Lisa Torcasso Downing is an award-winning writer and an advocate for the advancement of Mormon Letters. Her writing career began in the 1990’s with publication in various magazines owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, she soon branched out, publishing in what she affectionately calls “unauthorized” Mormon journals and magazines, where the emphasis is on both Mormon culture and literary quality. She has served as fiction editor for Irreantum, the literary journal published bi-annually by the Association for Mormon Letters, as well as for Sunstone, a magazine dedicated to Mormon art, culture and scholarship. In addition, she has worked as an editor for Zarahemla Press and is a contributor to the Association for Mormon Letter’s blog, Dawning of a Brighter Day.
Downing currently resides in Texas, though she has called both California and Utah her home. She received a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MA from Texas A&M Commerce. She taught writing at Collin College and is a proud member of the up-and-coming Rowlett Writer’s Workshop. She is an active, believing Latter-day Saint, a wife of nearly 30 years and the mother of three. And best of all, she is happy.
Lisa Torcasso Downing 
Just want to say I enjoy reading your blog. Miss your posts! and hope you are doing well.
Heidi N., fellow writer
Boise, Idaho
LikeLike
Heidi, I’ll be back here … eventually. Read me not talking literature over at outsidethebookofmormonbelt.com
LikeLike
Hi Lisa,
I’ve tried to find an email for you – and this is the closest I could come. My sister recently sent me your blog “Life Outside the Book of Mormon Beltway” and I read with great interest your March 31st post about Ordain Women.
As a member of OW leadership I really appreciated your respectful tone. And I was intrigued with your thoughts.
I am so glad that many people are having a discussion about women in the church. And I’d love to talk further with you if your able. You will find my email below.
Suzette
LikeLike
Suzette, as maybe you can tell by my late response, I’ve been spending my time over at outsidethebookofmormonbelt.com than here. I’ve been taking a fiction writing siesta, which will end soon, and I hope to get back to writing a bit more about things literary. Thanks for finding me in both places. I’m honored and appreciate your kind words.
LikeLike
Hi Lisa,
My name is Gordon Shepherd and I’m a professor of sociology with an interest in Mormon studies. I have been following the increasingly controversial issue of female ordination in the LDS Church, especially as advanced by the Ordain Women movement. In this regard I have read with appreciation several of your blogs on the subject, particularly the one entitled “The Kingdom of God and the Civil Disobedience Model.”
What I am writing you about is to see if you would be interested in participating in a roundtable panel discussion at the 2014 Sunstone Symposium. The panel’s tentative discussion title is, “The Consequences and Future of Ordain Women in the LDS Church: Faith and Dissent in the Mormon Tradition.” The probable date for us on the Symposium schedule is Saturday, August 2. Other panelists will include a representative from Ordain Women’s executive board, an ordained woman pastor from the Community of Christ, and Marie Cornwall, a retired BYU professor and former editor and chief of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Regrettably I have no travel funding to offer and realize that if you wished to participate you need to cover your own costs (Indulging in a little wishful thinking, I wonder if you, like me, have any relatives in the SLC area and might parlay a Sunstone appearance into a family vacation? 🙂
In any event, I think you would make a very positive contribution to the panel’s discussion and, if at all possible, I hope you will consider my invitation. I look very much forward to hearing back from you.
Cordially,
Gordon Shepherd,
University of Central Arkansas
501-908-7268
gordons@uca.edu
LikeLike