Then she began actually writing books, and she's never stopped. She has authored 23 books (with several more in the works), 30 encyclopedia articles, 46 journal articles, forwards for three books, four study manuals, presented 81 major papers at various conferences, contributed chapters for 39 books, edited 11 books, and served as a consultant for various films and radio/TV programs. Her books include biographies on Emma Smith, Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ and Brigham Young, as well as coffee-table books on Temple Square, the Salt Lake Olympics, Nauvoo, Jesus Christ and several collaborative books with painter Liz Lemon Swindle on Jesus Christ. She also is participating in a series of TV programs on Joseph Smith, with Black walking viewers through the streets of Kirtland, Palmyra, Vermont, Nauvoo and other church history sites.

"It's like the walls of my classroom came down," she says. "The visual stuff will resonate with some, while for others it might be the database stuff or the biographies or the TV shows."

For Black, the writing process is exhaustive. She reads everything she can find on a subject, circling items that provide new insights, then her secretary types the circled items. "If I haven't learned anything new from the last three to five books I read, then I'm ready to write," she says. She spreads the typed notes on a large table in her home office and begins cutting them up with scissors and placing each item under various subheads, as if she is assembling a puzzle. After taping them together, she gives the papers to her secretary to type the information in chronological order.

"I write the book all the way through," she says. "It's bad, but at least I know where I'm going. Then I polish it a zillion times." She gives the manuscript to an editor and an expert in that field. "If they come back and say it's excellent, I never use them again," she says.

Black sleeps only a few hours a night, sometimes popping out of bed in the middle of the night to jot book ideas on paper. "If there's one virtue she doesn't have, it's patience," says her husband.

"If I'm not in class, I'm doing something related to writing," she says. "I can't imagine a day without writing. It's a hobby. There's an old saying — you don't know what you think till you've written about it."

It's not all work and no play. She's always looking for another sucker to play in pingpong, a game she took up as a kid. She baits students, family members and neighbors into evening games at her home. "If you think you can beat me, give me a call," she tells them. She won the Nu Skin Senior Games a couple of years ago.

"My sons are pretty much the ones I can't beat," she says.

Notwithstanding, her vocation is her real hobby. She revels in teaching in all its many forms — books, classrooms, church houses, firesides, tours, magazines, films.

Says Black, "The hardest time for me is summer when I'm not in school and I'm wondering, where are those students."

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E-mail: drob@desnews.com