Read the magazine is a bit of advice that appears in basically any article about submitting to literary magazines. It seems obvious, but a lot of people do not take this step. Sometimes, the magazines are expensive. More often, they are free, but if you are submitting a lot, reading a bit from every magazine can seem daunting.
To make the task easier for myself, I devised a system last summer where I collected a bunch of creative nonfiction pieces that looked good to me and then worked through them in chunks. As previously discussed, keeping a notebook is an essential part of my creative practice.
In addition to my monthly field books, I keep a big yellow notebook dedicated to litmags and writing seminars. As I read through my litmag selections, I jot down lines I like, structural notes, or other observations. Then, when I have several from the same journal, I make some broad notes about what styles, subjects, tones, etc. that journal seems to like. It is not foolproof. I was not accepted to any of the journals in the list below—so maybe don’t listen to me!—but it did help me grow as a writer and often helped get my brain working on creative things when I was having a hard time focusing. It did take some time, but I felt that it was time well spent. I just wish that I could log all that reading to Goodreads.
Recently, I flipped back through my notebook to revisit some of my favorite creative nonfiction pieces from the last year, and I thought I would share them here. Kitchen Table Quarterly has also had some beautiful nonfiction stories, but as the Nonfiction Editor there, I did not keep notes on them in my notebook. Still, give our latest issue a read! (And we re-open for submissions in July!)
So, here are my faves, in no particular order.
My friend Sarah Marty-Schlipf had a stunning story “We Live Here Now” in Hippocampus, in which she elegantly tied gardening and the vulnerability of baby rabbits to feelings of grief and vulnerability in the pandemic. She writes:
“Despite me, the rabbits found shelter in the garden. So did the hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. So did our friends. So did I. When fear or sorrow stalked me, I crept into the center of that circle, sat down amid the sweet peas and sunflowers, and settled into the embrace of that good, green world.”
I also thought about her little bunnies when our chickens were killed in March.
“How to Talk to Your Children About War” by E.A. Aymar in SmokeLong Quarterly took my breath away as the author worked through how trying to tell our children about war pulls at the weak threads that tie ideologies enabling war together. He concludes, “So that night you fall asleep next to your child, because that makes them happy and this is all you can give them. And because you truly desperately love them.
And you hope children will always see the need for gardens.” I have thought about his piece often since it came out and it is heartbreaking every time.
This next selection is actually years old, from The Pinch, but I discovered it over the summer. In “The Annotated Lease,” Katherine Zlabek chillingly tells of a voyeuristic landlord:
“At a dinner with a writer visiting the university, we begin to talk about Sterling. The department chair says, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could have taken care of it.’
I say, ‘I’m from the Midwest. I can deal with it. He just doesn’t understand the things he does.’
The chair says, ‘Spoken like a true victim.’”
The structure of the story, the hook of the annotated lease, drew me in, but the story really works on its own as well.
I write often about grief and “With Flowers” by Kimaya Diggs put into words some aspects of losing a parent I had not been able to articulate. It is such a beautifully written tribute and depiction of mourning:
“I’ve tried to tell this story before. Let me try again. This time with flowers.
My mother died on Mother’s Day. It’s nearly impossible for me to comprehend, because she was my mother. Every store window was crowded with flowers and mother-daughter bullshit, and my to-do list still said pick up flowers after she was dead.”
At Room, Devon Borkowski's "Ten Rules for Living in a Haunted House" has such a good premise and builds on it to a punchy end. Honestly, it was, in brief form, what I hoped Grady Hendrix's novel How to Sell a Haunted House would be.
In The Kenyon Review, "Fossil Land" by A.J. Bermudez oscillates between funerals and antique stores in Nebraska, connecting them both to the fossils of what lived there in ages before: "All of this was underwater once. Nebraska is riddled with palaeoniscoid fishes and xenacanthid sharks. Chimaeroid scales and skeletons, petalodontoid teeth, violent and smooth, beneath all that grass."
“Morning Person” by Amanda Barrett in The Iowa Review moves back and forth in time to tell the story of her sister’s tragic life and death. She tells the story with both fierceness and tenderness and I found it very moving.
"To the Hairstylist Who Always Knows What's Best for Me" by Annie Marhefka in River & South Review uses the occasion of a trip to the salon to access the way that grief works its way into even the more mundane parts of our lives. She also dwells on how the platonic touch of another person can convey so much care and love:
"You stretch out the ends of my hair, feel their texture between your fingers, lean in and inspect my roots, the silvery streaks creeping in at the base of my scalp. You never say no, That won’t work, you don’t have the cheekbones for that or That color will wash you out. You suggest, instead, How about a soft highlight or Maybe a short bob instead? You artfully steer me away from the bad ideas and towards the good decisions."
In Epiphany, "Grande Caramel Macchiato" by Mark Bessen touchingly captures how his relationship with his father evolved after he came out. It also cuts that sweetness with shocking, bitter outbursts of violence. The combination is powerful and the theme of telling a lot about a person by their Starbucks order holds all the elements together well.
Finally, in Cutleaf, "Drinking the Ocean: Notes on Travel and Drowning" is a shocking travel narrative that really leapt off the page as Craig Holt takes the reader on an adventure through guiding cruise passengers on excursions.
That’s it for me this week. What have you read recently that you enjoyed? Let me know in the comments.