Author Description

The writing in this issue is about as varied as it gets. We bring you the profoundly serious, the deliciously melancholy and the jauntily comic; seasoned writers and first-timers. You'll find work set in India, the Midwest, Hollywood, Canada and the islands of St. Kilda, in the Atlantic (had you heard of them? I hadn't)--to name a few of the places the writers go. Jobs and the workplace figure largely in many of these pieces--though family forms the bedrock of others. There's a story behind every story or essay or poem, and we sometimes hear them in the course of discussing logistical matters--edits, contracts, etc.--with the authors. G.K. Wuori wrote the enigmatic "Digby Fair" in a Canadian hotel room, entirely in longhand--the only story he's written that way. Anne Miano made films before turning to fiction, and Deena Linett published two novels before she tried her hand at poetry. So at least several of the works in this issue are departures for their authors. I think it's safe to say that others mark arrivals, for the authors, at points of greater depth or articulateness or narrative agility--the small milestones toward which serious writers strive. At the heart of the issue, though, are two essays that are of a kind: William Holtz's memoir of a father ill-equipped to be a provider, and Ron Johnson's of his resilient, hard-working mother. Holtz and Johnson have pulled off a noteworthy feat in writing interestingly and significantly about their respective parents. Callous as it sounds to say so, most of the "I remember Mama (Daddy)" essays that I see among our submissions are like snapshots of one's kids: somewhat tedious and unfocused. What Holtz and Johnson give us are, on the one hand vital portraits, drawn with sympathy and precision; (I'm tempted to say "characters," so fully do they come alive on the page). Holtz's essay is additionally memorable because it depicts, albeit with some humor, the impact of America's most severe economic tragedy. The Depres