In the Lit Blitz Hall of Fame, we celebrate authors published in previous Mormon Lit Lab contests by asking their thoughts on Mormon Lit, writing, and life. Check back twice a month for new Hall of Fame interviews.
Previous Lit Blitz pieces by Gabriel González Núñez (in Spanish and English):
“Cristo en el huerto de Getsemaní”/"Christ in Gethsemane" (11th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz)
"Padrenuestro Multiforme"/"The Lord's Multiform Prayer" (10th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz)
"Un dios en quien confiar"/"The God I Can Trust" (8th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz)
"Anexo documental I"/"Documentary Appendix 1" (Around the World Contest - 2019)
An Essay by Gabriel González Núñez
A writer/reader perspective on the Mormon Lit Blitz
Gabriel González Núñez
Here’s a confession: My life would be so much simpler if I didn’t write. I would just put in my eight hours at work and call it a day. Instead, I’m always thinking about how I need to start writing this or revise that. I get home, and I’m trying to figure out how to steal 30 minutes from family, church, or soccer to sit down and focus on this poem or that story. My mind is always swirling with ideas and need-to-dos. Yes, not writing would be so much simpler… but, alas, it’s just not an option. See, I write because I cannot help it. I feel a creative drive within me that forces me to write. We all feel this need to create in one way or another, and I believe such an urge is a glint of the divinity within. There is something in our nature that compels us to create.
In my case, I create with words. I’ve enjoyed reading ever since I was a teenager, so I developed an almost emotional attachment to words, particularly on paper. So it was inevitable that I would start writing, and in writing, I would inevitable create, at least in part, something akin to Mormon literature. I know that term—Mormon literature—is hard to define. Some time ago I sat in a meeting with Glenn Nelson and asked him how he could tell if something was Mormon art. He answered to the effect that when something is important enough to someone, it will show up in their art. That rang very true. It reminded me of an exchange several years prior with R. de la Lanza. I asked him why he chose to set his novel Eleusis in a Mormon setting. He replied that the world of Latter-day Saints was what he knew best, so that’s what he could write about best. It makes sense. For those of us who write, we end up writing about the things that we know and about the things matter most to us. Those might be secular, of course—I’ve done my fair share of writing outside of the Mormon world and enjoy such writing. But when we care about both the profane and the sacred, if we are Latter-day Saints, we end up dabbling in Mormon literature sooner or later.
Let me exemplify this with how one of my stories came to be. For some time, I’d been thinking about why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the way it is. This question may matter to no one else, but it matters to me. I’d lived—and attended Church—in several countries, so I couldn’t help but think about this. I eventually came to conclude that much of what we do is cultural, largely inherited from Northern European Protestantism via the United States. Much, but not all of it. There is some essence, some core that would be the same no matter what culture the Church had been organized in. But what things are truly the gospel and what things are simply culture? I wanted to explore that idea when one day in Buenos Aires I came across a little pamphlet in Spanish commemorating the 75th anniversary of the dedication of South America for preaching the gospel. I decided to rewrite it but with a uchornic twist: it would be 75 years of the dedication of North America. (I worked and reworked that “pamphlet” until it became the short story “Documentos artículos Norteamérica” / “Documents for the North America Article” as published in Wayfare.) When I was working on that story, I thought about the First Vision, what it might have been like if the restoring prophet had been some marginal figure in a Catholic culture instead of the Protestant farm boy he was, so to explore that idea I next wrote “Anexo documental I” / “Documentary Appendix 1.” I know there are other what-if explorations in different places (e.g., States of Deseret, edited by Wm Morris), so this was just my throwing a few additional ideas out there that can help us think through things.
I find it encouraging that the Mormon Lit Blitz provides opportunities for this kind of exploration. That’s why I’ve enjoyed so many of the pieces in the contest. I’m generally drawn to stories that explore the big ideas, and the Blitz has plenty of those. Many of its finalists have lingered with me, particularly when they help me contemplate the depth of eternity. I was taken by the beauty and the sense of wonder in Santiago Vázquez’s “Recuerdo de la lluvia que no recuerdo” / “The Memory of that Rain I Do Not Remember,” and I was both moved and amazed by the weight of Citlalli H. Xochitiotzin’s “TIEMPO una partícula” / “TIME a particle.” I’ve also enjoyed stories where the big questions are asked playfully but still in meaningful ways, like in Steven Peck’s “Avek, Who Is Distributed” or in Mattathias Westwood’s “Final Report.” That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed other types of pieces in the Blitz, including some of its challenging poetry (think Sarah Dunster’s “Remnant”). The truth is, though, that there are some folks out there that matter what they write, you know it’s going to be worth your time, including (but not limited to) Alixa Brobbey, Darlene Young, Eric Jepson, James Goldberg, Katherine Cowley, Kevin Klein, Lee Allred, Liz Busby, Mario Montani, Merrijane Rice, R. de la Lanza, Scott Hales, Wm Morris...
It’s because of those voices that I always look forward to the Blitz. It’s how they write but also what they write. So, come the next contest, I’ll be reading the finalists. And from time to time—I can’t help myself—I’ll throw a piece in there and cross my fingers.
Thank you, Gabriel González Núñez, for sharing your insights with us for the Lit Blitz Hall of Fame!
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