Glen Nelson is an American author, scholar, curator, librettist, and non-profit arts executive living and working in New York City.

About

Glen Nelson is the author of: 34 books; 137 essays, articles, and interviews; 22 works of fiction, theater, and poetry; the librettist of 8 operas and 22 choral works, art songs, and hymns. He received the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Mormon Letters “as a facilitator of others’ work and as an author and artist himself.” As a ghostwriter, three of his books have become nonfiction New York Times bestsellers. He curated the museum exhibition, John Held, Jr. (Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 2024-25) and three gallery exhibitions, each with an accompanying exhibition catalog. His most recent book is John Held, Jr.’s Fiction (Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, 2022). His latest recording, with composer Ethan Wickman, is the oratorio, To a Village Called Emmaus (American Festival Orchestra and Chorus, 2023), and his most recent opera, with Grammy Award-winning composer Lansing McLoskey, is The Captivity of Hannah Duston (Guerilla Opera, 2021), recipient of a 2024 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition. He is a contributing author to Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader (Oxford University Press, 2024) and The Difficult Part, Brian Kershisnik: A Mid-career Retrospective (BYU MOA, 2024).

Works

Listings and descriptions of works are organized by discipline, below.