One of the many pleasures of reading the submissions I receive at Connotation Press is appreciating the great variety of themes,
voices, and architectures to be found in creative nonfiction. Examples of the genre can be as different as day and night, to reverse a cliché. Even pieces that address similar subject matter can be so structurally and tonally different that I’m amazed at the writers’ mastery, and I become eager to publish both works.
This month I get to publish two pairs of such essays.
Reading “What the Living Do” by Jacqueline Whitmore and “Your Powers to Date, June 28” by Alan Ramón Clinton, I’m thrilled and impressed that two writers can investigate highly problematic human relationships in ways that are personal, moving, and brilliant, while achieving their affects through narrative strategies that make me marvel that they are writing in the same language, much less the same genre.
And reading “In the Film” by Christina Lutz and “The Decoy of Dying (life imitates photography)” by Cat Fleming, I’m thrilled and impressed that two writers can present meditations on the art of photography that are personal, moving, and brilliant, while achieving their effects through narrative strategies that are as different as a map through the jungle and a sea navigator’s chart.
So let’s go on all of these similar yet distinct journeys. I know you will enjoy these accomplished and divergent pieces.