The Weekly Atticus (08/04/2018)

What's on the Other End of this Thing? | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,

When I was in junior high, I sent a "Letter to the Editor" to The Houston Chronicle outlining a brief argument against the death penalty. I had done a research paper on capital punishment, and as you can imagine, that had turned me into an authority on the subject. The Chronicle thought so too, apparently, because they printed my short letter. I took this as a sign of things to come. The Washington Post would be next. Woodward, Bernstein, Olimpio.The truth is I was surprised to see my letter (and my name) in print. I remember being excited about it, but not necessarily because of any perceived "fame." What struck me the most about the whole thing was the realization that the newspaper, this thing I had understood to be a one-directional stream of informational content, was actually a community that I could engage in and be a part of. There were actual people on the other end of those pages that showed up on our front lawn each morning in a plastic bag. And those people had received the letter I had sent them, read it, thought about it, and put it in the paper. Now that was cool.For a little over a year, we've been sending out these Weekly Atticus missives. Our hope has been that they would read less like "newsletters," less like one-directional content streams, and more like correspondences that we're carrying on with an active and thoughtful community of writers and readers. One prong of our mission is to “provoke and encourage conversation” and The Weekly Atticus is one way we hope to achieve that, in part, through the personal letters from our editors that begin each one.But you know what I've found? It can often feel just as lonely and one-directional on the other end of a magazine or journal. That is why it's nice to get letters back from you from time to time. It can seem as though we don't need letters so much in today's world of social media interactions, but I think our culture is becoming aware of the fact that social media can be a pretty toxic, lonely thing to many people. Because the conversations that take place over social media are public, it means all parties are always in a kind of self-conscious "ego" mode. And so when you read a person's tweets or comments, you are always left wondering what that person is trying to convey about themself to the world when they make a particular comment. There's a different level of engagement that comes with a letter, a greater intimacy, more authentic. Both the writer and the reader are taking greater care with their words, being more vulnerable, true. It gives me the same feeling I got when my letter to the editor was published in the newspaper many years ago. It's that realization that, oh yeah, there are actually real people on the other end of this thing. A few weeks ago, we received an email from a member of the Atticus community named Wendy. She took the time to voice a little personal frustration over those bugaboos that tend to plague many writers: managing to feel like a "legitimate" writer in the face of numerous rejections, figuring out a way to continue doing it anyway, finding an audience. I appreciated that Wendy had taken the time to reach out to us and make her voice known. This week, with Wendy's permission, we posted her letter along with our response on our blog. We'll continue to do this with other letters we receive when we find them particularly thoughtful or helpful to the larger community. We hope that, in doing this, it will help foster a kind of dialogue that goes beyond what social media can do. So, if something’s on your mind with regard to a piece you’ve read here or a topic having to do with the literary world at large, we’d love to hear from you! We invite you to write to us at [email protected].  Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.David OlimpioPublisher & Editor-in-Chief

ATTICUS NEWS

Updates from Atticus Review contributors Jad Josey, Lillian Ann Slugocki, Lana Spendl, Tara Isabel Zambrano. Congratulations to our Atticus Review family!

A letter from a member of the AR community to the editors about finding an audience:Dear Atticus,I am in a quandary today and your email arrived, so guess what? You have become the vessel into which my angst will pour...

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

BOOK REVIEW: MORE THAN JUST THE BIG APPLEA review of CITYSCAPES by Janet TaliaferroReview by Bailey Drumm"...so whether you’re a native, a frequent visitor, or someone with passing familiarity, there’s at least one story inside this collection that could be your New York."READ ON

FICTION: HALF TANKby Benjamin Woodard"The old lady shook. A gas hose, detached from the pump, chased her rear bumper like a rat’s tail."READ ON

POETRY: ONE VARIATION ON BEAUTYby SM Stubbs"The talk turns to favorite books and he wonderswhy there aren’t more things writtenabout guys drinking after work, sun going down,watching flies gather in the shade of a wooden swing,how they plague the rough bone he gave his dogthe day before, how they pester the dog’s seeping eyes,and then a dozen black birds settleon the oak’s lower branches away from the heat."READ ON

CNF: ON A DAY SO SEARINGLY HOT MY MOTHER GOES SWIMMING, MY FATHER DOES NOT INVITE ME TO A TOM PETTY CONCERTby Krys Malcolm Belc*2018 Flash CNF 2nd prize winner!"Although I have seen photographs of my mother in a swimsuit I can’t remember ever actually seeing her swim."READ ON

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