Fly Your Many Writing Kites (Naveen Intro) (11/06/2021)

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review. Intro by Naveen Rao.

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November is usually the time of year I start overzealously scheming up writing goals for next year: Finish that draft. Revise and submit that one piece. Grow my community in some specific way. Find an agent. Read a book or an author that’s been on the nightstand for too long. This time around, something feels different; a pause, a quiet. My dad tells me I’m mellowing with age. Maybe it’s the feeling of accelerated stillness wrought by months and months of living in the pandemic. The anticipation of big changes on the horizon, in work, family, and health. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.  But for whatever reason, I’ve been more reflective than usual this autumn, seeing more humanity in the small things, dredging up near-forgotten memories, and letting my stories and characters lounge, and luxuriate in my subconscious, rather than rushing them into the next draft. I stumbled across a beautiful conversation with Sandra Cisneros, in which she talks about turning one’s life into fiction:“But it’s kind of like a kite. You begin with your own story, and the higher it goes, it starts to take off and characters start to say things you would never say. The more you tether it to your life, it won’t go very far. It has to begin from something constructed for me that’s real, and then I just give it more string.” This little passage struck a chord, raising a handful of questions about the relationship we have with stories. What are your kites made of? How high do you want to let them go? How much string do you have to give? When do you know to reel them in, or let them soar away? Whether we are writers or not, we all have fields of kites, don’t we? They’re flying at different heights in our souls, different colors, shapes, and sizes. Some we are afraid to let go very far. Some may be broken, discarded on the ground, and others may have floated away, into the clouds and the great beyond. Going into the holidays, a season of gratitude for some, and hardship for many, I invite you to wonder about what new memories might be rising up in these final weeks of the year? What stories are flying skyward, to join all those others that we hold onto inside?  Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.Naveen RaoFiction Reader

Our Reading List is updated each week. Go check it out!Are you a contributor to Atticus Review who'd like your book featured in the reading list? Send us an email at [email protected]. 

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FICTIONMERCYby Curtis Smith"She sees herself, a girl traumatized by nature shows, the predators that fed upon the weak. She opens her mouth but says nothing, powerless to explain the cruelties of hyenas and little boys."READ ON

POETRYDREAMER DREAMING (A PANDEMIC POEM)by Kathryn Petruccelli"last night, I dreamt a dream in which everyonewas wearing a mask. I had gotten a job drivinga city bus on routes I didn’t know eleven hours a day,and, also, I was a singer."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONFRECKLEDby Tanya E. Friedman"Her words pierce, burn. I want the clear skin of every model, movie star, popular girl."READ ON

MIXED MEDIATHE WIND UNDER THE DOOR: COLLAGESby Thomas Calder "In between rounds of edits for my debut novel, The Wind Under the Door, I began work on a series of collages inspired by the story. My book’s main character, Ford Carson, is a collage artist. I figured it’d be fun and informative to engage in his craft."READ ON

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