With books, magazines and a wealth of literature online, there’s no shortage to finding great reading material. But in that mix, literary journals are often overlooked as sources for compelling writing.
WFIU’s newest podcast Reader’s Radar wants to put more of what journals have to offer out in front of Indiana readers. Each episode highlights selections of short fiction from journals all across the state.
But today, we wanted to look at the other side of that coin: nonfiction. We asked editors from the Indiana Voice Journal and the Sycamore Review for some of their favorite pieces of nonfiction from the past few years. Here are their selections.
“Boylston Street,” by Barbara McLaughlin
Marathons are tests of pure endurance, just as much a race against one’s own ability as against the other runners. McLaughlin’s “Boylston Street” looks at how emotional weight can prove just as taxing as the physical challenge.
“Barbara’s story touched my heart on many levels,” said Indiana Voice Journal Editor-in-Chief Janine Pickett. “It chronicles not only the physical, but the emotional energy it took to run five Boston Marathons, once after her uncle was murdered, and once 10 days after her father died.”
The story is an examination of how McLaughlin found the vigor to power through her personal battles on top of the marathon itself.
“Strength. Softness. Personal details. And an ending that ties everything together,” Pickett said.
“(Woman-with-Sign),” by Hollie Box
This short story by Hollie Box sees how a simple radio news story during her morning routine can send her mind racing. Here a report on a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay opens up her stream of consciousness, transitioning the reader into her frustration with her drinking and smoking habits.
“This is a mode in which a lot of nonfiction writing operates: here is an event, here is where it connects to my experience,” said Carey Compton, nonfiction editor for the Sycamore Review.
The story is also a bit messier than some others, but Compton says she enjoys how the central problem isn’t resolved by the end.
“There’s often an urge to tie everything up neatly at the end, to cleanly exit the story. I prefer stories that leave me picking up their debris long after I’ve left them,” she said.
That’s not to say the story doesn’t leave the reader with something to contemplate. Compton said, “I’m still trying to unpack my feelings about this line: ‘One-way communication isn’t, of course, communication at all. Maybe that is the ultimate torture.’”
“A Secret Door,” by Raymond Greiner
Greiner’s essay is a dense meditation on how he surrounded himself with nature in order to escape from the daily rat race of chasing money and success.
“Greiner lives and writes from a cabin in the woods,” Pickett said. “A former businessman, he’s experienced both sides of the story and demonstrates the unique ability to contrast and compare, to criticise [sic] and choose. His writing makes us think. This essay convinces us to look for our own secret door.”
“Time Inside a Troubled Room,” by Laurie Blauner
There’s a lot to Blauner’s essay. It’s poetic but direct, dense but sprawling. And that experimentation with the format is what drew Compton to it.
“I stuck around for the language and unsettling presence it built for itself in my head,” Compton said. “At first it doesn’t seem to cohere, but as you move through it, perhaps you don’t mind as much. Then, an understanding emerges – one that’s all your own.”
Compton said she was especially fond of how Blauner ruminates on motherhood, marriage, anger and myth, among other themes.
“The writing that sticks with us the longest is that which makes us feel uncomfortable, or unsettled, or off-kilter,” Compton said. “This is a piece you can wander around in, get lost. These puzzle pieces don’t add up to a complete answer, and that’s okay.”
“On the Distractions of Black Glass,” by Gene Eller
One of the more poetic entries, this story looks at the author’s time at Lake Arareco in northern Mexico and evokes the sensory overload of a powerful natural landscape.
“Eller conveys wonderful imagery while moving the story forward. I felt like I was standing there beside the author,” Pickett said. “I could smell the lake. I could see and feel the granite walls and the red pine needles. I actually held my breath when I read the last line.”
“The Number You Have Dialed,” by Joel Wachman
This melancholy story focuses on heavier themes like family, growing old and death, all through the lens – or earpiece, rather – of the family telephone. Wachman recalls stories of how conversations through and about the phone changed as he grew up, and the significance something as simple as a phone number might hold.
“We see the phone intrude on their lives, or connect them,” Compton said. “I also like how this piece treats time – it covers decades and yet doesn’t take long to read. I also don’t feel rushed along or disoriented. Perhaps a sign that the pacing and the scope of the story are working well together.”
Compton said the details of the piece go above and beyond to give it a sense of time and place. The specifics make the story specifically the author’s, while offering an outward connection to the reader.
Compton remarked how a line from the final paragraph has stuck with her: “I can imagine holding the gossamer chip in the palm of my hand, a weightless flake, and a reminder of how life shrinks away, taking all the treasured voices with it,” Wachman writes.
Featured image via Shutterstock.