As the senior fiction/CNF editor, this is my second time playing the lead role in deciding what fiction and CNF is put into the book. I was really proud of the 2019 Fall Edition of Élan and I’m so happy to say that I’m just as proud of this one, if not more. Reading through this edition and seeing the art and the writing fills me with so much pride. Helping showcase these amazing writers and artists’ work is something really special and I am glad I play a part in it.

I say this in every blog post I write, but I always want creative nonfiction in each edition we release. In this edition we have “Faults in a Guitar Strum” by Mia Parola, a creative nonfiction piece about a girl and her father. Even by the first few lines I felt like I was reading something special. Her descriptions of her father and the interactions between the two are really vivid and mirror relationships that we all have with others whether they are our parents, grandparents, etc. I think this piece is really engaging in the way it bridges the line between being really personal but also universal. I’m really happy we have it in our book.

One of my favorite fiction pieces in the book is “How You Learned to Sleepwalk” by Jasper Darnell. Every time I read this piece it’s just as powerful as the first time. This piece lets the reader follow someone who is imagining their father after he has passed away. I think the choice for this story to be in second person is a really strong one because it brings the reader even closer to what is happening. You are truly in the moment and you feel everything the character is feeling. It’s a visceral feeling and almost seems to knock you off your feet when you reach the end. I think of this story kind of similarly as I do to “Faults in Our Guitar Strum” in that we’re seeing something really specific to one person or character’s experience, but can still clearly see ourselves and our relationships in these pieces. I think most of the work in our Spring Edition has this quality to it and that’s a part of what makes it all so meaningful.

Now I want to talk a bit about the art in this edition. It has some of my favorite art that I’ve seen in Élan. A piece I love is Faces of Happiness by Sena Sugunama. I love how joyful it is and I feel like it pairs well with pieces about family. It stuck out to me from the moment I saw it. Another piece I really like is Eldest Child by Erin Murphy. When I first saw it I immediately thought of the Madonna and Child painting from our 2019 Fall Online Edition. It’s a really well done piece and when paired next to “When My Mother Calls Me To Say She Quits Being My Mother” by Noland Blain becomes even more powerful.

Each edition of Élan I have been a part of seems to have gotten better and better. I feel like we are continuing to improve and that is all thanks to the people who submit their writing and art. They are what makes this book so special and meaningful not only to us as the staff but to our readers as well. I think our Spring Edition has something for everybody to enjoy.

– Anna Howse, Senior Fiction/CNF Editor

This piece in the 2020 spring edition caught my eye as one of the more intriguing pieces in the edition’s contents. Being a long time proponent and voracious consumer of information on space programs around the world, the challenger disaster has always been resounding in abysmal horror and a deep sadness inherent in what the community holds as one of the most revered crews in space history. This poem, told from the perspectives of those who were watching that day beautifully, moved me in a way mere information and research could provide. The poem, separated into vignettes of poetic narrative surrounding the ’86 Challenger Disaster offers a telling and renowned timely narrative on one of the most impactful events of a generation lost to the younger readers of today.

This iteration of our publication has received so many excellent submissions, particularly in the collection of poetry that we have fielded across the world, primarily from younger writers. It is by this demographic of source that this piece aroused our interests for our publication. What makes me so infatuated by its captive narrative is the way the narrative dynamically wove together all of these perspectives from across America to characterize a national tragedy. It is by evident extensive research and investment that Carmichael was able to eloquently capture the national psyche during the horror of the cataclysmic failures that day.

Very rarely am I able to live vicariously through the written word, particularly to the extent of emotional totality that this piece offers. Regardless of my absence in 1986, I am able to capture an inkling of the shock and horror that the families, countrymen and constituents of those astronauts experienced. It is by this aspect of the piece’s nature, that I was so drawn to its content. The piece serves as a necessary memoriam to the sacrifice and honor of the mission’s crew, particularly centering on astronaut-teacher Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to be flow into space, with the intention of broadcasting lessons from within the space shuttle. She is regarded as being a pioneer in both teaching and aeronautics.

The piece’s value lies not just in its value as a reverent piece of literature covering the collective trauma of a nation, but also a journey into the emotional landscape of the millions of Americans looking onward as the shuttle erupted into a ball of flame. When our editors are looking through pieces, rarely do we come across pieces that can doubly accomplish these goals like this. There are very few poetic pieces on events like these, so it is important that we pay reverence to and patronize those that conform to our editorial standard and fulfill our hunger for good and satisfying literature.

Our spring edition is filled with pieces that for me allow for the transcendental vicarious experience mentioned prior. This batch of particularly potent poetry was by far the most fascinating conglomeration of talent I’ve seen in my interactions with our publication. It is for these reasons that I recommend you look into our Spring Edition and read the piece for yourself.

– Sheldon White, Junior Fiction/CNF Editor

Poems are powerful tools. They’re also very versatile. Raleigh Walter, a poet published in our upcoming spring issue, understands this. “Flamenco Shoe” is a poem that we’re very proud to be displaying as it offers so much insight about family, the emotional inheritance that we are forced to bear, and what it means to eulogize someone with a dedication to the truth.

“Flamenco Shoe” begins with an image enshrined in tenderness and articulated with great care. The objects around a person–their modes of circumstance–can come to define them and are often the things we hold onto the strongest, and whether they are “bleached white tube socks” or the “morning newspapers” that punctuate our days, it is important to recall them with precision. And that is perhaps the best description of this poem’s feats: the images, the feelings that constitute our families can often surface nebulously, but here they bubble up with muscular exactness.

From the tenderness, we move to a place of confusion. The speaker’s mother is recalled, and the three generations are linked in a delicately ambiguous braid. In a balancing act, we operate with ambiguity for the rest of the poem and end there with plenty to think about.

I think I love this poem because of its verism. When we write an ode, a eulogy, or remember in any other way, we are so frequently prone to the throes of nostalgia and remain trapped in the constraints of a false positive. Poetry can be used to remember, but that is often a different thing from remembering correctly. The expressions, the linguistic gestures, the intimacy of the images here are astonishingly unforgiving. They evoke feeling with no room for misunderstanding and do not yield to pure adoration or pure disdain.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to revisit the events, the people, the monolithic moments that so profoundly shape us in ways we don’t even recognize. We owe it to ourselves and to them to apply in our looking back the clarity that we have been granted since then. Processing, understanding, intake can be delayed significantly from occurrence. I am reminded of Toni Morrison’s expression of “rememory” in Beloved. Sometimes, memories live on in us–or with us, as sentient beings–and take their own shapes, rear their own heads.

“Flamenco Shoe” processes with sage, mature clarity. It eulogizes with careful mastery. It engages carefully with the rememory. It reminds us all that meditation with respect to the truth is better for us all than blind worship. I am proud to have such a wise contemplation in a magazine designed to uplift youth voices. Sometimes, wisdom can be found in the places we look for it last.

 – Conor Naccarato, Senior Poetry Editor