Blogstars: Creative Mormon women make it big on the Internet

Prominent Mormons aren't hard to come by these days, whether it's Donny or Mitt. We see them in the headlines, talk about them in the foyer and watch from afar.

But there's another group of Mormons who are famous in their own right and also really accessible. Fans read about and interact with them weekly. They reach millions of people on a daily basis. They are photographers, writers, designers and dancers whose influence crosses borders and demographics.

They are women; read them blog.

Of the tens of millions of existing personal Web sites, few attract the kinds of audiences requisite for Internet fame. Every niche of the Internet has its own mini-celebrities, but several Mormon women are popular in the blogosphere at large.

__IMAGE1__Gabrielle Blair blogs about where design and motherhood meet on her site "Design Mom." Courtney Kendrick uses her blog "CJane Enjoy It" as a place to put her personal essays. Stephanie Nielson, who was recently featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," is author of the popular blog the "NieNie Dialogues." Naomi Davis chronicles newlywed life in "The Rockstar Diaries."

Blair says Mormon women always find creative outlets. Some paint, some join the PTA, some scrapbook. So it's not surprising that so many, like her, would choose to blog.

"We get these educated women, and we say, 'If you can, stay home and raise your kids,' and you have all these women who are like, 'I'm raising my kids, but I've got energy and time and resources to do more,'" said Blair, a mother of five.

Blair attends national blogger conferences and runs an online business separate from her blog. Her site has 10,000 readers a day and 250,000 unique visitors a month. In her genre of lifestyle/design blogs, there are dozens of prominent Mormon bloggers like her.

"I think people are being influenced by Mormons and they don't even know it," she said.

Blair's online focus is design — not religion — but she's not afraid to share her faith. She'll include details about girls camp or family home evening in her posts.

"I'm very open that I'm a Mormon," she said. "I'm certainly not ashamed of it anyway."

__IMAGE2__Kendrick has been posting personal essays since 2006. She often links to church Web sites or videos and incorporates her faith into posts about family and gratitude.

"I feel like I'm wasting my time if I'm not writing about the things most important to me," Kendrick said. "My faith is so huge, it's so centric to who I am."

Kendrick's sister is Nielson, who was involved in a plane crash in August 2008. Nielson and her husband were severely burned, and she was kept in a medically induced coma for three months. During that time, Kendrick posted updates on her sister's progress and put out a constant plea for prayers. People of all faiths and backgrounds responded.

Nielson is now back to updating her own popular blog.

"I am so happy and so blessed, and I know what the church and gospel of Jesus Christ can do for someone, and so naturally I want to share," Nielson wrote in an e-mail. "I love to get e-mails from people who have questions, or even people who have been baptized. It is such a blessing to do missionary work this way, and it is very effective."

Nielson's family and blog have been featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the "Today" show and in The New York Times, among other publications.

Blair recently moved from New York to Denver and said the conversations her faith spurs online are the same kinds she had with co-workers back in New York. E-mail and comments sections make for easy discussion.

"It leads to really great conversations," she said. "People are just curious. No one knows anything about Mormonism that they haven't heard on TV."

Davis, a graduate of Juilliard, said when she writes about her faith on her blog, she tries to explain Mormon vernacular so it's accessible to everyone.

"It can get easy to kind of blog in a bubble," Davis said.

Having lived in New York for five years, and now Washington, D.C., many of her best friends aren't LDS. So Davis makes an effort to be understood by everyone.

"I think it's been really good for me, because I think I can relate to LDS and not LDS readers," she said.

Davis takes the approach of "sharing" the gospel rather than preaching it.

"I like the word 'sharing' a lot," she said. "I like the idea of not being in-your-face about it. ... I think it's a powerful thing to just live the gospel and be an example."

E-mail: mfarmer@desnews.com