Marvin K. Gardner

Marvin Kent Gardner is an editor, writer, songwriter, and professor. He was a writer and editor with Church magazines, where he was a contributing editor and writer for the New Era and Friend, he served at the Ensign as assistant editor (1978–82), associate editor (1982–85), and assistant managing editor (1985–90), and then served at the Liahona as assistant managing editor (1990–93) and managing editor (1993–2005). In 2005, he joined the faculty at Brigham Young University. As a teaching professor in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, he taught copyediting, substantive editing, online publishing, and magazine writing, editing, and publishing. He has served as director of the Faculty Editing Service and taught the Book of Mormon for several semesters. He served as president of BYU's chapter of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. He retired in 2017.

Gardner is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1981 he was called as a member of the Church’s General Music Committee and later as a member of the 1985 Hymnbook Executive Committee. He served as text editor for Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of his texts have been published in the Hymns (“Press Forward, Saints,” and “Thy Holy Word”), in the Children’s Songbook (“This Is My Beloved Son,” “I Will Be Valiant,” and “I Will Follow God’s Plan”), and in other settings. He often collaborates with composer Vanja Watkins. He and Watkins were featured in a video posted to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel on April 4, 2014.

He was born in 1952 and raised in Duncan, Arizona, and Provo, Utah, and served a full-time mission in Colombia (1971–73). Gardner graduated magna cum laude in English and Spanish from BYU and later received his master’s degree in American Literature and English Language from BYU.

He and his wife, Mary, live in Springville, Utah, and are the parents of six children.