Carol Lynn Wright Pearson, an American poet, playwright, and novelist whose work spent decades examining faith, motherhood, and LGBTQIA+ acceptance within the Latter-day Saint community, died on July 29, 2026, in Oakland, California. She was 86.
Born Carol Lynn Wright in Salt Lake City in 1939, she was a fourth-generation member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She married musician, actor, and songwriter Gerald Niels Pearson in 1966. The couple, both devout Latter-day Saints, met in college while performing in a production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth.
Before they married, Gerald told Carol that he had previously had sexual relationships with men, but believed it had been a phase. According to Pearson’s later accounts, church leaders assured the couple that marriage would resolve those feelings. The couple had four children, but their marriage ended in divorce in 1978 when Gerald realized he was gay. He returned to the family home in 1984 after being diagnosed with what is now known as HIV infection.
Pearson’s memoir Goodbye, I Love You recounts their life together and her care for her former husband until his death in 1984. Following his death, Pearson became a prominent advocate for greater acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people within the Latter-day Saint community and for stronger leadership opportunities for women in church life.
During her long career, Pearson wrote numerous books of poetry and several plays. Her play Facing East, about a Latter-day Saint family coping with the suicide of a gay son, opened Off Broadway on May 29, 2007.
