Five years.

We have now held the Mormon Lit Blitz contest for five years. And we’re pleased to report that Mormon literature is alive and well. Over the past five years we’ve published 60 pieces in the Mormon Lit Blitz contests and 17 pieces in our other contests. Each year, we’ve had the opportunity to share new poems, new essays, and new stories that engage with the fundamental question of what it means to be a Mormon.

It was a tight race this year, with the top four places in question throughout the entire week of voting. And now, readers’ four favorite pieces for the 2016 Mormon Lit Blitz:

Fourth Place: “Foolish and Wise” by Lisa Barker

Third Place: “Rumors of Wars” by Zachary Lunn

Second Place: “Fresh Courage Take” by Bradeigh Godfrey

and our Grand Prize Winner, who will also receive a $100 cash prize:

First Place: “The Back Row” by Kelli Swofford Nielsen

Thank you again for submitting, for reading, and for voting. This contest would not be possible without each of you. And now, for a few announcements about future contests, our email list, and a Mormon literature group in Provo.

Mormon Literature Group in Provo: June 21st at 7:00 p.m. at Pioneer Book

There is a monthly Mormon literature discussion group which meets in Provo. For June they are discussing the 2016 Mormon Lit Blitz, and have invited this year’s finalists and semifinalists to read their pieces. Many of the finalists who do not live in Utah will be joining through digital means.

The event is open to the public, so if you are in the Provo area, feel free to visit Pioneer Book on June 21st at 7 p.m. (If you have any questions, email everydaymormonwriter@gmail.com and we will forward your email to the discussion group organizer.)

Future Contests

We will not be holding a Fall contest this year, but we will be holding the 6th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz contest early in 2017.

If you’d like to be one of the first to know about next year’s Mormon Lit Blitz and other contests, please sign up for our email list.

Voting is open from Monday, June 6th until the end of the day on Saturday, June 11th (11:59 p.m. PDT) . The winner of the $100 Grand Prize will be announced on Monday, June 13th.

The twelve finalists are:

After reading–or at least skimming–the twelve entries, please rank your favorites using the form below. If you have questions on voting or problems completing the online form, please email everydaymormonwriter@gmail.com.

this I say, this not;
this I do, this not;
this I study, ponder,
believe—

until by twists and turns
I arrive here
to gaze upward at a new light
in heaven’s velvet veil,
a tear where God streams through
like lightning from a pinprick
or revelation from a whisper,
calling follow.

It’s another step
in the long progression,
one more choice:

stay a scholar only,
seeking and sorting ancient tales
in dark-paneled, perfumed rooms,
safely conjuring heaven,
ever learning but never knowing

or gather my gifts quickly,
run toward the heart-thumping
pull of prophecy,
swing from stirrup to saddle
in a smooth leap,
and leave tonight to follow
the Star.

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You might be wondering why I’m telling this story at this difficult, strange time in our nation’s history, but please bear with me for just a moment, brothers and sisters.

Everybody has a different opinion on what it looked like. But as I recollect, it had a squashed, fuzzy face with big doe eyes and small round ears. Pudgy hands and feet. A lot of light brown fur or hair. It was a short thing, but plump. Like a very large toddler crossed with a koala bear. Or a pug crossed with a chimpanzee. Vernon thought it a pre-adolescent Sasquatch. I don’t know about that. Not even with those internet videos floating around. We called it a lot of different things, but the one that stuck was Shirleen’s. She called it the fuzzy cherub. I’m not saying that’s what they are. The scriptures aren’t exactly clear on what cherubim look like. But that’s what we called it.

Well, Vernon lived in a sheep trailer out on the Strip so he figured he better drive the fuzzy cherub into Kanab and have his sister Shirleen look after it. You might think he’d’ve gone straight to the authorities. But if there’s one thing you should know about Vernon, it’s that he wasn’t much for the government. Can’t say I blame him considering all that’s happened in the decades since.

Now, it just so happened that I was ward teaching Shirleen and her family when he arrived. First thing Shirleen said when she saw the fuzzy cherub was: “Aw, fer cute.” Second thing was: “Chauncey, dear, run off to the kitchen and grab that tin of leftover divinity.”

I suppose now that I think about it, it seems obvious. But at the time we thought it an inspired choice.

Anyway, after the fuzzy cherub gobbled the divinity down, we all tried talking to it. Trotted out all the languages we knew from missions and Hollywood pictures and such. But although it always looked like it was listening carefully, it never said anything back. Not a word. Not a sound.

I soon had to get going to another appointment. They swore me to secrecy, and I offered some words of blessing for them, their home and the fuzzy cherub.

As Chauncey told me later, when Sunday rolled around, Vernon came back in from the Strip to check up on the fuzzy cherub. Shirleen decided that it shouldn’t be left by itself and insisted that it go to church with the family and that Vernon go too. Now, Vernon didn’t go to his meetings often, and he pointed out that it’d make more sense for him to stay home with it, but once Shirleen makes up her mind about something it’s not likely to be changed, especially not when it comes to living the gospel. One of the twins pointed out that it probably shouldn’t be going to church naked. It took some experimenting with sizing and what the cherub would tolerate, but in the end it was willing to wear one of the girl’s old denim skirts and a maroon knit tie.

I was near the back of the overflow in the cultural hall and even I didn’t see them sneak onto the stage. I don’t think anybody else noticed either, although there’s some who’ll claim they did. But right before the closing hymn, I could feel something looking at me. I turned around, and there was the fuzzy cherub standing on the edge of the stage peering keenly out across the congregation. Vernon tried to shoo it back behind the curtain, but it easily eluded him and began dancing back and forth just out of reach.

About halfway through the first verse of “Come, Come Ye Saints” the cherub started singing along. Wasn’t the right words. But the syllables fit, and the melody was spot on. During the second verse, it added an alto harmony. Mind you it was still singing the melody too. Somehow it was singing both parts at the same time. On the third verse, it sang all four parts, and by the time we hit the fourth verse most of the congregation had stopped singing and turned around in their seats to listen to the fuzzy cherub who now was singing tones and chords that sounded more like it had a full orchestra in its throat. There was not a dry eye in the room when it reached the phrase “But if our lives are spared again” even though it sounded more like “Duthb ev row frize ull strod akim.”

And then the rolling crescendos it hit during the last rendition of the chorus… Well, only the Adamic language could accurately describe what that was like.

In the sacred, stunned silence that followed, the fuzzy cherub somehow escaped or disappeared. A search was organized, but the cherub wasn’t found anywhere. Eventually, the authorities were brought in. They quickly labeled it a mass hysteria and moved on. Maybe it was for some. But I know what I saw. And what I heard.

To this day, there are some who say it was all some kind of hoax cooked up by Vernon Hamblin. Some of the oldtimers don’t even correctly remember what happened. You’ll hear them talking about that time some young Hamblin cousins came down from Parowan and sang so beautifully in church. But I always believed differently. I always believed that it was preparing those who had open hearts and open minds for something yet to come. Something like what happened last Tuesday.

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My Humvee’s air conditioning
does just enough to
make me want more.
I tell my gunner
Iraq was once
the Garden of Eden.
Guess again, he says, and
throws a piss bottle
into the street.

We shot a man yesterday.
Righteous,
someone had said.
Black hair caught in the zipper
of the body bag. Maybe
this is what Adam looked like.
Maybe I should pray
when I’m not
scared.

The missionaries in my ward
back home
told me there is a painting
of Teancum
hanging in the MTC.
His spear in a
killing motion.
For Teancum and me,
war is not a rumor.

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And soon it stuck. Like Thoreau before Walden Pond. “How deep the ruts of tradition and conformity” when it comes to sacrament meeting seating, right?

That was before the late stillbirth, and the miscarriages. Church is a great and terrible place when you are mourning. There is comfort to be found . . . but also time to think, and watching eyes, and an abundance of pregnant women and newborn babies. The back worked then, when I needed to duck out and run to the bathroom, hiding in the stall and sobbing into the too-thin toilet paper.

The view from the back in those days was seen entirely through grief glasses. I was wounded, and every word, every sight held unseen barbs. I didn’t belong up there with the rest of the dry-eyed lucky ones who said things like “everything happens for a reason.”

But in time, I began to see something else.

I saw the single brother a few rows up who looked at his feet during those talks about marriage. He came every week.

I saw how the family struggling to make ends meet listened with slumped shoulders to the speaker talk about the purchase of their fancy new car and their recent family trip to Europe.

I saw the mother of three rowdy children make several trips in and out of the meeting, her eyes tired, while her husband watched sympathetically but helplessly from the stand.

I saw the sister who cried every time we sang “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” because they sang it at her mother’s funeral.

I saw the black man—a recent convert—who always looked a little uncomfortable in a sea of white people, but came anyway.

I watched the sister who spent every sacrament meeting in the foyer with her autistic children peek in to smile proudly at her younger daughter singing a simple, clear melody from the pulpit.

I watched people. But then I did something more. I started talking to them, and visiting them, and listening to them. I realized that there really weren’t very many “lucky ones,” and that nearly everyone was sitting figuratively at the back of the church at one time or another.

They re-aligned our ward boundaries a couple of weeks ago.  I wish I could say we handled it with mature, Nephi-like faithfulness, but there was plenty of Laman-and-Lemueling happening at our house. Change is hard. Our ruts were deep.

As we drove to our first week in the new ward, the boys entertaining their baby sister in the back seat, my seven-year-old clock-watcher said, “Hey, we might actually be early to church, today!” To which his father replied, “you have to show up early to get the back row!”

After a thoughtful moment the ten-year-old chimed in. “Why do we sit in the back?” he asked. “Is it so the bishop won’t see you and give you new callings?”

“Yep,” I laughed.

But then, trying to be less of a Lemuel, I amended. “Actually, Jack, the main reason I go to church each week is to worship Heavenly Father and Jesus, but the second reason is that I made a promise, as did you, to comfort those that mourn and bear their burdens, and when I’m sitting at the back it’s just easier to see and think about who is carrying some.”

“That makes sense,” he said, and I think it did.

Probably someday, when he begins treading his own soft and impressible path he’ll choose to toss off the traditions of his fathers and sit up front all wide-eyed and crick-necked, saying “Amen” at all the right times. He’ll like it up there.

But maybe he’ll also occasionally look back over his shoulder and catch a glimpse of a host of others in all those other pews, all the way to the back, and know that everyone has a story, and a burden, and that even when they may not feel like it . . . they belong.

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National Network

April 6, 2020 GMT 1300 ff

National Network Anchor:  … and again, for those just tuning in, two hours ago Earth was contacted by what scientists have confirmed is an alien spacecraft. We go now to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Dr. Hans Kepplemann, director of SETI Worldwide. Tell us, Dr. Kepplemann, have you personally spoken to the aliens?

[Split screen with Dr. Rudolf Keppleman at SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute radio telescopes, Green Bank, West Virginia.]

Dr. Kepplemann [chuckles]:  I’m afraid our “communications” aren’t as robust as that. Contact on their part has been a repeating loop of beeps—

Anchor:  Like Morse Code?

Dr. Kepplemann:  Like Morse Code. The beeps signified 3.141, the value for Pi. That’s the interstellar equivalent of a “shave and a haircut” knock on our front door. We’ve replied with our own beeps signifying a progression of natural logarithms showing we’re here, we’re an intelligent life form, and we wish to communicate further.

Anchor [turning toward viewers]:  Log-rhythms, as everyone knows, are the technical term for the tree rings found in tree trunks first used to prove global warming,

Dr. Kepplemann:  Not exactly. You see —

[Connection with Dr. Kepplemann abruptly terminated.]

Anchor [excitedly]:  Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just been handed this. The alien spacecraft is now heading directly towards Earth on what scientists are calling a landing approach. We go live now to our reporter in JPL Labs in Pasedena. Lisa, what can you tell us?

[Split screen with National Network reporter Lisa Knight-Magnum at NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories) in Pasadena, CA.]

Reporter named Lisa:  Scientists here are saying that indeed the craft will be landing on Earth and that they know where. The propulsion of the craft suggests that it is what they call a fusion torch ship which requires landing in a large body of water —

Anchor:  Like an ocean?

Lisa:  Like an ocean, but as the exhaust could be catastrophic to any ecosystem, it’s best achieved in a dead sea —

Anchor:  Like the Dead Sea in Iraq?

Lisa:  In Israel, yes. Or the Caspian Sea in the former Soviet Union. But JPL says the trajectory points to the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Anchor [smugly to viewers]:  So we’re about to have our first intelligent lifeforms ever in Utah, then?

Lisa:  I’m from Utah, Bob.

#

[Six hour break in transcript.]

#

Anchor:  Again for those of you just joining us, an actual alien ship landed in the Great Salt Lake in Utah over an hour ago.

[Camera shifts to a live feed from Saltair, a marina on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Network Anchor continues to narrate.]

Anchor:  Here is a live feed showing the appearance of what scientists call a Heinlein “torch” ship. Looks a little like an inverted turnip floating point down in the water. We go now to our local affiliate reporter on the spot. Chuck, what can you tell us?

Local reporter named Chuck:  So far the aliens have not emerged or contacted us since landing. Scientists say this is quite expected. Both the intense heat and the roiling magnetic fields created by a torch engine. Once the ship has cooled safely, they expect the aliens to emerge—wait! There appears some movement at the ship.

[Camera pans to the ship, zooms in on opening hatch.]

Chuck [excitedly]:  Yes, yes! What appears to be a hatch is opening in the side of the craft and some sort of ramp is mechanically extending itself to the Saltair marina pier where crowds of locals are gathered. The crowd is eagerly pushing against the police cordon. They—

Anchor:  Chuck—!

Chuck:  —they—

Anchor:  Chuck! Can you see the aliens?

Chuck:  Not yet—I see them! I see them! [to cameraman] Tell me you’re getting this? Can you zoom in closer?

Anchor:  Can you describe them?

Chuck:  I can’t quite—There they are, they’ve fully emerged. They appear humanoid, maybe even humanlike, but it’s hard to tell because of the bulky spacesuits they’re wearing? This…this is the greatest thing in the whole history of history! They’re—

Anchor:  Can you see their faces?

Chuck:  Again, their round, reflective helmets totally cover their heads.

Anchor:  Can you describe their suits?

Chuck:  They’re definitely spacesuits of some kind, but not at our like ours. All of one streamlined piece rather than parts fastened together. There’s sort of a unnatural sharkskin texture to them that almost glows. The upper torso is pure white that abruptly changes to a dark charcoal grey at the waistline. Very, very basic look to them. I think I see some sort of dark-colored flat parallelogram affixed to one side of each of their chests. I—

[Camera jostled by the press of the crowd.]

Chuck [above the noise of the crowd]:  They’ve reached the end of the ramp and are stepping on the pier itself. Wait! They’re removing their helmets!

[Camera view shows alien removing helmet. Crowd gasps.]

Chuck:  He’s—it’s definitely a he! Oh, the humanity!—If that’s not a human face it’s—! He looks like a clean-cut teenager right out of the 1950s. And so does his younger companion!

Anchor:  Chuck—!

[Alien holds up arm. Crowd falls silent.]

Chuck:  I think—I think, yes! The alien’s about to speak!

Alien [in fluent, but highly accented English]:  Greetings, Earth peoples! What do you know about the Mormon Church and would you like to know more?

[Transcript Ends]

#        #        #

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I remembered the lightning bolts and broomsticks doodled in her third-grade notebook margins for a year after I let her read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She had asked for a scarf in Hufflepuff colors for Christmas that year. One day, she came home crying because her best friend had pointed a backyard stick at her and screamed Crucio. All was forgiven a day later when her friend found Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans at a bookstore and shared her loot.

So when my future Quidditch player declared her intention to turn down any owl post, I was flummoxed. I couldn’t quickly tell her that Hogwarts wasn’t real because she’d been pretty okay with Santa being imaginary, but I think it would have killed her to find out that she’d never have tea with Hagrid.

“Why on earth not?”

She gave me a look that told me Crabbe and Goyle were Mensa members compared to me. “I don’t think they have Primary at Hogwarts.”

With some effort, I gave her nothing more than a reassuring smile by way of response, as though I’d seen this coming. “I’m sure your Primary teacher would be able to find you there.”

“Not if she’s a Muggle,” my stricken daughter piped up. “Hermione says the castle’s Unplottable. And you can’t Apparate in or out of Hogwarts, so I’d have to take the Floo Network to a half-Muggle place like Tinworth or Godric’s Hollow every week.”

“And they’d want to know where you want to go to school,” I considered. “You wouldn’t be able to tell them because of the Statute of Secrecy.”

“And if the home teachers came, the Ministry of Magic would have to Obliviate them,” she lamented. “They’d get yelled at every month because they’d never remember going to visit me.”

I had meant to sweep this under the flying carpet after a couple of sentences, but she seemed genuinely distressed about this conundrum. I had nothing to offer her that didn’t shatter some childhood dreams.

”They could send Squibs to home teach you,” I offered lamely. “They’re allowed to know about Hogwarts and Mrs. Figg even knew Dumbledore.”

“That’s true…”

She went back to her word list looking a little less morose and I returned my attention to the spaghetti sauce. It didn’t take a Trelawney for me to foresee that this conversation wasn’t over, though, and sure enough, she spoke up less than a minute later.

“But I probably couldn’t come to Activity Days if I had Quidditch practice.”

I had to stuff my fist into my mouth to stifle my laughter this time and stirred the sauce vigorously to stall for time. When I’d finally gotten a grip, I put on my best “wise-old-mom” expression and turned to face her.

“I promise that if you get a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry next July, we’ll find out where the Hogsmeade 1^st Ward meets,” I deadpanned. “And what makes you think there aren’t any members in the wizarding world? I can see Professor McGonagall as the Relief Society president.”

That was apparently a joke too far.  Her eyebrows pulled together into a scowl. “You’re making fun of me,” she accused.

“Merlin’s honor, I’m not,” I swore, crossing my heart twice. “I’m making believe.”

I couldn’t discourage her from being honestly worried about these things. I didn’t care if she wanted to spend her school days in Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions class. This was a kid whose biggest concern about running off to be a practicing witch was whether or not Professor Sprout knew that popcorn popped on the apricot tree.

I wanted her to make believe like any other child, so in her world, families could be together forever . . . thanks to the Resurrection Stone.  She would repent every time she gave into the urge to use a Jelly-Legs Jinx on a Slytherin.  She would check with Madam Rosmerta to see if Butterbeer was against the Word of Wisdom. And she would eventually ask her professors uncomfortable questions like “Can you still go to the Celestial Kingdom if you’ve been Kissed by a Dementor?” and “Is the Holy Ghost my Patronus?”

“I hope you get owl post next summer,” I told her honestly. “If we do, I’ll just have to make sure Bishop Dowling transfers your records without asking where your new ward is.”

All things considered, there were worse fantasies to entertain. If we’d had this conversation a few years later, she might have wondered if surviving Fast Sundays gave you an advantage in the Hunger Games.

I just found myself dreading the day when she would try to figure out what Twilight had to say about resurrection of the dead.

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My trainer, Sister Helm, puts her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t we take a break? Would you like me to get you something to drink?”

“Sure.” I rub my forehead. A break sounds really good.

She smiles at me sympathetically, then silently leaves the room.

I flop back on the bed. Through the open window, a bird trills, its calls sounding like perfect English in my ears. “This is my tree, and I will boldly defend it from whoever wishes to challenge me.”

I glare out the window. I’ve been able to understand animals my whole life. I’d daydreamed that they would be able to translate for me on my mission. But no, they were more interested in talking about things like food. I spot the sparrow declaring its territory and sit up. What could be agitating it? Maybe yelling at a cat will help me feel better.

A yellowish-green finch with black markings swoops down and lands on the window sill. He cocks his head and looks at me with one beady eye. “Sister Morgan, I understand you are having trouble learning Spanish. I would like to help.”

I glance at the door. No sound that Sister Helm is returning. “Who are you, and how do you know my name?” Birds do not talk like this.

“I’m a messenger, sent to bring you the same offer given to Solomon of old. If you desire to know Spanish, I can give that to you.”

“Shouldn’t you be a serpent, if you’re trying to tempt me? What’s the catch?”

“I’m not Satan. All animal-speakers have an opportunity to exchange that gift for one of their choosing. Solomon chose wisdom. What do you desire?”

I press my lips together. That could explain why I had never been able to find other animal-speakers, even on the Internet. I like the idea, but my stomach twists. “Would I be able to switch the gifts back after my mission?”

“No. Any change made would be permanent.”

“Can I think about it and choose later?” I have a dog at home. Is there anything that would be worth losing the chance to speak with her again?

“I can’t guarantee that I would come speak with you again.”

I twist my mouth. How can I know I am making a choice I won’t regret later? Wealth made the Nephites prideful. Seeing an angel didn’t help Laman and Lemuel. Wisdom like Solomon would be great, but shouldn’t I trust that Heavenly Father had given me the best gift already? But what if being able to change it was something He wants me to be able to do?

I think a moment more. “Could you just make a small change to my animal-speaking gift?”

“What do you want?”

“Make it so I hear and speak to the animals in Spanish.”

“Why would you want to do that? You’ll still struggle with the language.”

“But I’ll be more immersed. And it will be useful to me even after I go home, because I’ll have a reason to keep my Spanish skills up.”

The finch laughs. “You’re as wise as a serpent. Lo hice. Chao.”

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The bags were packed; they stood in a neat row across the entire front wall of the living room; weighed, tagged, ready to march. She’d been up until two filling them. The house had been a bustle at first, with friends bringing food and scraping hard water off bathroom faucets and staring while she tore everything out of that last suitcase to find a new way to make everything fit.

“Don’t you have pillows in America?” asked her visiting teacher as she lay breathless across that last bag and forced it to zip.

Of course there were pillows in America. But not these pillows. These pillows were relics of the world she was leaving. These pillows—so common, not even the best in this world—would never come again.

Leaving day.

She’d sung yesterday as she painted over little children’s artwork on the wall. Piled the sheets and silverware in a box to give away. The songs poured out of her; all the songs she’d sung in this house. Hänschen klein, Sandmann, Sankt Martin. They hung in the air on the empty walls, echoing off the places where pictures used to hang.

The inspectors were surprised. “We thought you would have to replace the wallpaper,” they said. “We thought it would be damaged after having children live here.” But they didn’t know that she’d done this before. That she knew how to stitch the seams up so that the hole left by their leaving wasn’t a hole at all, just a smooth, unremarkable piece of blank cloth.

Leaving day.

It was time now. The suitcases rolled out to the stairwell, each with an owner. She tugged hers out, not even wincing as it clipped her toes. She took one last look at the empty apartment. And shut the door.

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