Discussing the Lit Blitz: Lee Ann Setzer's "Thief"

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 14th annual Mormon Lit Blitz. Today I'm joined by Lee Anne Setzer, author of “Thief.” Welcome, Lee Anne.

Lee Ann Setzer: Thank you.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. Could you introduce yourself and explain what your experience is with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Lee Ann Setzer: Okay. My name is Lee Ann Setzer. I am a writer and I also have a degree in speech language pathology. I work right now at BYU with an early literacy project, which is a mostly writing job that involves editing academic papers, writing advertising copy and composing stories like the goats in coats who float in a boat.  So it’s really variable.

Monday, I think, is my baptism anniversary. I’m a convert and I joined the church the same year the consolidated meeting schedule was introduced. So it’s been a few years. I was the bishop's babysitter during church hours, because apparently they just couldn't wrap their minds around the idea of taking seven children to church for three hours, so they hired a babysitter. And I tagged along and they found another babysitter. And it was a while before someone said, “Hey, have you met the missionaries?” So I was kind of the success of the natural and normal program before natural and normal was a thing, but mostly I tend toward weird and awkward rather than natural and normal.

And I'm just so happy to have been a Lit Blitz finalist. It's been a dream for a while, so I'm really grateful to be here.

Annaliese Lemmon: I really enjoyed your story. So I’d love to dig into the parts that I really liked, at least. For example, I'd never really thought about how Moroni gathered the gold to make the last few pages of the golden plates, but this is a very plausible scenario. So what drew you to this story?

Lee Ann Setzer: Well, in general, I learned a while ago, I wrote a novel about Ruth, and that was an experience, and asking what would this person do and how might they feel if they were just as real as I am? And the answer to that is always—it depends. Who is this person? Where are they coming from? What's their experience? That leads to a dozen different possibilities with the same facts. It doesn’t always lead to a story, but it’s always an interesting question.

So, in Mormon 8:5, Moroni says, I would write more of this record if I had room, but I don't, and ore, I have none. And I’m alone and my father's been slain and all my kinfolk. I don't have any friends and I don’t even know how long the Lord’s gonna let me live. 

So Moroni didn't have any ore. And the infrastructure of civilization has been pulled down by war, and all they had left is stuff that other people made, and even that's of no real use to them in the chaos they've created.

Nephi, he didn’t have ore either, so he went and mined some for his boat building tools. But Moroni had to get far enough away from people trying to kill him to dig or pan for gold. And Nephi, he had a mom back at camp to cook him dinner. So Moroni really had no access to gold at all, just no infrastructure at all.

So the story started with wondering where pages and pages worth of ore came from, and I got snagged by the idea of taking back just a little bit of all that's been lost. And using the gold necklace as a jumping off point to show the memories and the lost possibilities.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. Going with that necklace, I really liked how it belonged to Moroni’s mother and that it seemed like it was emblematic of her own social standing, not just as Mormon's wife. I love that insight 'cause we get so few women characters in The Book of Mormon. Was there research into deciding this role for her?

Lee Ann Setzer: Yeah. I think that started with the gold also, just because the golden plates are so central to our religion. And I wanted to think about that some more. So I’ve looked up what ancient Mesoamerican gold jewelry looked like and got reading about what gold meant in the mythology of like, Mayans. And that's where the part about how the gold held power beyond the grave came up.

And so of course if Moroni’s mother had this enormous golden necklace, because we got enough here for a couple plates of gold here, she had to have some standing in the society. And I liked the idea of corrupt people twisting teachings about life after death, power from beyond the world. We can see the things that are comforting, that we hold onto for truth and peace and light. Then twisting that into something that they could take and own and make it another violation.

But if you’ve got a big, hefty piece of jewelry like that, heavy with symbolic connotations, then it’s right back to what you said. Well, who wore this? And who are these women in The Book of Mormon and what were they doing? How was their society set up? What role did it play in the lives of their children?  And so I kind of made up a woman that went with the necklace.

Annaliese Lemmon: That's cool. I love hearing research stories like that and you have some really vivid imagery with this, and that's something I struggle with in my writing. And you create this world that's very different from our own, very dangerous, but it feels very lived in. So what did you do to develop that skill?

Lee Ann Setzer: It's a really nice thing, and also the aggravating thing about writing for the Mormon Lit Blitz, because a thousand words is just not very many. I think my story was 999 and then I discovered I had a typo and I actually got away with 1,001. But the length forces you to interrogate every word, demand that it justify its presence in your story, or kick it out and find a more interesting one. And the other nice thing about that, though, is that the Lit Blitz readers are really ready and eager to sketch in details that aren't actually there, if you can create a convincing framework.

So in Moroni’s story, it’s going from standing outside the one continual round of bloodshed. And, you know, we read that all the time in The Book of Mormon. So it goes to imagining myself standing there in one particular moment and pulling in plausible details for what that might look like from the point of view of somebody who's bighearted and absolutely true, like Moroni who's seen so much and he is working so hard to hold onto his humanity.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah, you really feel for Moroni in that story, and just really brought him to life. I really liked that. Was there anything else that you wanted to share about this story?

Lee Ann Setzer: I think we're good. Just that it was such a fun opportunity, like you say. I really love Moroni too, and I just always feel those last chapters of The Book of Mormon. So, I really wanted to dig deeper into what his experience might have been and how he might have felt about those things.

Annaliese Lemmon: So do you have a piece of media / literature, any format, any genre that you recommend for our audience?

Lee Ann Setzer: Well, I am currently obsessed with The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. The author lives in Orem. I don't know if she is Mormon, but she has this quirky corner of Victorian England that never was with this amazing main character who creates an astonishing group of friends and this cast of just absolutely off the wall supporting characters and the setting, that is one of the characters. And then the story swoops from hilarious to heartbreaking and back in this plausible and feminist informed way. And the author is super prolific, so I can’t wait until volume nine comes out. So, yeah, highly recommended.

Annaliese Lemmon: I think that might have come up in our book club as a suggestion. So I haven't read it yet, but it sounds fun.

Lee Ann Setzer: You’re gonna be sucked in.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. And do you have any other projects or places to find you online that you'd like to tell our audience about?

Lee Ann Setzer: Yeah. As far as things, I'm working right on right now, I just finished a middle grade fantasy that's out with an agent, so we'll see what happens with that. As far as Book of Mormon fiction, I had a piece about Laban's wife, or no, Laman's wife, called “Compassed About,” which was published in Irreantum. And I also wrote a story that looks at the armies of Helaman through the eyes of this old jaded soldier. That one's called “Last Miracle Standing,” and it was published in Wayfare.

Annaliese Lemmon: And if we wanted to, do you have a website or anything where people can find a list of all these things?

Lee Ann Setzer: I have this blog called…  What is my blog called? You can tell how often I post to it. The answer to the question you wanted was not yes, but I will send you the link. [Look Under Things] That’s really crazy.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. I know that not all authors have that, but I know that it's very helpful, like especially if anyone wants to get that fantasy novel that's with an agent when it comes out.

Lee Ann Setzer: Yeah, yeah absolutely true. And yeah, I'll send you the link.

Annaliese Lemmon: All right. Well I hope you have good luck with that novel, and thank you so much for talking with us today.

Lee Ann Setzer: Yeah, it was lots of fun. Thank you.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. Hope to see you again in the Lit Blitz.

Lee Ann Setzer: Yes, absolutely.

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