tables at MHA to showcase our many books in the field of Mormon Studies, and our staff had a chance to attend many of the sessions.

Eleven Kofford authors presented during the conference, and several more attended the event (and dropped by our tables to sign books).

Positioned at the corner of two main hallways, the Greg Kofford Books tables attracted quite a bit of attention from conference attendees. We had over six dozen of our titles on display (along with another dozen we couldn’t squeeze onto our tables). The best-selling titles at the conference were:

1. Fire and Sword: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-39

2. I, Claudia: The Life of Claudia Lauper Bushman in Her Own Words

3. The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories

4. Every Man a Prophet

5. Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations

6. The Revised and Expanded Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith: Compared with the Earliest Known Manuscripts

7. Come Up Hither to Zion: William Marks and the Mormon Concept of Gathering

8. Saints, Slaves & Blacks

9. The Garden of Enid, Part 1

10. The Garden of Enid, Part 2

Kofford Authors Presenting at MHA 2025 May 29 2025

Have a favorite Kofford author? You might be able to hear them present at the 60th Annual Conference of the Mormon History Association next week. Held June 5–8, 2025, at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center in Ogden, Utah, the conference has a theme this year of Junctions and Communities in honor of the history of Ogden, nicknamed “Junction City” when it became the connecting point between numerous railroad lines. Below are the Kofford authors who will be participating at the conference. (And if you are attending, please be sure to stop by the Greg Kofford Books table and browse our titles!)

Thomas G. Alexander will be honored (and comment) in Session 1A: “Thomas G. Alexander and His Contribution to MHA and Mormon History” (Ballroom B, 10:30 AM – Noon Friday). Thomas taught at Brigham Young University for four decades, where he was the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Professor of Western American History and director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. He is the author of several books, including Mormonism in Transition.

Reid L. Neilson will present “The Incarceration of Latter-day Saint Polygamists at Home, 1879–1887” during Session 1F: “Being Subject: The Crossroads of Religion and Law” (Meeting Room 203, 10:30 AM – Noon, Friday). An assistant academic vice president at BYU, Reid previously served as Assistant Church Historian and Recorder for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the managing director of the church's history department. He is co-editor of The Annals of the Southern Mission.

Newell G. Bringhurst will present “Heber Bennion: Forgotten Proponent of Mormon Fundamentalism” during Session 1H: “Persistence of Post-Manifesto Polygamy” (Room 102, 10:30 AM – Noon, Friday). Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, California, Newell is the author of many books on Latter-day Saint history, including Saints, Slaves, and Blacks: The Changing Place of Black People Within Mormonism. He is also the co-editor of Excavating Mormon Pasts: The New Historiography of the Last Half Century.

Craig L. Foster will present “Second Echelon Latter-day Saints and the Perpetuation of Post-Manifesto Polygamy” during Session 1H: “Persistence of Post-Manifesto Polygamy” (Room 102, 10:30 AM – Noon, Friday). An accredited genealogist, Craig is the author of Penny Tracts and Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Anti-Mormon Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837-1860 and A Different God? Mitt Romney, the Religious Right, and the Mormon Question.

Caroline Kline will present with Nancy Ross “Global Mormon Women and Work: Discourse and Lived Experience” during Session 2B: “Gender Beyond the Pulpit: Women’s Words, Women’s Worlds” (Ballroom C, 2:15 PM – 3:45 PM Friday). Caroline is the assistant director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. She is the co-editor with Claudia Bushman of Mormon Women Have Their Say: Essays from the Claremont Oral History Collection.

Patrick Q. Mason will present “Reading Mormon History Nonviolently” during Session 4I: “Crossroads of War and Peace” (Room 103, 10:30 AM – Noon Saturday). Co-editor of War & Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives, Patrick is a historian specializing in the study of the Latter-day Saint movement. His other books include Planted: Belief and Belonging in an Age of Doubt and Mormonism and Violence. Since 2019, he has held the Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University.

Joseph M. Spencer will present “On ‘Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift’” during Session 5C: “Latter-day Eloquence Part 2: Orating Mormon Identity in an Incredulous World” (Ballroom E, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM Saturday). Joseph is a philosopher and an assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He is the author or editor of several books, including For Zion, The Vision of All, The Anatomy of Book of Mormon Theology (2 volumes), and Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Scriptural Theology.

Ardis E. Parshall will present “Josephine de la Harpe Ursenbach: Family Connections Linking Napoleon, the Russian Tsar, and a Handcart Pioneer” during Session 6A: “Genealogy, History, and Broadening the Study of the Past” (Ballroom B, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM Saturday). Ardis is a historian, author, and freelance researcher specializing in Mormon history. Among other works, she is the co-editor of The Mormoness; Or, The Trials Of Mary Maverick: A Narrative Of Real Events, Boadicea; the Mormon Wife: Life Scenes in Utah, and Dime Novel Mormons.

Richard L. Saunders will present “WPA Cultural Projects and the Latter-day Saints” during Session 6F: “A New Deal for Zion: Saints and the State in the Great Depression” (Room 203, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM Saturday). The author of The 1920 Edition of the Book of Mormon: A Centennial Adventure in Latter-day Saint Book History, Richard is a social historian, academic librarian, and former Dean of Library Services at Southern Utah University.

Michael Austin will present “Bernard DeVoto’s Mormons and the Possibility of Mormon Regionalism in the 20th Century” during Session 6G: “Mormonism in a Dull Mirror: Bernard DeVoto and the Possibility of Mormon Literature” (Room 101, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM Saturday). Michael is the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Snow College. He is the author of Re-reading Job, and is the co-editor of The Mormoness, Boadicea, and Dime Novel Mormons.

Conan Grames will present “Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan” during Session 6I: “Pacific Junctures: Asian, Oceania, and America” (Room 103, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM Saturday. Conan will also present the lecture at the Global Mormon Studies Breakfast: “Pioneer Women in the Early Church in Japan” on Friday, June 6, from 7:15 AM - 8:15 AM [Please note that a registration is required for the breakfast event.] An international lawyer who has lived and worked in both the US and Japan, Conan is the co-author of Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan.