Category Archives: All Journal Content
Genre Writing in the Classroom
By: Christine Schott
When I was an undergraduate, my fiction workshop professor banned genre writing in our class: no fantasy, no sci-fi, no romance, no detective stories. Years later, when I started teaching my own creative writing classes, and I was faced with the same decision as my former professor: do I force my undergraduates to write only literary realism, or do I open the floodgates to whatever they want to bring in?
Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why genre writing is often banned in fiction workshops, and they are legitimate concerns expressed by people who care very much about their art. Most of these concerns, discussed below, have to do with the legitimate desire to teach the principles of good writing and avoid the habits of bad writing: the problem with these objections is that they tend to assume you can’t have good writing that’s also genre. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that banning genre writing is directly counterproductive to my aims as a teacher and as a writer.
The reason my own professor gave for banning genre writing was that she herself was not a reader of genre fiction, and so she couldn’t give us feedback that was consistent with the genre’s conventions. That was a fair point: she couldn’t give us good feedback about world-building conventions in a sci-fi piece because she didn’t read sci-fi. But one of the most powerful aspects of the writing workshop is that the professor is not the only voice in the room. That means the students can be equally valuable in critique as their teachers, particularly because each comes in with their own area of interest and, indeed, expertise. I have never had a student come to class with a piece in a genre so obscure not a single other student in the room is familiar with it. When I don’t know much about stories based on video games, I can almost guarantee that at least a couple other students know more than enough to steer our discussion. And those other students, then, are the intended audience for the story; the fact that I’m not part of that audience doesn’t mean the genre is without value.
The other main reason I’ve heard for banning genre writing is that it is poor in quality, as though subject matter determines how well one can write. A good example of this bias is Janet Burroway’s description of fantasy in her chapter “Form, Plot, and Structure” in Writing Fiction. I love everything else about Burroway’s textbook, but when I teach that chapter, I make my students read Ursula Le Guin’s defense of genre writing alongside it (https://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2012/06/18/le-guin-s-hypothesis/). Her argument breaking down the literary fiction/genre divide is a simple one: “Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. […] Literature consists of many genres, including mystery, science fiction, fantasy, naturalism, [and] realism.” That is, genres do exist, but literary realism is one of them.
If we accept Le Guin’s premise, we don’t have to dispense with the distinction between good and bad writing, but we have to acknowledge that they are not the exclusive purview of one genre or another. Because in the end, isn’t good writing recognizable as good writing in any genre? Doesn’t a good speculative fiction author show instead of tell, use significant detail, create internal conflict, and avoid clichés? Maybe we’re describing a colony on Mars instead of a neighborhood in Charleston, but good description is good description regardless of the subject.
I think we can teach genre writing the same way we teach any kind of writing: we get our students to read books similar to what they’re working on that are well-written and innovative. When we want students to write good literary realist fiction, we don’t give them O. Henry anymore: we give them the best of Raymond Carver or Dennis Johnson. When we want students to write good fantasy, we don’t give them Christopher Paolini or Stephenie Meyer; we give them the best of Diana Wynne Jones or Susanna Clarke. It may mean we have to spend some time reading a book or two in a genre we don’t usually read, but the result is our students having models to emulate.
Fiction teachers object that there is a lot of terrible writing in genre and that their students only absorb and reproduce the tropes of their chosen genre—because, let’s face it: our students come to us having read a lot more Stephenie Meyer than Diana Wynne Jones. I don’t deny it. I only deny the implication that if we make them write literary realism, they will somehow magically become capable of avoiding tropes and clichés. Isn’t the disenchanted middle-class husband a cliché at this point too? And yet we’re still writing literary realist novels about him. I for one would rather read a clichéd story about a dragon than one about a disenchanted middle-class husband.
It’s true that my students writing their first fantasy novel or their first detective story will produce terrible stuff, full of bad writing and tropes I’ve seen a hundred times before. But they would do the exact same thing if I made them write literary realism, only they wouldn’t have any fun doing it. They’re beginning writers: they haven’t yet gained the skills or the range of experience that professionals have. And if I make them write stories about disenchanted middle-class husbands, the risk is that they will lose interest in writing and never gain either one.
My goal as a teacher is not to produce the next Nobel laureate: my goal is to produce writers who have fallen in love with telling stories and who want to improve their skills—not because I tell them that’s what they should aspire to but because they want to become the best storytellers they can. And if that means my students bring in-progress zombie novels to class, well, I’m going to try to help them write the most dazzlingly lyrical, most profoundly meaningful zombie novel that can possibly be written.
Christine Schott teaches literature and creative writing at Erskine College. Her work has appeared in Dappled Things and Casino and is forthcoming in the Gettysburg Review. She holds a PhD in medieval literature from the University of Virginia and an MFA in creative writing from Converse College.
Billy Collins and the Pandemic Haiku
By: B.A. France
I was talking with a friend recently, when she told me that she couldn’t. Couldn’t what, I asked? I rolled into searching for the problem and looking for solutions, living my own cliché, when she stopped me. Anything. I can’t do anything right now, she said. The stay-at-home orders, the constant crawl of news and binging notifications on our smartphones, the steady specter of death, the protests, the fires, the storms, all adds up. I just feel like I can’t do anything creative, she said. I think for many of us, more often than not, she’s right. We can’t. Whatever it is. Not right now.
There was something about the way she phrased it that made me think of Billy Collins. I know, that’s quite a leap from pandemic to poet laureate without even a Kevin Bacon in between. But, there’s a discussion with Marie Howe toward the end of his recent MasterClass on reading and writing poetry when he mentions writing haiku. Collins writes the deceptively simple, but mysteriously complex poems most of us learned about in our early school years. He even published a book of them with Modern Haiku Press a few years ago. He tells Marie and his students that he often treats haiku like a musician playing scales. For him there’s something about the simplicity combined with the strictness of form that is appealing. He tells his viewers that “the haiku doesn’t care about your feelings.” It’s just a moment.
In this time when many of us feel like nothing creative can happen, the simplicity of the haiku and its grounding in the moment might liberate us from the real oppression of COVID19. I’m not talking about political oppression or cultural, but instead the unrelenting and quiet pressure on our souls. Maybe the haiku is exactly the poetry we need right now. Not just some of the poetry we need to be reading, which surely it is, but also the poetry we should be writing.
—
In addition to Japanese masters like Basho and Issa, Collins is only one of many western poets who have adopted the haiku or its cousin the senryu. Jack Kerouac and the Beats (rather famously, and where Collins first picked up the form), ee cummings, Seamus Heaney, and many others have mixed writing haiku with other forms of poetic expression. You don’t have to consider yourself a haikuist (Or is it haijin? That’s a whole other discussion.) to write haiku.
Collins mentions in his Paris Review interview Art of Poetry No. 83 that one of the key elements of poetry is gratitude. He singles out haiku in particular, saying: “Almost every haiku says the same thing: it’s amazing to be alive here.” And while in our present, pandemic times we may not quite feel that way, as the blue light of our phones and laptops saps our attention away, gratitude is something we still need. Haiku’s focus on the world around us gives us a chance for that gratitude to return, for us to ignore our feelings about the pandemic and our dread or worry. Because, as Billy said, the haiku doesn’t care how you feel. Focused on a moment, finding a juxtaposition right in front of you, the time composing a haiku brings observation, art, and gratitude all together. Collins reminds us that poetry and poets are supposed to make us better attuned to “feel grateful just for being alive.”
It is this idea of “the moment” that draws me deeper into haiku during this, our shared moment. In his introduction to Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, Collins describes finding a “haiku moment” nearly anywhere or at any time. For him, it was during walks with his dog along the shore of a nearby lake. But what he describes as the “world of sense impressions that envelops our every waking hour” is the kernel of grit that can result in a haiku pearl, if we are able to inhabit that moment. I know that sounds like the “mindfulness” stuff that today’s meditation gurus seem to be hocking endlessly, but I promise I’m not selling anything. It shouldn’t surprise us, since Basho studied Zen deeply and the haiku springs from the same historical and spiritual roots as “mindfulness.” Collins admits that there are “many people who don’t get haiku,” and that’s ok. There is a lot of poetry that “many people” don’t get, and that doesn’t tend to stop us from writing. He reminds readers that the little poems are “powerful little assertions of the poet’s very existence.” And that sounds like an assertion we should all be making right now.
—
We all learned the haiku as children and the 5-7-5 structure has undoubtedly stuck with most of us. And yes, there is plenty of discussion about form among practitioners. Most modern English-language haikuists don’t ascribe to strict syllable count. Some would insist that I point out the differences between haiku (focused on nature) and senryu (focused on human behavior, often sarcastic). Some would want me to discuss the unique poetic turn of juxtaposition, the kireji or “cutting word” and use of punctuation, or the need for a “season word.” All of these are elements that well versed haiku readers appreciate.
In my way of thinking, for the “pandemic haiku” none of this really matters. As often as we find those details of good form in a haiku, we are just as often struck by verses that do not follow the traditions or which play with them a bit. What matters is being in the moment. What matters is stretching our observational muscles. What matters is finding a moment, just a single moment, to be grateful for. What matters is finding our creativity again. And during this time, working simply with seventeen syllables or less, maybe we will find that we can.
social distancing
waking quietly alone
wind in treetops
B.A. France is a poet and writer living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed whose poetry has appeared in Akitsu Quarterly and cattails.
South 85 Journal Seeking Submissions!
South 85 Journal is currently accepting submissions of Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry until April 15, 2021 and would love to see your work. Take a look at our past issues for a sense of what we like.
• Manuscripts should be sent as an attachment through our Submittable page.
• Fiction submissions should be between 2000 and 5000 words. Please include the word count in an upper corner of the first page.
• Non-fiction submissions should be no longer than 6000 words. Please include the word count in your email.
• Poetry submissions should contain no more than 4 poems up to 8 total pages, one poem per page.
• Please send only one submission per category (Poetry, Fiction, and Non-Fiction) during each reading period. You are welcome to submit to multiple categories.
• We will publish flash fiction, short stories, and novel excerpts, provided they can stand on their own. We do not publish genre fiction or children’s stories.We encourage you to read archives of South 85 Journal and acquaint yourself with the material we publish before submitting your work.
• Type should be no smaller than 12-pt. font. Please use standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica or Goudy, and refrain from script or “flowery” lettering.
• Submissions should be saved in Word or Rich Text format.
• Number pages consecutively, double space, and use margins of at least one inch.
• Place your name, email address, and word count in an upper corner of the first page.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. If it is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your work via Submittable.
• Please include a professional bio of 50 words or fewer written in the third person with your cover letter.
South 85 Journal does not publish work which has been previously published, either in print or online. Our reply time is typically six to eight weeks.
We acquire exclusive first-time Internet rights only. All other rights revert to the author at publication, but we offer formal, written reassignments upon request. Works are also archived online. We are unable to pay for submissions. We ask that whenever an author reprints the work that first appeared in our pages, South 85 Journal be given acknowledgment for the specific work(s) involved.
South 85 Journal at AWP
After much discussion and hand wringing, we have decided to cancel our reading at AWP.
Several contributors have written to say they will not be attending AWP amid concerns related to the coronavirus and while the health risk is difficult to truly gauge, we would really hate to be the cause for quarantine or illness. We plan to organize a reading in Kansas City next year and invite you all to join us then.
If you still plan to attend AWP, stop by the Converse College table (T1932) for some great swag (cell phone pockets) and see our list of scheduled book-signings.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. Hope to see you in 2021.
Welcome to the Fall / Winter 2019 Issue
I am pleased to announce that, as of December 15th, the Fall / Winter Issue of South 85 Journal has been live. Here’s what you’ll find in this issue:
Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Contest Results
- Winner: “Mourning Dove” by Benjamin Garcia
- Honorable Mention: “Distilled Water” by Ethan Joella
- Finalists: “My New Young Wife” by Hal Ackerman, “Chappaquiddick” by Leah Browning and “Pieces” by Kenneth Weene.
Regular Features
We are pleased to present work by the following writers:
- Fiction by Nina Schuyler, Brooke Turner, and Catherine Uroff
- Non-Fiction by Brianne Agnizle, Michelle Renee Hoppe, and Aine O’Hare
- Poetry by Jay Brecker, Patrice Boyer Claeys, John Davis Jr., Bill Glose, Susan Ludvigson, Terri McCord, Robin Michel, Eileen Pettycrew and Victoria Richard
December Book Reviews
Our book reviewers take a look a recently published books in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry:
- The Edge of America by John Sealy – review by Rhonda Browning White
- Educated by Tara Westover – review by Tammy Ortung
- Half-Hazard by Kristen Tracy – review by Aaron Max Jensen
Upcoming Submission Opportunities
Our next general submission period is from February 1 to April 15, 2020 for the fall / winter 2020 issue. We charge a $3.00 fee to help defray the cost of operating a literary journal, though all submissions are FREE for the first week of the submission period. For more information, check out our full submission guidelines.
The Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Contest for 2020 will be open June 1 to August 1, 2020.
About Us
South 85 Journal is published by the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary! Thank you to our staff of volunteers who put countless hours into making this issue happen.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together!
2019 Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Contest Winner
South 85 Journal is delighted to congratulate Benjamin Garcia, whose flash fiction story “Mourning Dove,” was selected by Marlin Barton as winner of the 2019 Julia Peterkin Flash Fiction Contest.
Benjamin Garcia’s first collection, THROWN IN THE THROAT (Milkweed Editions, Fall 2020), was selected for the 2019 National Poetry Series by Kazim Ali. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in: The Missouri Review, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, and Crazyhorse. Find him on twitter: @bengarciapoet
Honorable mention goes to “Distilled Water” by Ethan Joella.
Ethan Joella teaches English and psychology at University of Delaware and runs his own business that specializes in writing workshops and online course development. His work has appeared in River Teeth, The International Fiction Review, The MacGuffin, Rattle, Delaware Beach Life, and Third Wednesday. He has published two poetry chapbooks and lives in Delaware and Pennsylvania with his wife and daughters.
This year’s finalists are “Chappaquiddick” by Leah Browning, “Pieces” by Kenneth Weene, and “My New Young Wife” by Hal Ackerman.
This year’s submissions were particularly well written making the final decision difficult.
Look for these winning stories in the December 2019 issue of South 85 Journal.
When You Can Bear It, Write What You Know
A.J. Howells
We carelessly toss around adages without questioning their implications. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is perhaps the best one. I can imagine plenty of grotesque situations where this wouldn’t apply. For reference, read Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 anti-war novel (and future Metallica hit) Johnny Got His Gun. Or take “Slow and steady wins the race.” It’s oddly specific to a situation with a cocky rabbit and a dogged turtle, but it would never apply to the high school track star attempting to beat Usain Bolt’s miraculous qualifiers. Then there’s “Everything happens for a reason.” Maybe, but the reason isn’t necessarily a good one.
These three pieces of greeting card rubbish aren’t dangerous so much as comical. There is, however, a saying creative writing teachers have tossed around so long, it’s rare to question it. For me, it can feel dangerous when applying this advice to my own writing, though I recently tried.
“Write what you know.” Where’s the harm in that?
I almost never write stories about my career, which is that of the public-school teacher. I’ll occasionally journal about work, but I avoid formally writing about it, not because I don’t have any good stories, but because I forcefully put distance between my educator life and my writer life. I’m more likely to write about the menial, low-paying jobs I drudged through before landing a career. With those stories, I’m not writing what I know so much as I’m writing what I have known. This might sound like semantic nit-picking, but there is a distinct difference between the two. Writing what you know forces you to confront your current circumstances, whereas writing what you’ve known illuminates how the past has shaped the present. If I were still flipping burgers and dodging angry customers’ flying sandwiches (yes, this actually happened several times), I wouldn’t want to remind myself I’m heading back to that particular brand of hell the following day. But with almost ten years of distance, these stories now make me laugh instead of drink.
I understand the opposite. For many, the best writing comes from the most trying circumstances. Henry Miller wrote about living hand-to-mouth in Paris while living hand-to-mouth in Paris, and his reflections on this time period in his elder years often fall well-short of the original mark. Also consider Ernest Hemingway and Sylvia Plath. Then consider their how they died.
As a clinically depressed writer (read: A Walking Cliché), keeping a distance between my writing and my teaching stories curbs my condition because my teaching stories are the most depressing ones, the good ones anyway.Sure, they could add up to a great roman à clef, but they’d also make for a slew of difficult nights, counterproductive to several years of treatment.
Not writing about teaching is also a way of avoiding the title of “Educator” subsuming my identity. “Educator” is a coat I wear, and I love the coat. It has served me well over the past decade, and it has helped me impact a lot of lives. To navigate life, I need a good coat, but when I get in the car and drive home from work, the sweat builds. I stop at a red light and try to quickly take my coat off, only to find myself with an arm still inside. It can be tough to leave the trials of a school day behind, but by the third red light, my coat is completely off and crumpled in the back seat. This is when I can finally crank the Funkadelic and just focus on driving. When I get home, I don’t put my coat back on—that would be absurd. I don’t take it to bed with me either, but in the morning, it’s there to embrace and accompany me to the workday.
My apologies for overextending my metaphor. I know you get the point, but please allow me one final extension.
There are plenty of people out there who never remove their coats, and while they look ridiculous (they shower with them, for Christ’s sake), they lack self-awareness and instead tell me I look ridiculous for taking mine off. They plead with me to put it back on. They shame me for my naked freedom. They blog about their jobs. They write what they know. You do not want to get stuck at a dinner party with these people.
It can be easy to fall into the trappings of their professional peer pressure. It’s like deleting your social media accounts or becoming a vegetarian: what difference, really, are you making for the good of society? But consider Ancient Zen master Eihei Dogen’s advice from thirteenth century Japan. A couple years back, contemporary Zen master Brad Warner paraphrased essays from Dogen’s Shobogenzo into modern vernacular. In the title essay of Warner’s Don’t Be a Jerk, he states, “Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of jerks doing all kinds of jerk-type things, there is still liberation in not being a jerk.” Even if the whole universe is nothing but a bunch of workers refusing to remove their coats, there is still liberation in removing your own. Throw yourself a lifesaver, even if the people around you don’t want to be saved.
Despite all this, I recently dipped into my well of teaching stories and typed one up just to see if I could do it.The piece is being published this month, and I’m proud of it. At risk of sounding cliché, writing is liberating for me, and I tend to savor every second of writing a short story, journal entry, blog post, poem, grocery list, etc. I love typing this current sentence, yet there wasn’t a single sentence of that teaching story I enjoyed writing. It was a sad story about a sad student whom I constantly worry about. Needless to say, it was the last time I’ll be writing what “I know” for quite some time, but it won’t be the last. When I can bear it again, I’ll write what I know. Until then, I’ll continue to ignore the advice.
A. J. Howells is the publisher and general editor of Makeshift Press (MakeshiftPress.org), publisher of Fredric Brown’s The Office. A. J.’s prose has appeared in The First Line, Rhetoric Askew, and two volumes of Workers Write. RhetAskew Publishing will soon release his horror-comedy novella Alley Bats, and his poetry has been featured in Eunoia Review and The Offbeat. He lives with his wife, two children, and two cats in the woods of northern Virginia where he spends far too much time reading comic books and listening to Sun Ra. In his spare time, he teaches full time.
Featured Image Photo Credit: Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
The Spring / Summer 2019 Issue!
The Spring / Summer 2019 Issue of South 85 Journal is now available online.
Creative Work
We are pleased to present work by the following authors and artists:
• Artwork – Amanda Barbarito, William C. Crawford, J.E. Crum, Fabio Sassi, Edward Michael Supranowicz, and Bill Wolak
• Fiction – Elizabeth DelConte, Meghan Steed, and Laura Valeri
• Non-Fiction – Roxxann Eckert and Sharon Lee Snow
• Poetry – Holly Day, Gardner Dorton, Tyler Gillespie, Jennifer Gauthier, Sandra Hosking, Dave Nielsen, Alex Pickens, and Joseph Sigurdson
Reviews
For some great summer reads, check out our Reviews section, featuring reviews of:
• Admissions by Eric Sasson (Fiction)
• Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording with Wilco, Etc. by Jeff Tweedy (Non-Fiction)
• A Piece of Good News by Katie Peterson (Poetry)
Upcoming Submission Opportunities
Through August 15, we are accepting submissions for our flash contest! The winner will receive the Julia Peterkin Award for Flash Fiction, which includes a $500 prize! In addition, our next official reading period begins August 1. Stay tuned for more information as Lisa Hase-Jackson takes over as Managing Editor. In the meantime, keep reading our blog about writing! You can even submit an article for our blog. We’d love to hear from you.
About Us
South 85 Journal is published by the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary! Thank you to our staff of volunteers who put countless hours into making this issue happen.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together!
Converse MFA’s 10th Anniversary + New South 85 Journal Managing Editor
Students, alumni, faculty, administration, and friends of the Converse College Low-Residency MFA program gathered yesterday at Ciclops Cyderie and Brewery in Spartanburg, SC, to celebrate the program’s 10th anniversary. In honor of the occasion, Ciclops General Manager Clara Jane Haller, a Converse MFA graduate in poetry, and her staff created a beer release. The beer, “Sense and Sprucability – a Writer’s Tale,” was based on a recipe created by Jane Austen who was a home brewer.
Converse President Krista Newkirk and Provost Dr. Jeffrey Barker attended the event, and President Newkirk spoke about how pleased she was with the program and the continued importance of stories in our daily lives. Program Director Richard Mulkey recounted the history and achievements of the program and thanked the many people who played a part in making it a success.
During his talk, Program Director Mulkey announced an upcoming change for our journal. After the release of the upcoming Spring / Summer 2019 issue, Debby DeRosa, who took over as Managing Editor in December 2013, will be stepping down, and Lisa Hase-Jackson will take her place.
Lisa Hase-Jackson, who has served South 85 Journal in the past as its Review Editor, brings a wealth of experience to the role of Managing Editor. She is the author of the recently published poetry collection Flint & Fire, selected by Jericho Brown for the 2019 Hilary Tham Capital Collection. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as The Midwest Quarterly, Kansas City Voices, The South Carolina Review, among others. Born in Portland, Oregon, and raised primarily in the Midwest, she has lived and taught in such cities as Seoul, Albuquerque, and Kansas City. She completed her BA at Washburn University, her MA at Kansas State University, and her MFA at Converse College. She currently lives in Charleston, South Carolina, where she edits Zingara Poetry Review, and teaches creative writing and honors courses at the College of Charleston.
“I am so excited Converse has chosen Lisa to be my successor. She is incredibly talented and qualified, and I look forward to watching what the journal will achieve under her leadership,” says DeRosa, who promises to do everything she can to make the transition smooth.
As Hase-Jackson takes over leadership, the journal will continue to accept entries for our flash fiction contest, which will award a $500 prize. Like last year, Marlin Barton will be the Presiding Judge of the contest, and the winner will be announced in October. In the meantime, look forward to reading the Spring / Summer 2019 issue, which will be released June 15.