Discussing the Lit Blitz: Katherine Cowley's "Awkward Old Testament Stories"
Discussing the Lit Blitz, previous finalist Annaliese Lemmon talks with the finalists from our most recent contest about their work.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Annaliese Lemmon: Welcome everyone to the Mormon Lit Lab podcast. I'm Annaliese Lemmon, your host for this series where we discuss the 15th Annual Mormon Lit Blitz. Today, I'm joined by Katherine Cowley, author of "Awkward Old Testament Stories." Welcome, Katherine.
Katherine Cowley: Thank you. Thanks for having me
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. And could you introduce yourself and explain what your experience is with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
Katherine Cowley: So I'm Katherine Cowley. I live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I have three daughters. I'm a writer and a teacher, and I have been a member of the church all my life. And I kind of see writing LDS related stories as a sort of like, tithing for my creative efforts. Like, okay, I need to put some of this back towards, you know, things related to my spirituality and my religion of wanting to kind of contribute a little bit that way
Annaliese Lemmon: Awesome. And congratulations on winning the Audience Choice Award. What is your reaction to that?
Katherine Cowley: I was so very thrilled. I just had so many people messaging me, people I knew, people that I didn't know, saying, "Your story was hilarious and moving and touching," and I just was delighted and surprised
Annaliese Lemmon: That's awesome. Yeah, I enjoyed this story, especially since I am a Sister Wheeley and enjoy some of those weird stories. So what got you into finding and exploring all these awkward stories?
Katherine Cowley: So I decided this year, every time it hits Old Testament year, every four years, I'm like, "I'm gonna read the whole testament again this year," and I never actually succeed, so, 'cause it's a lot, and it's long, and there are hard parts, and there are very long lists that seem like, you know, this is a genealogy, and today we would just have this in a separate file, rather than actually in the main text.
So I've only actually ever read the Old Testament before from the very first page to the very last page continuously one time, and I was 17 years old in high school, and I was competing with my brother, so I think that's why I was able to do it. He won the competition and finished the Old Testament first. He was two years younger than me. So then I, as a point of pride, had to still finish.
So this year I was like, "Nope, I'm actually, actually doing it this year, for real this time." And I, you know, I haven't finished yet, but I'm in Job, so I'm on track at least with Come Follow Me.
It's gonna get dicey towards the end. It always does. But I should be able to finish. But a lot of it was just as I read these stories and really force myself to read and think about them, not just get through them like, "Why is this in here?" There's a lot of stories that my first reaction is either like, "What in the world?" Or, "Why is this in here?" Or sometimes, "Why do we never talk about this at church? This is really cool." Or, "Wow, I'm so glad we never talk about this at church."
So those have kind of, been a lot of my reactions. Like, of course, there's the classic stories that some of them we've sanitized that we do always talk about. So that was kind of one of the major thoughts for the story is just this thought I kept having, "Wow, there are so many awkward stories in here." And so I just wanted to write a story somehow that included awkward Old Testament stories. I didn't know what the story would be about. That's not a story. You know, just a list of stories that's already in there that are awkward isn't a story, but that was kind of the spark.
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah, that's fun. Did you have a favorite story that didn't make the cut or one that would've come up in a separate year instead of the Old Testament?
Katherine Cowley: I mean, I feel like the Old Testament wins at the awkward stories. Like, it beats out all the others. New Testament's second half definitely has some awkward ones, some of which we don't really talk about much. Book of Mormon, the awkward ones we actually talk about so much, like when you really think about it, like Nephi killing Laban, that's actually kind of awkward, but we talk about it so much that if you've been a member of the church for a while, it stops feeling awkward. But if you are fresh to the story, it might feel awkward.
So Book of Mormon, we've talked about all the awkward ones so much they stop feeling awkward. Church history, though, has plenty, but most of them aren't in the Doctrine and Covenants, so it's just, you have to actually know and find your church history.
You know, in Saints you can find these stories. So I feel like Old Testament wins for level of awkward. One of my kids, we were reading out loud after my story was published, and we read the story with Elisha, where he's bald and there's all these little kids and they're making, you know, fun of him. It's something like, "Bald head, bald head."
Annaliese Lemmon: “Go up thou bald head.”
Katherine Cowley: Yeah, "Go up thou bald head." You know, they're sitting there making fun of him, and then they all got killed by a bear. Rips them apart.
Annaliese Lemmon: A she-bear specifically.
Katherine Cowley: A she-bear. So I mean, I feel like this one really should have been in the story, but it wasn't. You know, so that's the one I'm like, "Oh, that would've been great."
There were a couple others that I played with. My daughter was one of my beta readers for the piece, and I had one in that was about the woman in, I think it's in Leviticus or Numbers, and they're like, "Hey, there's no men left in our line of the family. We aren't gonna have any property." So they actually complain to Moses, and they're, like, you know, "Can you do something about this? We think this is wrong." And Moses prays to God, and God's like, "Yeah, this is wrong. They should be able to inherit the property." You know, where they're, like, complaining and kind of correcting a prophet, and he turns to God, and God's like, "Yeah, they're right." You know, so I actually had that one in there at first, and my daughter read it, and she's like, "This just isn't as awkward as the others."
And I was like, "Okay," like, it was doing something I think is interesting, and we don't really like this idea of challenging authority, especially prophetic authority is, you know, that's a little inherently awkward. Like, we don't feel comfortable with that, and there's a lot of ways that could go wrong, but it didn't really fit.
But I wanted something with a woman. If you notice, a lot of my awkward Old Testament stories involve women, because this is a story about two women and two women's relationships. And so I cut that story, and then the one I added was the one that Sister Wheeley shares on Mother's Day during her Mother's Day talk, you know, about, if, you know, your husband thinks you're cheating on him, and then you have to drink, you know, poisoned water, and you'll either get sick, which means you were guilty of adultery, or you'll be fine, and then you'll have babies for him, which means you weren't.
You know, so that one got added because I cut the story of the women complaining to Moses, which I think it fit better. It's a little more awkward, especially by making it a Mother's Day talk. Really, this is not the sort of Mother's Day talk we expect or are asking for.
Annaliese Lemmon: Very true. Yeah, and one of my favorite stories, I think, is, when Deborah and Barak go out against Sisera of the Philistines, and Sisera is actually killed by a woman, Jael, by driving a stake through his temple. And we were watching a video about that for our family home evening, and they left out the whole thing about Jael, and I was mad.
Katherine Cowley: Well, and isn't that the one where he's like, there's one of these stories where a woman kills the guy and he's like, "Ugh, I'm dying and a woman killed me. Servant, you finish me off and say it was you so that way no one knows it was a woman." It might have been a different story, but it's a similar one, you know, the similar idea, and in that one it's hilarious because it recorded in the Old Testament is the guy saying, "Kill me instead and pretend it's you so no one knows that a woman actually did it."
So we get the fact that a woman killed him, and then him trying to get out of anyone knowing is actually recorded word for word. So that's different than your story, but also one of my favorites.
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. And I also feel like this story is a commentary on the perfection that our congregations often project in sacrament meeting, and how being more honest about the many trials we go through, such as if our family members are making harmful choices, if we have doubts, when there's miracles that don't happen, when there's divorce, and all these other things. If we are honest about them, it could actually help bring unity. So what advice would you give to people who want to help promote this in their wards and branches?
Katherine Cowley: Well, yeah, I'll get to the advice in a minute, but yeah, that was one of the things that kind of, that was the other component. So one of the components that came to writing the story was just reading the Old Testament and actually trying to find meat in the stories that are a little weird.
But the other was just anytime I feel something uncomfortable at church, sometimes I have to challenge myself and say, "Okay, why am I feeling uncomfortable here?" Because I definitely have had those moments where I watch a Sister Wheeley up there, and I'm like, "I feel uncomfortable. I hate that this happens in testimony meeting. Can we please stop and not talk about this?" Or, "Oh, you're going off," or, "That's a bad interpretation," or, "That doesn't quite match what was said at conference," or, "You're misquoting." Like, I find myself sometimes feeling uncomfortable in those situations. And so I like to, when I'm writing LDS fiction, take my points of discomfort and interrogate them, because my points of discomfort are often not correct.
Should I feel uncomfortable that someone's sharing what they want to share, or what's bothering them, or what's insightful to them? Not necessarily. Like, there's times when a Sunday school teacher needs to cut someone off or needs to steer a discussion, for sure. But I think too often we dismiss people as soon as we feel this discomfort instead of really listening to them or thinking about the why.
And then too often we have, you know, different sorts of things that we feel like, okay, there's certain sorts of trials we can talk about at church, and there's certain sorts that we can't. We don't talk about if you are struggling with issues with your spouse. No, no, no, we can't talk about that.
When my mom was young, you could not talk about a miscarriage at church. I feel like that's changed a little bit, but I feel like in some congregations that's still, like, a taboo. And so let's say you have a miscarriage, and no one's ever talked about this, of, like, your spiritual experience going through this. And so we have certain categories, like, oh, it's fine to share how you were struggling with this thing, or you needed help with a test, or you got lost, or you were protected in a car accident.
But it's not fine to share certain sorts of doubts, or struggles with a spouse, or certain types of loss. You know? Or like, okay, yeah, well, let's brush over loss. Let's brush over real struggle. Let's brush over those things, because that might challenge someone. And I do feel like then when you go through those things yourself, you don't have that strength from other people.
And so that's kind of, there was the other heart of my story, is taking my discomfort and also interrogating and also believing that we do need to share the sorts of stories that are hard and challenging and the situations. And there are some places where it's not appropriate. Should Sister Wheeley really be sharing about gang rape in front of three-year-olds? Not necessarily. There might have been a better context for this.
You know, so I'm trying to be, like the story is supposed to be funny, but it's also supposed to be serious. You know, maybe that shouldn't have been testimony meeting, but maybe it should have. And so I think if we're trying to do that, like, we have to be, you know, make it a space where people can share.
We have to be willing to sometimes share ourselves and be vulnerable, and I don't like being vulnerable at church. I do not. I have left Relief Society before when I'm like, "Oh, I'm feeling tearing up," or I'm feeling panicky, like I might have a panic attack coming on because I'm feeling uncomfortable. And I have left, which I think actually me leaving Relief Society when I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack is actually a great decision on my part.
But I've also tried to be a little bit more open with things I've struggled with. So for example, when they switched in 2019 a whole bunch of the temple ceremony, I actually had a really horrible experience in the temple my first time back, and actually a number of times after that. But there's this sense, oh, everyone's happy. Everyone's like “This is beautiful. This is wonderful." I just really felt that I should share just a piece of my discomfort one time, and I think it actually made a difference for other people who are struggling.
And so yeah, you have to be willing to share yourself some of these things, but still protect yourself even if you open up and be vulnerable. And be sensitive to the Spirit, I think.
And also when people share things and you feel that discomfort, like interrogate it and say, "Why am I feeling discomfort? Where's this person coming from? How would Christ react?" Would he just, like, block out testimony meeting because someone's sharing something that's a little off doctrine or an unusual story or not something you would feel comfortable sharing?
Like, probably not. Like, you know, in certain circumstances, I'm sure we've all been in a sacrament meeting where either the bishops had to ask someone to step down from testimony meeting, or it's like... This is pretty rare, but you know, where, like, if something gets really off, like, I'm sure Christ would step in and stop it.
Christ was willing to stop things. But for the most part, Christ would listen and see these people and share with these people and understand these people, and it's hard for us to do that sometimes.
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that perspective 'cause I've often, lately especially, been more in the position of I feel like I'm not getting my needs met because like with Job, we’re always, “oh, he was always so trusting in God” and such, but read chapter three and he wished he'd never been born, and we never talk about that.
I'm like, well, that’s more relatable to me than the other things. But also just I do appreciate the, I've not felt as much on the other side and so I really appreciate you bringing that up about how we in the audience hearing that can help promote that.
Katherine Cowley: Yeah, and I do think that's the other thing we do with the stories is sanitizing them. I'm a seminary teacher. I'm starting my fifth year as a seminary teacher, which is a lot of years. I'm getting back to repeating lessons, which is actually quite an accomplishment. Don't know if I should have made it this far.
But sometimes the lessons are really good and deal with difficulty, and sometimes they skip the verses like the one that you just mentioned in Job that give the real context or show the nuance. And, you know, obviously you have to be careful if you're teaching youth and using pre-prepared materials, but sometimes I pull in a couple extra verses from the chapter that show the hard stuff or the weird stuff or the weird consequences to people's actions and then they were smitten and blah, blah, blah, and 1,300 of the Israelites died because they did this.
Like, why are we sharing the rest of the story but skipping this? And sometimes I've started sometimes bringing those in to seminary, and it's really useful. There was a seminary lesson earlier this year about... so we kind of have the three generations, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And the lesson was about how, Isaac and Rebecca is a great example of celestial marriage.
And I was just like, "Ugh, I mean, I don't, I don't know that that's really what this is teaching." Like, she, like, ends up having to lie to him and do all these weird things, and there's all this stuff going on, but I'm not really sure this is about this. And then there's the Jacob lesson with Rachel and Leah, and so, you know, and it's all just about, like, celestial marriage is great, and we can be inspired by the story.
And I, you know, for one of these lessons, I was just like, I didn't have time, and so I just printed exactly what the lesson manual said and had the group discussion. And as the groups are working on these things, one of these youth is like, "I just don't get it. What am I supposed to learn from celestial marriage from this story of, you know, these..."
And she's like, "And I don't get it. I don't think this makes me want to get married. This is, you know, these relationships are not what I'd want a celestial marriage to look like." And I just thought, "Okay." And so I just had a real discussion with this youth, you know, junior in high school, who's, you know, getting pretty close to adulthood.
Like, "Yeah, I don't really get that from that story either. What are some things we actually could learn from this story about relationships? What are some things that are actually in the text?" And we ended up having a really good discussion.
And so most of the time, for example, I feel like the seminary manual is really good at having relevant take-homes from the things. But sometimes we're trying to, like, wrest the scriptures too much and make them mean what we want them to mean. And, I don't know that, you know, Isaac or Jacob are either of them examples that help us understand what we understand about celestial marriage today, so maybe we shouldn't teach them as that.
Maybe we should find other things about those stories to learn from.
Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. And also sometimes the kids we teach are just interested in different things. Like, I remember teaching nine-year-olds about the Book of Mormon, and it was in the 3 Nephi chapters, and it was a class of a bunch of boys, and one of them said, "When does somebody die again?"
Katherine Cowley: Like, this is what actually matters here
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. It's like, yeah, there's all this nice stuff that Jesus is teaching, but they care about the action.
Katherine Cowley: Yeah. Yeah, and sometimes we have that in church where we become too concerned about what the lesson is or the take-home or the thing that we are trying to teach instead of leaving it open. James Goldberg actually had a lecture, which was then posted online recently, talking about sometimes, like, why we shouldn't just AI our scriptures.
'Cause AI can read a chapter and give us some of these classic lessons, like, you know, what can we learn, you know? While some of the process should, you know, yes, it's good to come up with these lessons, but sometimes it's just good to read and experience and struggle with the scriptures and to not always try to be taking specific things from it, like the process itself and the struggle and the, you know, the meandering, or maybe we are interested in this death or this weird thing, and that is sometimes just as useful if not more than, like, let's get a lesson out of this chapter.
Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I remember reading the parable of the 10 virgins and getting an interpretation that was different from the standard that we often talk about, but it was very personal to me and very meaningful. And yeah, that's not something that AI could ever give us.
Katherine Cowley: Yeah, and I think we lose something like, I think it's awesome that there's all these Come Follow Me podcasts and stuff, but sometimes if we're just always turning to other people's voices and interpretations, we don't leave ourselves space to find our own interpretations, our own application, our own kind of thoughts and journey with it.
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah, I think it's good to be exposed to the other ideas, but it doesn't replace getting our own.
Katherine Cowley: No.
Annaliese Lemmon: All right. And I like to ask this question from everybody. What is a piece of media, any format, any genre, that you recommend for our audience?
Katherine Cowley: Oh, okay. Well, I would actually recommend Merrijane Rice's poetry collections. Like, if you want to, like, kind of play with these scriptures and these scripture stories, she actually has four poetry collections. Each have at least, like, three dozen poems matching up with Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants and church history.
And I just find sometimes reading someone's poetry, you know, because poetry isn't necessarily trying to pin down an answer. It’s trying to open things up. And so instead of, like, pinning down this is the lesson, this is the meaning, it often will make me think about it more. And so I would recommend Merrijane Rice, who is actually a frequent, published author on the Mormon Lit Blitz
Annaliese Lemmon: Yes. She was telling us about those last year, and I do remember reading some of those poems as she posted them on Facebook. And yeah, it’s nice to get the enlightening of... 'cause the poetry's more about the question than it is about an answer. It seems oftentimes.
And do you have any other projects or places to find you online that you'd like to tell our audience about?
Katherine Cowley: I had a longer, you know, so Mormon Lit Blitz is great for short pieces. I have a number of short pieces in the Mormon Lit Blitz. I think this is about my 10th piece or so, this most recent story, in the Lit Blitz.
Annaliese Lemmon: Congratulations.
Katherine Cowley: Thank you. But I have some longer pieces other places. So I have one published earlier this year in Wayfare Magazine, “Judah and the Pit.”
And that actually has another awkward Old Testament story in it. As part of it, has the Judah and Tamar, I think that's her name, story.
Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm
Katherine Cowley: Which is a really fun awkward story, which I couldn't repeat in “Awkward Old Testament Stories” because I'd already used it in a story this year. So I really enjoyed writing that one.
I recommend that. And then I also have my novels, which are not LDS. So if you want Regency spies, Jane Austen meets Napoleon, then my Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet series might be for you.
Annaliese Lemmon: Sounds fun. And thank you so much. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Katherine Cowley: No, I'm just excited. Like, I love this community of Mormon literature around the Mormon Lit Blitz, and I'm excited with your podcast, this chance to kind of get to know the authors and their thoughts and their insights for all their pieces. So thank you for having me on.
Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah, you're welcome. Glad to have you. And we'll see you again
Katherine Cowley: Thanks.
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