The Next Best Version of You (Chauna Intro) (03/27/2021)

A recap of the week's writing at Atticus Review and a request for support. Intro by Chauna Craig.

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This week our local school board voted to bring kids back to school face-to-face, full time. My youngest, the family extravert, is delighted, while my information-gathering high schooler, surely a future scientist or public policy analyst, is anxious and disapproving. "It’s still a pandemic," he grumbles to anyone who will still listen. When I arranged a meeting with my new dean, the secretary asked if I preferred Zoom or in-person, and I panicked, knowing that even having that option means our lives are all changing again. "Zoom," I insisted, despite my vaccination and many months spent complaining how I hate remote meetings.The past year has been one long transition from our former business-as-usual toward something we probably can’t yet recognize. I hope we’re moving toward a better world, though not a lot in the local or national news sustains that hope. Still, this year has been surprisingly good for me. The redundancy of my at-home routine had me writing early every morning, and after five intensive months, I finished a draft of a memoir started ten years ago. I thought I’d abandoned that book, but the book hadn’t abandoned me. It was just waiting for me to stop running and settle deeper into myself. All I needed in order to do that was the pandemic of a lifetime. I hope the next book doesn’t require another global crisis (we have plenty already). I hope I’ve learned lessons this year, really learned what I need and who I am now and who I want to be as a writer and human being going forward. I’m looking at those 399 pages of the First Complete Draft, and I’m thinking "Now what?" Before, I was just writing as I was living, day by day. I survived the writing of the book page by page. And now I have to make the transition into seeing what I really have and shaping it into what I want it to be: something richer, deeper, more focused and powerful. I’m moved to finish then move on to whatever comes next. The next best version of the manuscript, the next best version of me.Transitions in writing aren’t much different from transitions in life. Sometimes there are clear indicators—and, so, therefore, next—smooth guides that hold our hands and tell us where we’re going. Or breaks. Gaps between sentences, white space. Chapters. Little openings that ask us to do more of the work to bridge ideas and make connections. I’m breathing into one of those breaks right now, not quite ready for next. And the world is allowing me that. For now. So many of our transitions don’t start with us or align with our wishes. Next day. Next page. Here’s to whatever kind of transitions you need now.Thank you for reading. We’re so glad you’re here.Chauna CraigCreative Nonfiction Editor

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THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FICTIONSTORIES TOLD ON THE SWINGS: THREE FLASH FICTIONSby Frankie McMillan"...you could pierce their swollen guts and such a terrible wind would come out you’d want to fold over and stop breathing but in the world there were even poorer people than Bobby’s uncle..."READ ON

POETRYTHIS IS YOU WISHby Patrick Meeds"You wish you knew more about the chambersof the heart, were more familiar with fallingout the window. You wish you always ran as fastas you could. That you could pull the hook outinstead of having to push it through your thumb."READ ON

CREATIVE NONFICTIONDERIVATION: MICRO-ESSAYS ON WATER, FAMILY, AND SELFby Narisma"...but tomorrow is already so close. It will be like pulling a bristle from a wound, or taking a gulp of sinless morning air. There is a poem waiting to be written. A story waiting to be told. A legacy waiting to be fulfilled."READ ON

MIXED MEDIA3 SIMPLE PREPARATIONSby Joseph Puglisi"These three simple poems describe a fall, an absence, and a resurrection. It's not always through destruction that we find ourselves, but it can be. It can be in the kitchen where transformation takes place, as in the simple act of tearing the pit from a plum. It can be the tears that only come when slicing an onion."READ ON

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