Mormonism, Polygamy, Ancestry: A Conversation with Millie Tullis, author of These saints are stones

Millie Tullis, George Mason University alum and Editor-in-Chief of literary journals Psaltery & Lyre and Exponent II and author of microchapbook Dream with Teeth, recently released her debut poetry collection, These Saints are Stones. The book, which served as their MFA thesis in 2021, examines the life of Tullis’ great-great-great-grandmother Martha, who married her stepfather at 16 years old, becoming a sister-wife to her own mother. Through dreams, letters, site visits, erasure, and semi-autobiographical poems, Tullis constructs a complicated exploration of her family’s past, which has largely gone undocumented.