Truth
Anna Catone - { Histories }
Janlori Goldman - { Bachelard's Cabinet } { The Jewish Gauchos of Entre Rios, 1917 }{ One Good Turn }
Elizabeth Howort - { The Sun, That Great Magician }
Sam Abbott - { It Eats You }
Rachel M. Simon - { Seizure } { Title IX }{ Hometown }{ Swish }
Untruth
Rosa C. Li - { Lucky Elephant }
Ken Cormier - { A Day in the Life of a Conversationalist }
Juan Carlos Reyes - { A War for Rigoberto Chismón }
Rachel M. Simon - { After Life }
We Don't Know and They
Won't Tell Us
Rebecca Keith - { Excerpt from Misdirected Postcard, One }
T.M. De Vos - { Leaving Lake Baikal }
Kamilah Aisha Moon - { Going Under } { Don't Move This Dust }{ Burn }{ After Our Daughter's Autism Diagnosis }
| An Introduction to Issue 8 by Hila Ratzabi |
When founding Storyscape editor Anne Hays called me one day a few months ago to ask how managing Storyscape as interim editor-in-chief was going, I was eager to make a good impression: “Everything’s great! We have all these great poems!” Finding great poems was never a problem for me as poetry editor, but I was a bit worried on the prose side. Sifting through prose submissions takes much more time, and I had gotten into the habit of soliciting poems right after I heard the words come out of poets’ mouths at readings (yes, I’m shameless). But soon enough I began receiving gem after gem from our prose editors, and the issue started to come together almost effortlessly.
We were thrilled to discover a short story by emerging writer Rosa C. Li who explores the experience of an immigrant girl cleaning houses with her mother in “Lucky Elephant”; to become entwined in an existential chess match in Juan Carlos Reyes’s “A War for Rigoberto Chismón”; to see Cezanne anew in Elizabeth Howort’s “The Sun, that Great Magician”; to enter into the tense relationship of a couple traveling in T. M. de Vos’s “Leaving Lake Baikal”; and to witness the harrowing, yet heartfelt journey of a woman tending a friend’s breakdown in Sam Abbott’s pseudonymously authored “It Eats You.” We are proud to present new poems by some of our favorite poets: Rebecca Keith, Anna Catone, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Rachel Simon, and Janlori Goldman.
Our visual art offering for this issue is a special treat from former Storyscape poetry editor Maya Pindyck, a collaboration with photographer and poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths, entitled “OBSERVE.” This photographic series explores issues of Jewish religious/cultural identity and gender, presenting portraits of Jewish subjects dressed in the traditional religious garb normally worn by the opposite sex. For a fun twist, see if you recognize any of the portrait subjects. We have four (that I counted!) past contributors or editors of Storyscape represented.
And what would a Storyscape issue be without an audio contribution from our very own super star Ken Cormier? We always love his work and his performances at our events, and we especially enjoyed his contribution, “A Day in the Life.”
Finally, I want to thank all the editors for their excellent work in helping to shape this issue, to all the contributors for allowing us to showcase their incredible works of art, and to Anne Hays for her guidance, support, and detailed explanations of how things work here at Storyscape. I am honored to be a part of making this journal happen.
Hila Ratzabi
P.S. Should you be attending the AWP conference in Chicago, we’d love to see you at a Storyscape reading in partnership with Interim magazine.
Down the Street: A Reading With Storyscape and Interim
Friday, March 2, 2012
5:00-7:00pm
Quincy Wong Center, 623 S. Wabash Avenue
Featuring:
Elana Bell
Melissa Febos
John Gallaher
Aby Kaupang
Matthew Cooperman
Shelly Oria
Hila Ratzabi
Rachel M. Simon
Sasha Steensen
Jaime Warburton
Maya Pindyck
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
For more details, visit: http://www.facebook.com/events/113456642113814/
