Author: James Goldberg

We had an excellent batch of submissions this year, and the entire judging team read the entries over the past four days. Due to the quality of entries, we’re not quite down to the promised twelve finalists, but after much discussion, we have narrowed it down to a longlist of twenty. By Monday we will make our decision and announce the finalists. The twelve finalists will then be published on this blog from May 23rd to June 4th.

Meanwhile, we’d like to offer congratulations to the twenty pieces (and their authors) on the longlist:

“Barefoot” by Robbie Taggart
“Branch 9 ¾” by Kaki Olsen
“Foolish and Wise” by Lisa Barker
“Fresh Courage Take” by Bradeigh Godfrey
“From the East” by Merrijane Rice
“Geirfinnur Atlason” by Steven L. Peck
“Ghost” by Merrijane Rice
“Golden Contact” by Lee Allred
“Holey Chairs” by Jenny Rabe
“Last Defiance of a Reluctant Church Goer” by James D. Beers
“Last Tuesday” by William Morris
“Leaving Egypt” by Tyler Chadwick
“Pacific: Mateu Matem” by Tyler Chadwick
“Requiem for Those People Who Lived Briefly in Your Ward” by Rose Green
“Rumors of Wars” by Zachary Lunn
“The Back Row” by Kelli Swofford Nielsen
“The Bride and the Rice Stone Way” by Mark Penny
“The Gift of Tongues“ by Annaliese Lemmon
“The Hoofer” by Scott Hales
“The Progress of a Miracle” by Emily Harris Adams

We have enjoyed all twelve finalists. But we only have one Grand Prize. Help us decide which piece wins this year’s Lit Blitz by emailing a ranking of your four favorite pieces to everydaymormonwriter@gmail.com by the end of the day on Saturday, June 6th.

The contestants are:

Monday, May 18th: Eric Jepson, “Angry Sunbeam”
Tuesday, May 19th: Heather Young, “Best Wedding Advice Ever”
Wednesday, May 20th: Tyler Chadwick, “Three Meditations on Fatherhood”
Thursday, May 21st: Scott Hales, “Child Star”
Friday, May 22nd: Emily Harris Adams, “Faded Garden”
Saturday, May 23rd: Katherine Cowley, “The Five Year Journal”

Monday, May 25th: Annaliese Lemmon, “Disability, Death, or Other Circumstance”
Tuesday, May 26th: William Morris, “The Joys of Onsite Apartment Building Management” Wednesday, May 27th: Darlene Young, “Echo of Boy”
Thursday, May 28th: Lehua Parker, “Decorating Someone Else’s Service”
Friday, May 29th: Julia Jeffery, “Should Have Prayed for a Canoe”
Saturday, May 30th: Merrijane Rice, “Mother”

Again: in order to be counted, votes must contain a ranking of the reader’s four favorite pieces and must be emailed to everydaymormonwriter@gmail.com by the end of the day Saturday, June 6th. Voters should have at least skimmed all twelve pieces. We also welcome comments and feedback on the contest in vote emails.

For those who are interested, a public discussion of the pieces is taking place on the Mormon Midrashim blog. We’d love to have you share your thoughts on the contest there.

Come back to this blog on Monday, June 8th to find out who won this year’s Lit Blitz and for the announcement of our fall contest theme.

As soon as Brother Gardner opened the door, Shelley held out Sister Black’s old flip phone to him. “Do you have anything bigger or better than this?” she asked.

“Something you’ll trade us?” Abbie added.

Brother Gardner took the phone and looked to me with raised eyebrows.

“It’s a game the youth are playing,” I said, feeling our time limit tick nearer. “For their activity tonight.”

“Is that so?” Brother Gardner beamed at my three charges: a Mia Maid, a Beehive, and a Deacon. Then his eyes lit up. “I have something much bigger. Wait here a tick.”

Much bigger? From an eccentric like Brother Gardner, that could mean anything.

Dear Heavenly Father, I prayed, please don’t send us a canoe. Continue reading “Should Have Prayed For a Canoe” by Julia Jeffery

Last night my daughter stormed into the kitchen spitting nails after her Young Women’s activity. “Do you know what we did?”
“Is this a trick question?” I asked. “Do you need bail money?”
“No.”
I put down the frying pan and placed a finger on my temple, channeling my inner psychic. “I’m getting a picture.” I fake swooned. “Lots of teenage girls. Loud girls. All in a room. An LDS church, maybe? The mists of time are unclear.”
My daughter sighed and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. No one knows how she suffers with a mother like me. Continue reading “Decorating Someone Else’s Service,” by Lehua Parker

My son hunches into the storm in his oversized coat
to collect fast offerings, a two-hour route
…..because the other mother’s sons stay in when it’s cold.
…..He is mine.
………..His wrists

out-hang his sleeves. His hair
squirms out of his well-slicked part, and he is mine. He’s out there
…..in the snow and I can’t settle. Thirteen years old; thirteen,
…..the way he slides a little to the right of us on the Sunday pew,
……….like someone has hit “tab” on the keyboard, though still
……….he’ll let me pull him back to drape my arm around
……….those slumping shoulders.
……………Shadow of boy.

It’s snowing and he is fine out there. He’s fine. At home
he sprawls on the couch behind those heavy eyes. Outline
of boy. Echo of boy. I tell it to him straight: “The reward
for showing up,” I say, “is that you’re the first one they call
…..next time. Find a way to be proud of that.” He looks
…..away. Should I apologize for this burden of duty I’ve bred
……….into him, for the fact that from here on out
……….he’ll never be able to leave a ward party
………..without putting away chairs? Welcome
………..to Mormon guilt, my son. Welcome to the wilderness.
Sometimes a suit is a front bumper, silver plating, deadweight.                         Sometimes it is wings.

Those heavy-lidded eyes. Let there be a man
…..behind there. The still-narrow shoulders, crooked
……….tie. Does he slump to parenthesize the space
……………he’ll leave when he’s gone? Look
………………..forward, son. Look forward,
………………..mother. On the horizon
……………………..in the chalky dusk:
……………………………contrail of boy.

Someone had made a spray paint stain on the second floor landing in the stairwell of Building B, and Maria couldn’t get it out. It was brick red and shaped like a slumping letter ‘M’. Clearly, some idiot had put down two pieces of semi-overlapping newspaper and gone all the way to the edges and accidentally over, staining the concrete floor. She tried a variety of cleansers but only managed to fade it a bit.

She mentioned it to Craig when he got home from a study session.

Does it pose a danger to any of the residents?” he asked.

“No.”

“Will it scare off potential renters?”

“Probably not.”

“Then let it go, Maria. You and I can only do so much.”   Continue reading “The Joys of Onsite Apartment Building Management” by William Morris

1. My husband is not a cockroach.

If I had woken up next to Kafka’s “monstrous vermin,” I would have run and sprayed an entire can of Raid into the bedroom. As it was, I thought the six foot rabbit crouched under the covers was a very elaborate (it even included nose twitching) joke, even though it wasn’t Easter, April Fools, or Halloween. Nor had David ever done anything remotely similar in our twelve years of marriage. It was only when he didn’t come down for breakfast that I started to worry. Continue reading “Disability, Death, or Other Circumstance,” by Annaliese Lemmon