Glen Nelson: Mormon Writer

Glen Nelson is a poet, writer, ghostwriter, publisher, and librettist. He founded the Mormon Artists Group, which serves as a kind of patronage for Latter-day Saint artists and creates original works with Latter-day Saint composers, photographers, painters, architects, sculptors, filmmakers, designers, writers, and choreographers. Mormon Artists Group has published Mormoniana and On Sunday, for example. Nelson publishes a monthly e-newsletter called Glimpses, a newsletter of Mormon art, scholarship, and opinions.

He is co-executive director of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, which had its first major gathering in 2016 in New York. In 2025, a two-day virtual festival was held at the end of May with presenters such as Cinco Paul, Walter Rane, Melissa Leilani Larson, and Brian Kershisnik.

Nelson is the author of Mormons at the Met. Several of his ghostwritten books are New York Times nonfiction bestsellers. He is the author of the e-book The Glen and Marcia Nelson Collection of Mormon Art.

By education and training, Nelson is a literary scholar; James Joyce is his specialty, but he pursued other paths after graduating from New York University. He sang in a semi-professional chorus and worked as a professional dancer.[1]

With Murray Boren as composer, Nelson has written three operas: "The Dead," "The Singer’s Romance," and "The Book of Gold."