George Handley

George Handley

Blog URL: https://mappingliteraryutah.org/utah-writers/george-handley

   Salt Lake City, UT

George Handley was born in Salt Lake City, raised in Connecticut, and educated in California. He returned to his state of birth in 1998 to teach at BYU, where he has worked as a Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities as both a literary scholar and a creative writer. His writings explore the connections between theology, literature, and the environment, and his public service, which has included service in public humanities and on environmental issues, has similarly sought to build bridges of understanding in a culture that is sometimes politically, religiously, and environmentally divided. He and his wife, Amy, have four children and live in Provo.

After establishing himself as a successful literary critic, his turn to creative writing has resulted in his environmental memoir, Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River (University of Utah, 2010), the environmentally-themed novel, American Fork (John Hunt Publishing, 2018), and a small collection of creative essays in honor of Lowell Bennion, entitled Learning to Like Life (self-published, 2017). Two recent collections of essays explore the ethical, political, and environmental implications of his Latter-day Saint faith: If Truth Were a Child (Maxwell Institute, 2019) and Hope of Nature: Our Care for God's Creations (Maxwell Institute, 2020).