Cracroft is Emeritus Professor of English at Brigham Young University, where for years he directed the Center for the Study of Christian Values in Literature and edited
Literature and Belief. He has been a major figure in Mormon literature for many years as an author, teacher, critic, review, and editor. He has also served as chairman of the English department, dean of the College of Humanities at BYU, and president of the Association for Mormon Letters. Along with Neal Lambert, he initiated BYU's course "The Literature of the Latter-day Saints," and they together published two two anthologies of Mormon Literature,
A Believing People: Literature of the Latter-day Saints and
22 Young Mormon Writers. He is well known for his review of current Mormon literary publications in a regular column in
BYU Magazine.