April 2021

Editor’s Note

I live with my husband and three young sons on the gentle eastern slope of a valley cut through by a creek. The western hill climbs steep and is overspread with boulders carried by an ancient glacier. Stone tossed against stone creates cracks and holes; one triangle crevasse is so deep and dark, we call it the bear cave. It is spring, and my sons tell me the bear will come out soon.

Primarily a creative nonfiction writer, I am motivated by the origins of the verb form of “essay”: to try. I believe literature, unlike much informational and theoretical writing, does not solve so much as it attempts to capture in words ineffable parts of the human experience. Literature does not promise a destination; rather, it creates a new form of transport, a “line of words,” as Annie Dillard says, that moves us to surprising places. Literature may take us on an adventure up a hill to a crack in the granite, where we find shelter, sense daylight, and emerge when hungry.

Our April authors pry open these cracks for me. I find myself entering and re-entering their writing to feel around for what’s there, to witness what comes to light. In Kitty Jospé’s “Where Love Needs No Proof,” a chance meeting results in a single touch, and with it, the narrowest sliver of hope. In Jonie McIntire’s “After You’ve Saved a Life,” out of silence comes a ring, and a voice in need reaches a voice that can help. And in Dawn Denham’s “A Brief History of Blue,” mud wasps nest on a blue porch, the porch hugs a house, and out of that house materializes a reassembled life.

Our companions this month lead me to surprises as well. The son of two former slaves becomes an icon of the American folk music revival, often writing songs in the aftermath of tragic river floods. A Greek immigrant uses elemental color to create vibrant images that seem to dance on the page. A tower of humans balances upon the strength of one, on the soles of his feet, simply to show that it’s possible, that it’s beautiful. And hidden inside blustering Tweets, we find, of all things, love.

Last week, the first wasp made its way through my attic vent. The first stinkbug buzzed through the hole in our screen door. The first tulips pushed through the mulch by the fence. It is April, and with these tiny births—encounters and phone calls and houses, wasps and tulips and awakening bears—the world is made new.

Suzanne Farrell Smith

January 2021

Editor’s Note

“This is a day to remember, frankly, in a year to forget.” — British Health Secretary Hancock, announcing approval of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.

Hancock was half-right. 

We have, with one second ticking to midnight, put 2020 behind us. But we will not forget. Like any grief, we carry 2020 forward, to reckon with, to peel apart. To name. 

In my October editor’s note, I asked why we should make art now, in this time of anxiety and hardship. As one answer, I talked about the artist’s drive to document catastrophe. Now I turn to January, and our fifth issue, mulling all that art can do. 

2020 is over. The end of the beginning. For most of us—medical professionals, first responders, politicians, scientists, essential workers, historians, economists, teachers, parents, students, loved ones of the sick and dead—the reckoning has started. For artists, too. 

Our January authors grapple with aftermath. Zebulon Huset sketches the inevitability of loss. Sarah Twombly portrays what happens to a woman when her unseen and unbearable load finally takes its toll. And Heather Diamond traces adult choices to a girlhood game that forces children to peer into an uncertain future. 

January’s companions also steer me into the new year. Pulses of turmoil, mistrust, fear, and loss accompany Zebulon and Sarah’s pieces, while Heather’s friend, artist Sandra York, conveys a hopeful step toward something new. And ice skater Tiina Pakkenan, in the most moving short film I’ve ever seen, shows us that sometimes, what nature and the human body create together is wondrous. 

Why make art now? Art asks big questions, captures human experience in disasters global and local, brings solace and joy, and more. It will do all of these things, always.

Informed by our individual and collective memory of the year that was, we are poised to tell the story. A decade, a generation, a lifetime of art is about to unfold. 

Suzanne Farrell Smith

October 2020

Editor’s Note

Just after midnight on March 3rd, an EF-3 tornado churned through an East Nashville neighborhood, killing five. The tornado missed the home of close friends, with two young children, by two blocks. A few months later, in my Connecticut home, I strapped bike helmets on my boys as we sheltered under a blanket during an Isaias-spawned tornado warning—my first ever. 

As I write, deadly wildfires burn the Pacific Northwest, where two of our October authors live. Tropical storms and hurricanes (so many that we’re into the Greek alphabet) soak the Southeast, where our third author resides. 

Why, in times of fire and flood, do we spend an hour hunting for a word, a day inside an idea, a weekend cutting and pasting… only to return to the original. Why make art now? 

Recently, I came across the Nashville tornado again, in the beautiful “Specific Air” by Rebecca Titus. Titus writes that after the tornado, a friend, whose property was heavily damaged, sent her a text: Let’s document with art. Whenever there is daylight come. There are side streets.

I read those lines over and over. Three lines in a text by an unnamed friend of an author I don’t know who lives close to people I know well. I noted the lack of comma between “daylight” and “come” and read it like a prayer.

Our authors this month write of torrents and wild flora, fire and a hungry sea. Makers of our companion pieces show storms and middle-of-the-night fear, a flight along cello strings and a flower as seen by my six-year-old son.

Let’s continue to document. When our places are burning and flooding, let’s take the side streets if we have to, and make the art we need.

Suzanne Farrell Smith