Atticus in July

Writing Now, Revisited

July 01, 2023

Atticus in July

On Writing, Now

At an environmental writers' workshop this summer, memoirist Amy Irvine invited some of us to revisit Patricia Lockwood's 2018 essay, "How Do We Write Now?" Perhaps it's easy to forget what 2018 was like given how chaotic and fraught 2023 is, for the world, the country, and the literary community.Lockwood addresses the moment with humility and humor and candor, with the kind of honesty the moment calls for. Rereading it, I admire her approach to the sense of exhaustion that has become ambient. It's strange, too, to read something today that provides me with such a clarity of purpose that was, just five years ago, written from a space of great precarity.Irvine invited us to 1) consider how we would answer the question "How Do We Write Now?" and 2) consider the follow-up, "What do we do if this ends well?" I don't have a good answer for either question, but I do find insight in Body Work, in which Melissa Febos writes, "The work of discerning artistically between the narratives that have been downloaded into your brain and the ones of your own design—this is work that can only follow the work of awakening to it in your own life. It would be convenient in many ways if how we live did not so fundamentally inform what we write, but of course it does" (48).I don't know what kind of writing this moment calls for, exactly, but I do think that literature can provide communities with a clarity of purpose as many of our institutions (among them, yes, the Internet) become increasingly dysfunctional. There's a reason bookstores and libraries have survived moral panics and Sillicon Valley this far. I could be wrong, but I'm going to keep at it as long as you do. 

Atticus in July

We will close for submissions for Issue Five on July 15 in fiction and CNF, and we already closed early for poetry. As always, we will remain open for book review and interview submissions throughout summer.Our special WALKTHROUGH series will run through July 31. Be on the lookout for our last batch of short personal essays drawn from video games.Our next issue will go live in August, and until then, did you know we have four whole previous issues and a decade of archived work that you could be reading right now?In the meantime, I hope you keep writing. The world needs it.Peace,Keene ShortEditor-in-ChiefAtticus Review

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

WALKTHROUGH 8

BORN UNTO TROUBLE

by Derek Harmening

"The boy from Nebraska, who a short time before had been so sure of his place in the world? A mirage."

NEW FROM THE ATTIC

WHERE A MEMOIR IS BORN

a book review by OLGA KATSOVSKIY

"Amy Liptrot's The Instant is a poignant memoir documenting a year of her life abroad in Berlin in the throes of love sparked by a fleeting internet match."

ISSUE FOUR SPOTLIGHT

ELEGY: SHIPROCK 2021, WITH MY TEENAGE SONbyElizabeth Hazen

SUBMISSION CALL

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