Here's an article that's been pointed out to me by a couple of different people today:
'Massacre' Novelist May Face LDS Excommunication
Nineteenth-century polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are hypersensitive subjects in Mormon history. Judith Freeman wrote about both in her 2002 novel, Red Water.
Now she believes she may be excommunicated.
In July, six months after the novel's publication, the president of the Los Angeles stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Michael Fairclough, wrote Freeman a letter inviting her to meet with him "to discuss your feelings about the church and what, if anything, should be done about them."
A lapsed Mormon who hasn't been to church for 30 years, Freeman said she found Fairclough's letter ominous, and considered it a disciplinary summons. "This letter was intended to silence or punish or intimidate me as a writer," she said.
While Freeman hasn't been active in the church for decades, neither has she asked to have her name removed from membership rolls....
In an interview, Fairclough denied his letter was a prelude to church discipline. "I just wanted to talk to her," he said. "I haven't read the book. I've only read about it. [read all]
Man, some people have all the luck. If I'm good, then maybe someday there go I.
