Discussing the Lit Blitz: Michelle Graabek-Wallace's "Lifecycle of Strawberries"

n 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 Michelle Graabek-Wallace, author of “Lifecycle of Strawberries.” Welcome Michelle. 

Michelle: Hi!

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

Michelle: Yeah, so as you said, my name's Michelle Graabek-Wallace. I grew up in the Church in Europe. I am originally from Denmark, but I've also lived in England, Ireland, and Italy. In my day job, I'm a historian, but I've always loved creative writing. 

As a historian, one of the periods I'm fascinated with is the 19th Century and the Danish Latter-day Saint immigrants that joined the Church in Denmark and then immigrated to Utah. Especially 'cause a lot of them were writers and poets. And I love this idea of a tradition of Danish Latter-day Saint Literature and try to create my own part of that tradition and experience of what it means to be a Danish Latter-day Saint.

Annaliese Lemmon: That's beautiful. I love that. And I felt like this essay had a beautiful description of your childhood. And so how long did it take you to believe your mother, in that weeding builds character?

Michelle: So I don't think I ever disbelieved her. If anything, I think I did believe her because it stuck with me. But that doesn't mean that I necessarily wanted to do it. There are many things that we know we should do, but we don't necessarily want to do them, even though we know that they make us healthier, wiser, better people. And I think a big part of building character is learning to do it anyway because we know it's worth it.

Annaliese Lemmon: Yeah. In the essay, you compare Christ to straw that lifts the heads and hands that hang down. Just curious, when has he done that for you?

Michelle: He’s done that many times for me throughout my life, and I hope that that's a thing that resonates with many people. It's something where, as a writer, I feel like there's usually always something in your writing that surprises you. And I feel like this is one of the parts in this piece of writing that actually somewhat surprised me.

To me, obviously I was reflecting on my memory of the strawberry patch that we had and the work that went into it. And the memory of tucking the straw under the strawberries was particularly vivid to me. And so that's something I knew that I wanted to include it. And so this phrase came to my mind like, can I compare Christ to straw? And that in the piece I then compare it to, you know, He leaves the hard work of the growth to me, but He's lifting the hands and the heads that hang down. 

And there are many moments that He's done that with me. One particular moment is a couple years ago I was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition. I’d just moved to Italy to study and I felt very far from home, very alone. Didn't speak the language. But I had a fantastic ward family that really supported me, gave me blessings, made sure I always had someone to turn to, and it was definitely a period where I felt lifted by God and by my church community.

Annaliese Lemmon: That's very nice. Were there any other parts that surprised you in writing this?

Michelle: That's a good question. I think I very much came from the perspective of, this was kinda like a scene from my childhood that was very memorable to me and that I definitely had this memory of my mom saying, you know, God put Adam in a garden. And that was kinda like the foundation of the piece, that I knew I had this memory and I wanted to relate it to what are some of the spiritual things we can learn from that.

And so for me it is an exploration of, you know, what are some of the spiritual things I can learn from this core childhood memory.

Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. And have you continued gardening since childhood?

Michelle: I try to. I have yet to live somewhere where I own my own garden. So it's mostly like window sill pots. I don't have a particularly green thumb. My mother does. My mom has always had beautiful lush gardens. I try and I think the key thing is I keep trying.

Annaliese Lemmon: Uhhuh. Yeah. I keep trying and not succeeding. Even though I do have places with garden areas. I need to have plants that survive through benign neglect. 'cause I have such a black thumb.

Michelle: Yeah, I've tried to research, you know, hardy plants, plants that can survive anything with some chance of success.

Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. I did get a patch of strawberries growing when we lived in Washington, but here in Arizona, I'm not so sure they're gonna survive the summer. I do have a strawberry there, but it's quite brown right now.

Michelle: I moved to Utah with my husband last year, and I've been trying to grow strawberries with no success at all. It's definitely very different to grow things in Utah compared to Denmark and England, where there's a lot more rain.

Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. I bet. Do you have a piece of media, any format, any genre that you would recommend for our audience?

Michelle: So one of my favorite pieces is Song of Names, which is edited by James Goldberg and Ardis Parshall. It's a collection of poetry inspired by historical Latter-day Saints. So, as a historian, I love the historical aspect of it, but they're also just beautiful poems, which explore what it means to be a Latter-day Saint across time and space and the various struggles and beauty that comes along with that.

Annaliese Lemmon: Mm-hmm. That's nice. And do you have any other projects or places to find you online that you'd like to tell our audience about?

Michelle: Not really writing projects. As I said in my day job, I'm a historian. One of the projects I work on is I'm currently the chair of the Global Mormon Studies research network. That takes up a lot of my time. It's an organization that supports scholars doing research in global Mormon studies, especially scholars outside the US and emerging scholars.

And if you're interested, you can learn more globalmormonstudies.org.

Annaliese Lemmon: Very nice. Do you have anything else that you'd like to share about this story or your experience in the Mormon Lit Blitz?

Michelle: I've loved being part of the Mormon Lit Blitz. As I said, my day job is not as an author, but it's something that I've always loved, and so I had a friend that encouraged me to participate and it's just been a really wonderful way to explore what it is to be a Latter-day Saint through writing.

And that's something that I really enjoy doing every year.

Annaliese Lemmon: All good. And thank you so much for joining us. We had a nice conversation. And I hope we'll see you again.

Michelle: Sounds good.

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