Jana Riess, a writer and editor, has recently received numerous kind messages from readers expressing concern about her well-being due to her irregular posting schedule on Religion News Service after a consistent 12-year run. She clarified in her latest column that she is in good health, not excommunicated, nor eaten by the Bear Lake Monster, and reassures everyone that her family and home are also in good order. The irregularity in her posts is due to her current engagement in writing a book, which always brings about significant stress and procrastination cleaning.
Riess has been an editor since 2008, specializing in religion, history, popular culture, ethics, and biblical studies. She earned degrees in religion from Wellesley College and Princeton Theological Seminary and completed a Ph.D. in American religious history at Columbia University.
Riess is working on a sequel to her 2019 book, "The Next Mormons." This new project looks at people who left The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or stayed after a faith transition. She has been deeply involved in this since 2020, interviewing former church members. This effort was highly engaging, as nearly 1,500 former members were willing to share their stories, though only a fraction could be included.
In 2021, Riess successfully raised funds on Kickstarter to advance the project, reflecting substantial community support. By 2022, her focus shifted to collecting quantitative survey data with her research partner, Benjamin Knoll.
The process proved more challenging than anticipated; the first survey company underperformed, returning fewer responses than paid for and necessitating a protracted refund effort. With funds recovered, a second company was hired in late 2023, successfully providing data from 1,420 current and 175 former Latter-day Saints. Although the sample of former members was smaller than desired, gathering nationally representative data on such a specific group remained difficult.
READ ALSO: Oldest Known Christian Manuscript 'Crosby-Schøyen Codex' Fetches $3.9 Million in Auction
Throughout 2024, the team has been cleaning and analyzing the data sets with assistance from two graduate students. Another graduate student has been organizing additional oral history interviews with current church members who have undergone a faith transition but chose to remain. In total, Riess and her team have conducted over 100 interviews with dedicated and courageous individuals.
Reaching the writing stage is a significant milestone for Riess despite her dislike for writing. She acknowledged the irony of her career choice but accepted that writing is essential to the research and public scholarship she loves. To manage, she sets daily word count goals and perseveres through the initial draft phase. This process also benefits her editorial consulting business, demonstrating her understanding of her client's challenges in writing their books and her commitment to excellence.
As she progresses with her book, her columns will appear less frequently, about twice a month instead of weekly. She thanked her editors and colleagues at Religion News Service for their support, allowing her the time for deep, focused work. She also thanked her family for their patience during her most irritable phases and extended appreciation to her loyal readers for their concern. Through this period of intensive work, she hopes to continue delivering meaningful content, albeit on a less regular schedule.
RELATED ARTICLE: New Book 'The Exvangelicals' Explains the Growing Departure From Evangelicalism