The Weekly Atticus (10/14/2017)

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

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Dear ,Here's my son at urgent care a couple days ago: He fractured his wrist when he dismounted sloppily from one of the trees he climbs regularly at school. He’s gotten many minor scrapes from climbing these trees the past three to four years, but this is the first time we’ve had to take him to see a doctor. Why is he smiling despite that his arm aches? In part I think because fracturing a bone is a new experience. Having his arm put in a splint is a new experience, too. But also because a fractured wrist is a trophy scar. Not all scars are created equal, of course, but scars we earn from challenging ourselves are generally scars we wear with pride. They are evidence of our having tried, evidence of our growth. One of the first questions the healthcare provider asked was, how did this happen? When we told her, she then asked why on earth the school allows the children to climb trees. I didn’t know what to say to that. I love that my child attends a school where he’s allowed to climb trees, and where there are big, beautiful trees to climb. I hang out from time to time with a group of writers in Tucson, including Assistant Fiction Editor Reneé Bibby, and this year, for the first time, we have a rejection contest running. We’re tallying up our submission rejections month-to-month. At the end of the year, the writer with the most rejections wins a trophy. There are eight of us participating, and I don’t mind sharing that I’m in second place right now with 80 rejections. The writer in the lead has 106. If you think that number means her writing isn’t so good, you’re wrong. She’s a fabulous writer. Rejections are simply the necessary scrapes in the life of a writer. The point of the contest is to celebrate these rejections as the accomplishments that they are, and to make this aspect of the writing life a little less lonely.I recall a writer who lamented to me that she still hadn’t published a story after several years of submitting her work. When I asked about her submission history, she revealed that she’d submitted only one story and to only a handful of journals. I got the sense that she agonized over each rejection, that each rejection was a severe blow to her, like a bone fracture rather than a minor scrape. And so each rejection required a long recovery period. And so she made little progress.I’ve been thinking about my son’s healthcare provider’s question: Why does the school allow the children to climb trees? Or put another way: what is the value in allowing children to climb trees when there’s a risk they could fall and break their bones?First off, falls and broken bones are extremely rare. Second, even when they do happen, most of these injuries are temporary. They heal. There’s value in learning that.Also, there’s value in getting used to those much more common scrapes. There’s value in learning to overcome the fear of injury. The alternative, if you stay planted on the earth, is that you look up with envy and wonder at the climbers. Thanks for reading. We're glad you're here.

Michelle RossFiction Editor

ATTICUS NEWS

EIGHT DAYS LEFT TO SUBMIT TO OURFLASH FICTION CONTEST!SUBMIT HERE!First Prize: $250Second Prize: $75Third Prize: $25Deadline: October 22nd, 2017Winner Announced: November 27th, 2017

THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

DUGAN

Bordering the GrotesqueA Review of PLANET GRIM by Alex Behr Review by Katya Ellis"If you’re looking for something refreshing, different, and undoubtedly exciting, look no further than this collection. Behr’s unconventional imagery and beautiful, minimalistic tone set the stage for a truly eccentric debut collection."READ MORE

FICTION: SECRETBy Glen Pourciau "Have you told?""Not yet.""There’s a reason you haven’t. You don't feel right about it."READ MORE

FEATURED POET: MICHELLE BITTINGMichelle Bitting's poetry hums with equal parts accessibility and wildness, a certain measured flintiness born from combining academic polish with proletariat wrath. These poems seem at home in sunny gardens, sure, but they thrive just as well in dark rooms scattered with broken glass. That’s because there’s a transcendent quality here, a secret power shared by so many other great poets who have graced our roster.READ MORE

CNF: PARTIAL ECLIPSEBy Stacy Murison"The sky filled me with fear. The vastness and loneliness of space juxtaposed with the confines and blankness of our street, the cul-de-sac circling and circling to nowhere, really. But wasn’t space also nowhere, really?"READ MORE

pscyhoanaLITical: Relationships Being Everything, Of CourseHey, hey! There's a new pscyhoanaLITical from Boo Trundle. Today's topics: Tropic of Cancer, "therapeutic fiction," and how "spiritual" can be a naughty word in the literary dinner-table conversation.WATCH THE VIDEO

FILM REVIEW: BLADE RUNNER 2049Director: Denis VilleneuveReview by Emily Moeck"The film picks up the task of its forbearer as it grapples with the theme of what it means to be human, more than filling its predecessor’s shoes and forging its own path towards cinematic greatness."READ FULL REVIEW