The panel will be moderated by Dan Wells and feature Nathan Shumate, Eric James Stone, Jaleta Clegg, EC Buck and Steven Peck. They’ll talk about how their stories came about, the delights and dangers of mixing Mormonism with genre fiction, and more. It’s gonna be great.

Click here for conference registration details. Note that it uses UVU’s enrollment process so you will need to register for an account.

Take the story of Meredith, for example. When her husband of fifteen years decides he is gay and leaves her, it is almost unbelievable that she could ever find that “eternal perspective.” But in reading the details of her story you find out that, well, it actually possible for a woman to move forward with faith. Jana Reiss (of Flunking Sainthood fame) is startling–both in her bifurcated path to baptism and her tendency to pray with people at the drop of the hat–but also delightfully familiar in her struggles for devotional perfection. And then there’s the story of Bindu that makes you stop and say, “Wait. There are Mormons in India? I never even though to ask that question.” What is most astounding is how many, many Mormon women are changing the world at large through creative humanitarian forays.

Reading the MWP interviews is a little bit like climbing on a merry-go-round. The stories spin quickly enough and pull you in enough different directions that you think you will be pulled right off the ride. But what you are really experiencing is like centripetal force–something that pulls you in enough directions that you end up being held exactly in the center.

LHC: Do you have any favorite stories that have been shared on MWP?

NM: I think every interview we publish is the best one yet, so it’s hard to pick just a few! What I love about working now with a group of volunteers – I have about half a dozen saintly interview producers who work with me regularly – is that everyone finds different stories interesting. I’m constantly surprised by which interviews on the site go through the roof and which have a more tepid response. A volunteer will suggest a story or pick someone from off our list of nominated women and I’ll think, “Well, I guess that’s okay,” and then when then interview’s published it’ll be hugely popular. Objectively though, the interviews that have been read most are our anonymous interview with the author of Seriously, So Blessed, and our interview with Elaine Bradley, the drummer for the Neon Trees. I am most proud of our forays into the “unspeakable” subjects: our sexual abuse forum, our interviews that discuss eating disorders, infertility, divorce, pornography, homosexuality, adoption, etc. I feel that in these interviews we uncover not the proactive choices a woman makes about her job or how she’s going to spend her time, but the reactive choices about how she’s going to respond to a situation and who she’s really going to be, which are usually even more defining than her hobbies or jobs.

LHC: Are there themes or ideas that come up again and again in the interviews?

NM: The theme that arises in almost every interview is the idea that Heavenly Father knows who this woman is and He is directing her path. Regardless of whether that path leads her to be a drummer in a rock band or the mother of twelve foster children, God knows each woman and acts as a cheerleader, a prompter, a supporter and even an instigator of dreams, ambition and righteous goal setting. The common thread of His presence in these interviews never reveals Him to be an oppressor or a killjoy.

LHC: MWP is coming up on its second year anniversary in January. How has it grown in its second year? What hopes do you have for its future? In what ways can others who are passionate about the stories of Mormon women help out?

NM: Although I launched the MWP in January of 2010 without a distinct publication calendar, we’ve managed to average one new interview per week since that launch. We just published our 114th interview, and we’ve featured women in fifteen countries. There is power in that sheer volume of contemporary Mormon women’s stories. We also introduced this year Snapshot Portraits, which offer our readers the opportunity to submit their own short essays in response to specific prompts.

Our major achievement as an organization this year was to receive our 501©3 status, designating us as a non-profit. The MWP follows in the grand Mormon tradition of being a volunteer endeavor, but we chose to pursue this designation for a few reasons. First of all, it was an issue of establishing our brand as something that is of valuable even outside of the Church community. One of the pieces of feedback we receive time and time again is that members really like to share our interviews with non-member friends because they feel like it looks like and has the quality of a professional endeavor. Of course it takes money for the MWP to look that way, and for us to maintain the website. Even though we don’t need very much money, establishing ourselves as a 501©3 allows us to raise money from official sponsors as well as from private donors. Above and beyond website upkeep, we want to continue doing live events, like our annual Salon, so that the MWP has a physical presence in our community and provides us with a forum to come together as like minded women in person. I also have a dream of being able to subsidize transcription services for our volunteers so they don’t have to spend 5-15 hours transcribing (and sometimes translating) the interviews from the recorded conversation.

I think it’s quite obvious that the MWP approaches the subject of Mormon womanhood from positive, almost culturally apologetic, positioning. Some have called this naïve, that you can think the Lord loves you to bits but it doesn’t make up for the fact that the currency of power is not distributed equally within the institution. I believe there are many valid and important conversations going on online about the role of women in the Church, but I think the MWP plays important role in those conversations by reminding women that our spiritual lives are played out in our relationships, our actions and our prayers, and not in our institutional roles. I’ve had MWP readers tell me they appreciate the safe haven the project offers, the ability to step back and say, “God’s plan for me is real and it is beautiful,” rather than focus on the deficiencies of the modern church. For women who are seeking for a way to be actively involved in forwarding this emboldening vision of Mormon womanhood, I invite them to join us at the MWP. We’re always looking for more interview producers. Reading the interviews, discussing them, sharing them and letting them resonate really is the best way women can support the project.

For more of Neylan McBaine’s writing check out this podcast at The Round Table, this post at By Common Consent, or her articles at Patheos.com and Busted Halo. She has also authored a book, How To Be a Twenty-First Century Pioneer Woman.

Now, besides the gross error that Mormon women aren’t allowed to speak in Church, it’s pretty distressing to me that what characterized this group of women as liberals was that they wanted change tables in the men’s room. Really? Getting the men to help care for the babies? Isn’t that a little quaint? The picture this anecdote paints is one done in broad strokes with inexact coloring where the women come out in an ill-educated, unsatisfied, barefoot-in-the-kitchen kind of way. There is little nuance or subtlety and it is ultimately dissatisfying to me in a very personal way.*

However, what makes this piece stand out from so many other misrepresentations is the fact that there was a group of Mormon women who saw a need and found a way to get it met. They were polite, they were strong, and they got the job done. That’s the kind of Mormon woman I identify with–and the kind of women Neylan McBaine is seeking out and presenting to the world with through her Mormon Women Project. The stories she chronicles are the kind so many, many Mormon women identify with as their own. Subjects covered include women of many nationalities, races, and backgrounds. There are stories about surviving sexual abuse and difficult marriages. There are women who come from long legacies of Mormon membership and new converts. The portraits drawn by MWP are detailed, with many tones and hues, and offer a great richness to the picture of Mormon women.

Neylan graciously agreed to answer some of my questions regarding the project and it’s significance in Mormon culture.

Laura Hilton Craner: You have a unique name. How is it pronounced? Does it have any significant history in your life?

Neylan McBaine: I’m so happy you asked about my name! It’s pronounced “NY – lin,” (The first, stressed syllable rhymes with “high”.) It was my great-grandfather’s surname – John Francis Neylan – and thus my grandmother’s maiden name and my father’s middle name. John Francis Neylan was a powerful and brilliant man who was William Randolf Hearst’s lawyer and best friend and was known for his red-headed Irish temper. In fact, the Joseph Cotten character in “Citizen Kane” is based on my great-grandfather, and he was on the cover of Time magazine in 1935. But even more interesting to me is that he is a genealogical mystery: We can’t find where he came from, who his parents are, where he was born…

How much programming in our genes comes from our ancestors has always been a fascinating subject for me because, quite honestly, I’m uncomfortable with the idea that the choices and personality traits I have made and cultivated in my life are not entirely my own but come from predetermined traits. However, either because of admiration or intrigue or some unknowable connection, I do feel a special kinship with John Francis and am honored to carry his name.

LHC:What inspired you to start the Mormon Women Project? How does it coincide with other work that you’ve done?

NM: Usually when I explain the motivation to start the MWP, I don’t have time or context to explain how my family and my upbringing played a critical role. But since I’ve already introduced you to my great-grandfather and my father’s side of the family, allow me to introduce you now to my mother: the middle of five children born to a humble school teacher of extensive Mormon pioneer heritage. How, you might now ask, did a Mormon girl who grew up in a trailer in Southern California end up marrying a lapsed Catholic of San Francisco high society? The answer was opera. What my parents didn’t share in socioeconomic or religious background was made up for in their love of opera, but the tension between the identities of my two extended families produced in me – the only child of this union – a paradox of interests and influences that has allowed me to have a foot in different worlds: it was my father who pushed me to attend the best schools possible, travel and enjoy the best and most beautiful the world has to offer, and it was my mother who kept me rooted to faith and family.

My mother was a professional opera singer the whole time I was growing up in New York City and, as you might have already guessed, a single mother for much of that time. As a single, working mother with only one child, you wouldn’t imagine her to be the poster child of the Mormon faith. But she was. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, my mother was asked by local church leaders and general authorities to present firesides, perform for church and political leaders, and to appear in official church videos and messages. Her skill as a singer and her willingness to share that talent for the glory of God catapulted her into a position of spokesperson for the Church. As a child witnessing the tremendous affection of church leaders for my mother and, in turn, my mother’s affection for the Church, it never occurred to me that there wasn’t a place in the Church for women whose lives don’t fit a mold.

My mother also did a beautiful job of teaching me that getting the best education I could, working as hard as I could, and enjoying the beauty of the world as much as I could – all those good qualities my dad had brought to the table – were actually a way of magnifying God’s presence in my life and honoring Him. Our doctrine encourages us to aim high, and she fiercely taught that performing at the “worldly” standard that my earthly dad expected was actually the way I could magnify my Heavenly Father’s expectations for me. “The world” was never a scary, evil place in my home; on the contrary, it was a glorious gift to be enjoyed and learned from. It was simply my job to bring God into it through my active participation.

But when I left my home in New York and started functioning in a broader community of LDS women, I realized that I was unusual in feeling that my doctrine was the very thing that gave me permission to explore my potential. Even at Yale, where I went to college, I encountered Mormon women who were pursuing education sheepishly, fighting a constant internal struggle between the seeming paradox of their innate gifts and the kinds of pursuits they believed were “right.” I saw these internal struggles continue among some of the women in my San Francisco ward after college, culminating in one very dear friend leaving the Church over these issues and several more since then, and I was forced finally to ask myself the question, “What does it mean to be a Mormon woman? Is it a limiting proposition, or an emboldening one?”

Both because I think it is a much happier way to live and also because I fiercely defend that it is true, I see being a Mormon woman as an emboldening way to live. In contemplating an effective and positive way to assert that belief so that it might take root in our broader culture, I turned to the age-old tradition of story-telling. My mom had been held up throughout my childhood as a woman for Mormons to look to; why couldn’t I take some of the other women I admired and share their stories in a similar way? In Mormon culture, we don’t have a systematic way to tell the stories of our women, the way many of our men do in formal speaking and writing assignments. My goal was to create an environment of “deliberate disorientation” for the reader: by sorting through hundreds of stories about women who prioritize the gospel and yet still make unique and intriguing choices about how to maximize their potential, it is impossible for a reader to pick any one story and say, “This is who my church wants me to be or that is what my church wants me to be.” The breadth of examples forces the reader to turn within herself and ask, “What does the Lord want me to be?”

LC: You are not only an accomplished writer, but you are also the mother of three young girls. How has being a woman in the Church and then having daughters to raise in the Church influenced MWP?

NM: Like many other Mormon mothers, the foremost goal I have for my daughters is that they have a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. (And that they love music comes in a close second.) But I recognize that, at some point, they will have to define for themselves what it means to be a Mormon woman and decide if they are emboldened or limited by that definition. For many Mormon women, that internal struggle surfaces in young adulthood or even older as they come to terms with the Church’s gendered institutional structure and so I don’t expect my little girls to self-define for quite some time yet. However, I believe the MWP can play a role in their lives now by establishing a paradigm for that self-definition in which doubt of God’s intentions regarding His daughters is not a factor in their construction of themselves. In other words, as they grow up with the MWP as a presence in their spiritual lives, they will launch their self-defining journey from a solid foundation of trust in the Lord’s support for them as women.

Growing up with Mormon women I admired allowed me to sidestep the question “What does God think of me as a girl?” and focus instead on developing a very personal relationship with Him as my Heavenly Father. I am trying the best I can to provide a cleared path of spiritual development for my own girls as well.

Tune in tomorrow for Part II: Emboldening Women (Through Story)

For more of Neylan McBaine’s writing check out this podcast at The Round Table, this post at By Common Consent, or her articles at Patheos.com and Busted Halo. She has also authored a book, How To Be a Twenty-First Century Pioneer Woman.

*Now, now, I know this interview was about Romney and the anecdote was meant to show how he was able to deal with politics within a charged religious setting. But still. Gross factual error and dirty diapers? Come on.

For more E.M. Tippetts, visit her author site. Emily as writes science fiction and fantasy. Visit emilymah.com or follow her on Twitter.

I read the Amazon description of Paint Me True. Could you expand on it just a bit? Without giving out too many spoilers can you tell me a little more about Eliza and the scruffy video gamer?

Eliza is the last surviving daughter in a family cursed with the BRCA gene mutation, which makes the carriers susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer. On top of this, the family’s had awful luck. Women don’t tend to see their fortieth birthdays and Eliza’s lost two sisters, two aunts, and a lot of cousins. Of all her female relatives on her mother’s side, only her Aunt Nora survives, so these two share a very close bond as survivors in a silent war. It’s Aunt Nora who suggested that Eliza follow her dreams and become an artist and who continues to give emotional support as Eliza struggles financially. At the opening of the book, Eliza is living rent free in her stepmother’s old house in Portland. She’s thirty years old, and about to age out of the singles ward. None of the daring life decisions she’s made have paid off. She’s broke, single, and there’s no end to either condition in sight.

Len, the scruffy nerd, works as a sysadmin at a law firm and likes to spend his free time playing video games. He’s had a crush on Eliza for a long time, but he’s aware of the fact that she’s only dating him because she has no other prospects. At the beginning of the book, he’s finally coming around to the idea that he doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. I assume most readers will identify with him in the first scene, as I think he is the most sympathetic character.

Your previous novel for the LDS Market has fairly strong Mormon elements, in fact it was about an LDS convert. How does Mormonism figure into Paint Me True?

All of the main characters are LDS, though not all are active. Eliza’s at an age (30) when she’s still considered young by American standards, but is verging on an old maid by Mormon standards, so she feels trapped in a netherworld. If she stays true to her faith, she’ll stand out as an unmarried woman in a family ward. If she leaves the faith, she’ll have to make her way in mainstream culture, and she doesn’t have the first clue how to do that. She’s never been on a date with a non-Mormon.

And as with all my LDS novels, there are prayers and revelations that let you know my character isn’t going it alone. It’s written from a religious person’s worldview.

Why did you decide to publish it as an ebook through Amazon Digital Services (ADS)? [Wm adds 1/23 at 11:10 am: the novel is also available on Smashwords and for the Nook at BN.com. I focused on Amazon because it tends to lead to the most sales, but don't forget those other platforms if you are thinking of self-publishing.]

My main goal in life and writing is to make it as a science fiction and fantasy writer, so if it makes sense, my LDS and romance books have been sort of a hobby, something else I did on the side for fun. The usual contracts offered by LDS publishers are not worth the hassle to me. They tend to be grabby, demanding way more rights than is good for either party, and in my experience these companies are used to working with people desperate to be published authors, and that isn’t me. As an attorney who’s worked with a lot of writers, I do know what a standard publishing contract from a national house looks like, and I’m not interested in settling for less in order to get published in such a small niche as the LDS market. The prospect of not ever getting published in LDS fiction doesn’t scare me.

When the indie publishing movement got underway, it looked like a lot of fun. I decided to join up with my romance pen name so that my science fiction and fantasy prospects wouldn’t be affected one way or the other. I also decided that I really needed to learn how to build a platform as a writer, as this is becoming more and more necessary, so again, I figured I’d try it out with my romance pen name so that if I failed miserably, the speculative fiction writer in me would escape unscathed.

Do you have any tips you could share for other authors who are interested in publishing through ADS?

Yes, I’d say first of all, examine why you’re doing this. If you have a huge stack of rejection letters, be open to the possibility that there is a good reason. Publishing is a business. You’ll succeed or fail based on the quality of your product and your marketing efforts. Secondly, I’d say be ready to work your tail off on marketing. Don’t expect to sell any copies if you don’t work for those sales. To put this in perspective: there are 8 million Kindle books on Amazon. When I sold my first copy, I was ranked somewhere in the 100,000 range, which means that I outranked 7.9 million other books by making one sale. When I say most Kindle books don’t go anywhere, I mean nearly all Kindle books don’t go anywhere. No one is going to trawl through all those titles to discover your genius, and someone who works harder will beat you, no matter how inferior their product. Last of all, I’d say enjoy it. Find what’s fun about it, because if you aren’t having fun, there’s little reason to bother. Even if you are ultimately a success, you’ll start out with months making little to no money and the very real prospect that It might not get better. I have a lot of fun designing the chapter headings and putting in graphics. I love being able to sell a book that looks pretty (to me, at least!) And I love seeing what kinds of outreach to fans move copies. It’s liberating to know that I can make some difference here.

What are you digging right now in terms of art? (Mormon-themed or not; fiction or not)

I read a lot of children’s books these days, and I love my Kindle Fire because I can display them in color and let my boys turn the pages.

What else you currently working on?

I’m writing another LDS novel, working title: Castles on the Sand. It’s starting to roll forward with its own momentum, but I’ve got some characters whom I really need to figure out. I’ll be spending the next few days daydreaming up a storm as I try to understand who they are and how they’re likely to behave in various circumstances — I need to understand that before I start trying to move the plot forwards.

And then I’m always working on a short story that I hope to sell to a good short fiction market. I’ve sold two stories to Analog and two to Black Gate and I’d like to maintain a relationship with both. That’s where, in the speculative fiction market, you’re likely to get noticed by editors and agents.

Thanks, Emily!

Entry one:

Zombie Porter Rockwell sniffed the air. The smell of singed hair slowly triggered the synapses in his decaying brain. He needed brains soon. But he had business to take care of first. He was on the trail of Cain, and this time, he was going to take the hairy wanderer out.

He jiggled the tank strapped to his chest. It sloshed reassuringly — still at least half full. His bulbous, unblinking eyes scanned the dessert. Cain had managed to survive P-Rock’s trap, but little did the large-footed fellow know that fire, which was his only weakness, was now portable. Zombie Porter sniffed the air again and fell into a jerky, but surprisingly fast lope. It was bbq time and [MORE]

Entry two:

The rain always made her sad. It reminded her of her grandmother. It also reminded her of her dead husband. And that cat she had had for two weeks in seventh grade. The rain was coming down in sheets now. It made her feel like the world was crying. She was crying too. But even though she was crying, she knew that she was not alone. The footprints in the sand were not hers. The battered violin that was her soul could still produce a beautiful tune in the master’s hands. So she decided to cheer herself up by firing up her Provo Craft cricut and breaking out her brand new six-inch by 13-inch Cuttlebug Cutting Mats. [MORE]

Entry three:

Truth was a complex, ever-evolving thing for an educated man like Walter C. Habermavinaseiggeridastraullard. Nuance was his watchword. Context his Title of Liberty. Which was why he spent so much time commenting on blogs.

Walter loved his fellow Saints with a pure love, but he also knew that too many of them were in danger of having their simplistic testimonies fall to pieces at the slightest breeze of opposition, the tiniest crack in the correlated shell. In short, they were in need of maturation, and it was up to him to be the sunshine, the water and the soil — not to mention also taking the role of the fertilizer, the pruner and the grafter. [MORE]

(Obviously these aren’t really my entries. Revealing the real ones would be against the rules. Also: you have two weeks to polish up your entries and get them in.)

This past September, in response to Ken’s post about mashing up Mormon literature and the purposes behind the repurposing of language and literature, in general, Ardis asked a question that turned my wheels a-spinnin’. Asked she, “[W]hat’s the point of being deliberately, unrelentingly unoriginal” by taking others’ work, repurposing it, and sending it out into the world? “Why is suppressing the urge toward originality,” as she assumes mash-up arists do, “more conducive to self-expression than the effort to, you know, actually be self-expressive?”

Seuss-style, I respond to Ardis’ question with three things (I was going to add my comment to the post itself, but my response grew beyond comment-length; hence, this):

Thing One: I don’t think it’s productive to argue that all mash-ups or remixes suppress the urge toward originality and self-expression. I’m thinking here of seven instances—four specific and three more general, though even as I think I stir up more instances—in which artists/creators have, to various degrees, remixed different aspects of culture or other preexisting materials in order to create something new:

a. God, who didn’t create anything ex nihilo, but who remixed extant materials in order to build universes, galaxies, worlds, us. And who’s going to call God unoriginal?

b. Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (among other works) in which he’s “borrowed” compositional elements, plot lines, bits of dialogue, costumes, etc., from a range of films to “piece” together his own story. Here’s a video that details some of these “borrowings.” (Caution: contains some graphic scenes).

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

c. Greg Michael Gillis (aka Girl Talk), a musician who specializes in mashups and digital sampling. Here’s a video that illustrates his creative process, wherein he “borrows” a small bit of music (in this case a second or so of an Elvis Costello song) and manipulates it in various ways in order to construct a new, shall we call it, original song:

Girl Talk Creates a Mashup from OpenSourceCinema on YouTube.

Girl Talk has a huge following and is the subject of a really interesting documentary called RiP: A Remix Manifesto. For anyone interested, the film’s available in parts on YouTube and in full on Hulu. It’s a really interesting exploration of the issues surrounding mashups, including copyright laws and creativity. I especially like its opening line: “Today we’re going to create a mashup, a fun and adventurous way to create something fresh out of something stale.”

d. Mister Tim, who in his live-looping act not only mashes himself up against himself, but who also “covers” and mashes up songs from other arists as well in order to entertain audiences. I’ve embedded an example below. Mister Tim has appeared on AMV before, courtesy of mash-up lover Laura.

Mister Tim Live-Looping SWEET DREAMS (medley): 2009 Las Vegas A Cappella Summit from MisterTimVids on YouTube.

e. Found poems, which “take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.” This poetic form became prominent in the twentieth-century, in the shadow of Pop Art (think Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp) (ref).

In 1995, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard published a collection of found poems called Mornings Like This. In the Author’s Note, she suggests, as I have here, that found poems are “the literary equivalents of Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans and Duchamp’s bicycle,” then she offers up something about what a poet does when s/he remixes existing texts into poetry: “By entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles its context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles,” between it’s non-remixed function and it’s remixed function, wherein “[t]he poet adds,” she continues, “or at any rate increases, the element of delight. This is an urban, youthful, ironic, cruising kind of poetry. It serves up whole texts [to readers], or uninterrupted fragments of texts,” in the form and language of poetry (ix). So found poetry is ironic poetry, poetry conceived of and meant to critique, even overturn, the ironies of an ironic age. Dillard’s conclusion to her Note is telling in this regard, “This [book] is [the result of] editing at its extreme: writing without composing. Half the poems seek to serve poetry’s oldest and most sincere aims”—to create an aesthetic experience of human life and to give readers pleasure in language being perhaps two of them—”with one of its newest and most ironic methods, to dig deep with a shallow tool. The other half” of the poems, she says, “are just jokes” (x).

One of Dillard’s poems, “The Sign of Your Father,” seems apropos to our current context: discussing the artistic uses, reuses, and recycling of religious texts; the religious uses of art and culture. Here’s the poem (the epigraph cites its original context):

(From Mornings Like This, p. 8-9.)

In her Author’s Note, Dillard comments briefly on one function of this remixed text (the religious nature and implications of which she seems especially critical):

The New Testament Apocrypha is a loose collection of written legends and, chiefly, torn and damaged fragments. Scholar-editors print such texts carefully to show—using ellipses and question marks—where fragments break off and which translations are guesses. An edition of the New Testament Apocrypha yields a poem ["The Sign of Your Father"] about the baffling quality of Christ’s utterances and the absurdly fragmentary nature of spiritual knowledge. Like many of these poems, it looks surprisingly sober on the page. (x)

f. The oral-formulaic composition of epic poetry, wherein (the theory goes) poets like Homer and contemporary Serbo-Croatian poets drew/draw from a stockpile of formulas (including phrases and symbols) as aids to help them compose (”mash-up”) poems “on-the-fly,” in the act of performance. This theory was first posited and explored in depth by Albert Lord in his book Singer of Tales (from which I’ve only read a page or two). It continues to be explored and developed by oral performance scholars, including John Miles Foley, who offers an excellent introduction to the topic in his book How To Read an Oral Poem.

g. Language itself, which thrives because humans continually mash-up “stale” letters and words in different combinations in order to create “fresh” and mind-expanding combinations.

Which leads me, somewhat indirectly, to

Thing Two: Everything is a remix. Languages, cultures, literatures (including scripture, as Ken suggests), music, films. Nothing can be created ex nihilo. No act of self-expression ever arises independently of other expressive acts and materials. The link in my first statement leads to an excellent series of videos produced and distributed by filmmaker Kirby Ferguson and titled, of course, “Everything is a Remix.” These videos explore the idea of mash-ups and remix culture in ways that question a) our general take on creativity as making something wholly original and b) a lot of the premises of copyright laws, which leads me, again, to

Thing Three: In light of the explosion of creativity, knowledge-sharing, and user-generated content made possible in the digital age, I wonder how we might reconsider our deep-seated and fundamental reliance on copyright and intellectual property laws as means to control access to and distribution of information. I’m not saying everything needs to be distributed free-of-charge or that creators should surrender all rights to their creations. Lawrence Lessig, a lawyer, professor, political activist, and authority on issues of copyright, speaks convincingly to the idea that many of our laws may just be choking creativity. Many others (including Lessig and, to make the connection to some aspect of Mormon culture, BYU professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology David Wiley) are building a Creative Commons and working to instill open values and to implement the open sharing of knowledge in culture and education, among other things.

With our current, perhaps overly-strict conception of intellectual property and the policing strategies that accompany this strictness—especially in academia, though academia’s concerns over plagiarism often make their way into the broader culture—the knee jerk reaction many people have to issues of plagiarism might just create more problems than it pretends to solve. I think, for instance, of one of my wife’s former professors who wanted her students to cite every claim they make in their papers—every claim. She wanted to know where all of their ideas originated. Not only does this approach to writing and scholarship create a very prohibitive reading experience—who wants to read something with a citation, or often, multiple citations, after every sentence?—it’s unrealistic, especially since (per Thing Two) every idea is derivative and who keeps track of the source behind every idea they’ve ever had? Wiley shares a similar experience in this video on open education and the future (at about the 11 minute mark). Again, I’m not arguing that we allow students, scholars, writers, artists, etc., to draw wholesale from others’ work without giving credit where credit should be given. But I am suggesting that it’s probably time to think about and approach our discussions regarding plagiarism differently, including by exploring the places where the assumptions of a wholly print culture stand in opposition to the radical openness made possible by the digital age. This openness mirrors in some fundamental ways the openness of primarily oral cultures (as suggested in 1f) where language and its public performance are viewed as aggregative and communal because they build quite explicitly and openly upon what’s come before. And, shocker: performers in these cultures don’t cite their predecessors’ work.

As regards the mashing of Mormon literature, I think Gideon Burton has done something interesting and important with his Open Source Sonnets project, which he’s published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. What that means is simply that others are free to copy, adapt, distribute, transmit, and make commercial use of Gideon’s work, as long as they give proper attribution. Many of his sonnets are imitations (of Shakespeare, Milton, traditional carols, hymns, etc.) and several remix elements of scripture, generally, and Mormon culture, specifically. These include, to name only several, “Shakespeares of Our Own”, “Seeking the Good”, “Thy Mind, Oh Man”, “We Will Cross the River” (which was further remixed by Kathy Cowley), “The Shining One”, “Kingdoms Many”, “The Lord’s Prayer”, “His Yoke is Easy”, and “Unto the Least”. I think the openness with which Gideon has offered these poems and the remix-methods by which he composed them and with which others have responded creates a precedent that other Mormon writers might follow, in one way or another. It further presents an interesting test case of what Ken points to in terms of the possibilities of Mormon literary mash-ups and Mormon remix culture in general. But I’m not prepared to fully explore that case today. However, it’s in the works.

So let’s ruminate away for a minute on the creative possibilities of repurposed culture. And if you have additional examples of mashed-up artistry, share away…

* not sure exactly what to call them, but in the series are short short stories, creative exegesis, anecdotes, extended jokes — many of them some or all of those at once. I use prose poem because I approach each one by looking for the rhetorical conceit and poetic rhythm and language that I would with poetry.

The very first question that came to mind when I saw the title was: why is it titled after a song by the Smiths? Let me restate that: why is it titled after a *great* song by the Smiths. One of my personal favorites.

“Death of a Disco Dancer” is definitely one of my all-time Smith’s favorites; actually, it’s one of my all-time favorite songs, period.  As I was writing the novel, I knew that there would be death — physical, intellectual and social — that a few of the different characters would experience.  I also knew that one of the characters, the narrator’s Grandmother, would suffer from dementia and would be obsessed with a Saturday Night Fever album cover (which I’ve always thought was an absolutely hilarious and ridiculous image, in a very ‘70s sort of way).  So, with these ideas percolating in the back of my mind — that there are different types of “death” or catastrophe in life — and the fact that the narrator’s grandmother was obsessed with arguably the most recognizable pop culture image of the somewhat unfortunate disco era, as I was driving home from work one day, the Smiths’ “Death of a Disco Dancer” came on.  The first line of the song, says, very heavily and melancholically, “The death of a disco dancer, well it happens a lot ‘round here…”  And, with that, it just clicked.  I thought it was, like any great Smith’s song, goofy, ridiculous, enigmatic and yet poignant, and it seemed like a perfect match for the entire tone of the novel.  From then on, despite a universality of raised eyebrows from those I shared the novel with, I knew there could be no other title.

And then let’s get this out of the way: “How Soon is Now” is their best song, yes or no? And if no, what candidates would you offer up instead?

I definitely agree.  I think that any discussion of great Smith’s songs has to start and end with “How Soon is Now.”  In fact, I was just driving in the car and it came on the radio.  It’s one of those songs that is so good, was so cutting edge, that it always manages to sound contemporary.

A bunch of people have asked me if there will be a sequel to The Death of a Disco Dancer or if I can see myself further exploring any of these characters in a future novel.  I’ve joked with others (and I’m only half kidding) that I think it would be a lot of fun to follow the narrator, Todd Whitman (who is both an 11 year-old and a forty-something year-old in the novel), through his teenage years, through a Mormon mission and into marriage, in novels all named after other songs by the Smith’s.  “Girlfriend in a Coma,” “Shoplifters of the World Unite,” “Panic,” “This Charming Man,”  “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.”  I could go on and on.

What else is The Death of a Disco Dancer about?

The main thing I wanted to explore in this novel was a Mormon kid who believes (or thinks he believes) what he has been taught and how he reconciles that belief (or suspicion of belief) with the challenges of becoming a somewhat normal, red-blooded, American teenage boy, without the didacticism and fairytale endings that seem to have been so prevalent in LDS fiction.  That idea — that the life experience of a suburban, non-Wasatch-front, non-dystopian, LDS pre-teen boy in a loving, believing, functional family could be worthy of “literature” – was really what I wanted to explore.

Also, although the novel is mostly about an 11-year old boy, Todd Whitman, I think it is, in large part, about the quiet, dedicated lives of mothers and grandmothers — the kinds of mothers and grandmothers that do the yeoman’s work of family building, who never seem to get the glory, but without whom everything would collapse.  Wallace Stegner, maybe my favorite author of all time, in his book, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail, wrote about the Mormon pioneers that, “Their women were incredible.”   I think he was basically saying, “Yeah, the story of the Mormon migration is an amazing story, but it wasn’t all just Brigham Young and brawn, they would have never made it, this religion would have never made it, without the incredible strength and determination of their women.”  And, I think that two of the main characters of the book, Grandma Carter and Linda Whitman, the narrator’s grandmother and mother, respectively, are both pretty simple and pretty normal, but also pretty incredible.  Henry David Thoreau wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  To paraphrase (and counter, to a certain extent) Thoreau, I think that it could be said that “the mass of mothers and grandmothers lead lives of quiet dedication.”  That’s certainly the case with Grandma Carter and Linda Whitman.

Another theme that runs throughout the book is that spiritual growth and understanding, more often than not, come not in sudden electric bursts of light and understanding, but, as we plod through the various climates of life (sometimes its cloudy, sometimes there are deadly storms, sometimes it’s sunny and picture perfect, but much of the time it’s partly cloudy with a chance of rain).   So, I think that life’s most meaningful growth and understanding comes subtly and with nuance, over extended periods of time.  In other words, life is marathon, not a sprint, especially when it comes to an understanding of spiritual and familial things and how those two ultimately tie together.  I have always loved Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare — “slow and steady wins the race” — and I think that this is what the narrator, Todd Whitman, ultimately learns and is something that his Grandma Carter and his mother learned themselves too.

Why did you choose to set the novel in the summer of 1981?

The bulk of the novel occurs in 1981 but it is really set in the present day, as the narrator, Todd Whitman, now a forty-something year-old father, returns home to his boyhood home in Arizona with his other grown siblings to remove his dying mother from hospice and take her home to die in her own home, in her own bed.  As Todd keeps watch over his dying mother, he reflects back on the pivotal Summer of 1981 — the summer before the culture shock of junior high school (school dances and showers in after gym class), the summer before becoming a Deacon and a boy scout, the summer his live-in grandmother fully succumbed to Alzheimer’s, the summer he lost his grandfather and the summer he first started noticing girls (and one in particular).  So, because I knew that the narrator had to be both in his forties in the present day and an eleven years-old, the early ‘80s had to be part of the novel.  And, it just so happens that I randomly chose 1981, but given the number of pop culture and other references throughout the novel, I knew that for it to be authentic, I had to choose a year.  And, 1981 — the peak and really the beginning of the end of the disco era, seemed like the perfect time for a novel that deals with “death” on different levels.

Also, for whatever reason, even though I’m not a fan of disco at all, early on in the process, I thought it would be fun, given the fact that the Bee Gees, John Travolta and a Saturday Night Fever album cover would all be referenced throughout the novel, to name the chapters after actual then-contemporary (i.e., pre-1982) disco songs.  So, for practical reasons, I needed to “pick a date” if you will.  It was fun to research the disco songs of the era and then use them as chapter titles.  With one exception (the chapter entitled “The Death of a Disco Dancer”), each of the chapters are, in fact, named for a real disco song.  And, that explains why instead of a table of contents, there is a “playlist.”

What led to you writing the novel? What was the process like for you?

When I was at BYU, as an American Studies major, I took a “Literature of the American West” survey course taught by Richard Cracroft that included some Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner and something called “Mormon literature.”  Although I had been a  Mormon all my life, I had never heard of any “Mormon literature.”  The class opened a whole new world to me.  Before that class, it had never crossed my mind that my life experience — growing  up in the suburban West as a Mormon — might be worth writing about.  And from then on, I always knew that someday I would write something about that experience.

The process really started with experimenting with some short story writing, parts of which ultimately became a part of this novel and then it really went forward only in fits and starts.  I can’t write sporadically, and I can’t write with a detailed outline.  I have to have large, successive blocks of time to really wrestle with my ideas before I can write with any coherence or flow.  About a year ago I was completely burned out of my job as the general counsel of a large international company, so I quit and took a self-imposed sabbatical for about nine months and did some things I’ve always wanted to do, including taking the sporadically written beginnings of the novel and building upon it until it ultimately became The Death of a Disco Dancer.

How did you get a blurb from Richard Cracroft? What do you think he means when he states that your novel “takes Mormon literary fiction another big step forward”?

As I mentioned, I took a survey course from Professor Cracroft early in my BYU career and was fortunate enough to have chosen a major that I truly loved –American Studies.  The beauty with that major was that it was  a “cafeteria-style” major.   I was free to choose classes from the Humanities, History, English, Art and Political Science disciplines and I found myself gravitating to the English and American History courses, in particular.  And, in large measure, I then chose classes based on who was teaching.  I took several classes from Frank Fox, Neil York, Arthur Bassett and Professor Cracroft and enjoyed all of them and, at the time, Professor Cracroft also happened to be the faculty advisor for the American Studies major. Over the years, I’ve asked him to read things and he has always been such a gracious, generous man and such an advocate for Mormon literature that I thought I would see if he would be interested in reviewing the manuscript of the novel, which he did.  So, in one way or another, I don’t think the book would exist without him.  If I hadn’t have taken that class all those years ago, it probably wouldn’t exist.  And, if he hadn’t reviewed it and given me the confidence and encouragement to move forward with it, it probably would have never been finished.

As far as the “big step forward,” I’m not exactly sure what he meant by that, you would have to ask him, but I’m guessing it’s what I was alluding to before.  I’m no expert in Mormon literature or literary criticism at all, but what I see from the sidelines is a tendency in contemporary LDS fiction toward either the science fiction and dystopian genres, or a tendency toward the historical fiction, romance and chick lit genres.  And, there’s nothing wrong with that.  What I think is missing, to a large degree, however, is a realistic, contemporary treatment of the LDS experience from a believer’s point of view.  At times, LDS fiction has seemed so didactic, formulaic and sugar-coated as to be unrealistic, or so determined to be “realistic” that it tended to completely over-compensate and be antagonistic toward mainstream Mormon culture and/or the Church.  I really wanted to write something about a normal LDS boy and his experience in a realistic, relatively normal, believing LDS family and explore whether that kind of a story is compelling enough to be considered literature.  That “experiment,” if you will, led to The Death of a Disco Dancer.  I think Professor Cracroft sees that uniqueness in this novel — that the mainstream LDS experience in and of itself is worthy of literary treatment.  So, I’m guessing that’s what he means by the “big step.”

The major irony in all this is that I don’t think it’s a story that the traditional LDS publishers have the guts to publish or sell.  And, in my mind, that’s symptomatic of a larger obstacle in the future development of a truly “Mormon literature.”  The most frustrating comment I received was from another publisher that publishes almost exclusively LDS titles and LDS based fiction.  This particular publisher told me that the content was “inappropriate for our readership.”  Obviously, everyone  is entitled to his or her opinion, but I think sometimes there is a certain hypocrisy in popular Mormon culture.  Does anyone really think, for example, that if a realistic movie about the Book of Mormon were ever made that it could not be R-rated?  Figures like J. Golden Kimball (and his beloved use of colorful language), Orrin Porter Rockwell (and his mythic status as Mormon avenger) and professional football players too numerous to name (who earn their fame by, arguably, breaking the Sabbath) are revered figures in Mormon culture, but if an author (speaking through a teenage narrator with a real teenage voice) makes a reference to testicles, or, heaven forbid, uses the word “balls” or “nuts,” it’s considered “too edgy” or “inappropriate.”  That’s been frustrating, but I also think it’s pretty funny.  So, maybe the “big step forward” is that I’ve managed to write a novel that is faith promoting, maybe even testimony building, maybe even “virtuous, lovely or of good report” but also manages to use a few tried and true (and maybe even some new) slang terms for testicles and other bodily functions to get there.

What other works have you written?

The Death of a Disco Dancer is my first novel.  I’ve had a couple of stories published:  “Rock, Squeak, Wheeze” in Sunstone and “Candle” in Irreantum.

What works (of any form or genre) are really connecting with you in the world of Mormon art and beyond right now?

About a year ago, my sister introduced me to the music of a collective group of LDS musicians that recorded an album and performs as “The Lower Lights.”  They perform hymns in what they call a “revival” style.  The music is very earthy, organic, folksy and almost bluesy.  The music is fantastic and they play with fervor and passion.  Imagine standing, clapping and stomping your feet to… a hymn.  It’s unusual but it works so well.  They’ve released one album together, which is fantastic.  Theirs is the type of LDS art that I’m most interested in — that which meets the definition of the 13^th Article of Faith but interprets life through a totally unique lens within the LDS experience.  See www.thelowerlights.com.

Another artist that I’m really high on right now is Kent Christensen, an LDS artist that splits his time between New York and Sundance and regularly exhibits in London and Salt Lake City.  For the last few years, he has been painting well known images of candy, cakes and other treats that he likens to “Mormon heroin.”  At first glance, his art looks like “pop art” and I guess it is, to a certain extent, but his work while both funny and playful also always has a deeper meaning and is quite thought-provoking.  See www.kentchristensen.com

What’s next for you on the creative front?

I’m about one-third of the way finished with my second novel, a legal thriller that draws on my fifteen years in the trenches as a corporate transactional lawyer in some of America’s biggest corporate law firms and companies.

Bio:

David Clark has been a corporate attorney, specializing in mergers and acquisitions for over fifteen years. He has had stories published in Sunstone and Irreantum and has been an award winner and finalist in the Brookie and D.K. Brown Memorial Fiction Contest. David has a B.A. in American Studies from Brigham Young University. While at BYU, he served as Editor of the now defunct American Studies Forum. David also has a J.D. from George Washington University, where he served as Articles Editor of the George Washington Journal of International Law & Economics. After graduating from GW, he lived in New York City and then San Diego before returning to his hometown, Mesa, Arizona, where he lives with his wife Robin Cash Clark and their four children.  David has worked at some of the nation’s most prominent law firms and was formerly the general counsel of a major international media company. The Death of a Disco Dancer is his first novel.

Thanks, David!

CALL FOR CONTEST SUBMISSIONS

Now announcing the first ever Mormon Lit Blitz Writing Contest organized by James Goldberg and Scott Hales. Send up to three submissions by 15 January, 2012 to mormonlitblitz@gmail.com for a chance to win a Kindle and more.

What we want:
Short work for Mormons to be published and read online.

The details:
“Short” means under 1,000 words.

“Work” means creative writing in any genre, from literary realism to far future science fiction, and in any form: fiction, essay, poetry, even play or screenplay if you can keep it under 1,000 words. Give us a tiny, polished gem we can show off to people who love Mormonism and love great writing but  “know not where to find” a place where the two meet.

“For Mormons” means for committed Latter-day Saints. Yes, that’s an extremely diverse audience (see the “I’m a Mormon” campaign — and your ward members), but it’s also an audience with distinctive shared values and history that don’t often get attention in creative work. We want you to write something that will appeal to us as people who believe in the sacred, who have ridiculous numbers of brothers and sisters we see every week, who worry about being good and faithful servants no matter what our day jobs are and wonder what it will be like to meet our grandparents’ grandparents in heaven. We don’t need your pieces to preach to us. We do need them to combine your creativity and religious commitment in a way that excites us and gives us something cool to talk about with our Mormon friends.

“To be published and read online” means we’re going to post six to twelve finalists’ pieces on Mormon Artist magazine’s blog (www.mormonartist.net) and then ask readers to vote on their favorites.

One catch: since even 1,000 words can be intimidating on a screen, your piece needs a strong hook of no more than 120 words (or eight lines for poetry) to be visible on the main blog page. Mark the end of your hook with [MORE]. Even our editors will only read further if you’ve piqued their interest.

Submission Guidelines:
Submissions must have fewer than 1,000 words with a hook no longer than 120 words (or eight lines for poetry). Submissions must be engaging to Latter-day Saints and engage with their Mormon identity in some way.

Authors may submit up to three works. Each submission must be attached to an email as a .doc or .pdf file. The selection process is blind, so the author’s name should not appear on the document.

Email any questions and your submissions to mormonlitblitz@gmail.com. Submission emails should contain the author’s name, the titles of each submission, and contact information (telephone number or email address).

By submitting, authors give us the one-time rights to publish their work electronically. Previously published work is OK if you still have the rights to the piece and if it meets the above contest requirements (don’t forget to add a [MORE] tag to the end of your hook).

The prize:
The contest editors will select six to twelve finalists. All finalists will have their short works published online starting in mid-February 2012 and actively promoted across the LDS blogosphere by the Mormon Lit Blitz team.

After all pieces have been published, readers will vote on a single Grand Prize Winner, who will receive a Kindle pre-loaded with LDS literary works, including Parley P. Pratt’s classic short “A Dialogue Between Joseph Smith and the Devil,” Peculiar Pages’ recent Monsters & Mormons anthology, Zarahemla Books’ Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction, the poetry anthology Fire in the Pasture, and recent issues of Mormon Artist magazine.

Facebook Page first line contest
Theric and I will each choose our favorite Monsters & Mormons-themed first line from those posted to the Facebook page. The two winners will each receive a free e-edition of the anthology. We’ll also announce the other activities as they happen to the page so it’ll be a virtual launch central where you can be entertained by the first lines and see what’s going on elsewhere.

How to Participate: like our Facebook page and check in between 9:00 and 10:10 pm (central) and post your entry/entries to the wall.

Twitter frivolity
Theric will be posting stuff to Twitter. He’ll share a load of links to excerpts and illustrations from the anthology that you may have missed. He will also reprise the game that started the anthology (monster-izing Mormon fiction titles). And whatever madcap-ness we can come up with.

How to Participate: follow Peculiar Pages on Twitter and if you post something use the hashtag #MonstersandMormons

WriteChat.net Contributor Panel Discussion (via group IM)
A year or two ago Elizabeth Beeton, our publisher, created an online chat system specifically for writers called WriteChat. It’s like doing a group Instant Message, and writers hang out there to challenge each other to writing sprints, talk shop, etc. We’re going to use it as a platform to do interviews/panel discussions with our contributors. If there is interest and time, we’ll also take questions from you.

How to Participate: Go to WriteChat.net and sign up for an account (it simply requires a username, email and password and it’s only to be able to log in and chat — you won’t receive emails or anything like that). Please note that it is a Java applet so you may need to install a fresher version of Java and/or approve the running of the applet that runs the chat rooms. If your browser auto-blocks pop ups or certain scripts, you’ll want to look for that and turn that off specifically for that site. I should add that I have tested this, and it’s very cool. And the current denizens are very welcoming and they have been warned of Friday night’s invasion.

If you run into issues: Basic help guide for how to use the chat software | Tech support for the chat software

Google+ Hangout Author Reading/Storytelling
A Google+ Hangout allows for up to 10 people to do a video chat together. Throughout the launch, I will be hosting various contributors and inviting you to join the Hangout. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t yet let us stream the proceedings, so we’ll be limited to 8 of you per Hangout. I will have the contributor read an excerpt from his or her story. We’ll do an interview, maybe take some questions, and then if there’s time, we’ll tell scary/creepy/humorous mission/family/pioneer/folk tales. You know, campfire kind of stuff. This will require a Google+ account, a computer with a webcam, and a decent high speed internet connection. I’m sorry we have the limits. We’ll do as many as we can and get as many of you in as we can.

How to Participate: Circle Monsters & Mormons on Google+. I will circle you back so that you can be notified of and invited to the Hangouts as they occur. If you need to sign up for a Google+ account, you can do that here. Don’t tell Google I said this, but you could sign up just for this event and then not use it otherwise.

Finally, I’m sorry to report that the print version has been delayed. Our publisher Elizabeth Beeton and her family all came down with that evil sickness that’s been going around (or at least one like it has been going around here in Minnesota) and she is down for the count. Now, we are still taking preorders for the trade paperback and this shouldn’t be a huge delay, but it won’t be ready in time for Friday. If you pre-ordered the print version you will definitely receive it soon — we just won’t be able to send them out this weekend like we had hoped.

Thanks again to all of you who have bought the ebook or pre-ordered the trade paperback. I hope you’re enjoying the stories. Please do join us for our virtual launch — it’ll be so much more fun if you participate. See you Friday evening!