by elizabeth edwards Whether volunteering with the Peace Corps in Bulgaria, living in Mozambique on a Fulbright grant, or working for USAID in war-torn Iraq, Jamy Bond has gone through life all over the world. It is evident in both her fiction and nonfiction that experience is what inspires her. Jamy’s writing is shaped by experiences both unforeseen, such as losing her younger sister to a car accident, and chosen, like dodging bombs as a daily part of work in Iraq. Both aid her in creating work that refracts those personal experiences into a fragment of collective human experience.
As I read Jamy’s piece, “Learning to Fly,” I felt a heaviness of familiarity and fear. The piece anchored me with an emotional weight that only the best writing can place on a reader. Her story intertwines violence and vulnerability, desire and innocence, and fear and calm into connecting threads between the characters. As a writer, and a reader, I have found that those life experiences and emotions that expose our malleability, and train us to resist it, are those that best infuse a story with the same ability to affect people. Jamy draws out those emotions and builds from those experiences, mooring readers so deeply in the story and then finally setting us free as the story releases its grip, teaching us to fly along with the characters. Jamy explores the darker side of the human experience with equal parts grace and gravity, making her a fitting contributor to this anthology.
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By Ellis Carrington Caroline Bock is a lecturer for the Marymount University English department, and a participating author with the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program in the Washington D.C. area. She is the author of titles Before My Eyes, Lie, and her award winning short fiction collection, Carry Her Home. She leads creative writing workshops at Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD.
Bock’s piece, MINIM, is a meaningful narrative that inspires its narrator, as well as its readers, to choose life even when death seems to be right around the corner. I have had the immense pleasure to interview her about this piece below: By Morgan Bluma Pamela Huber’s first professional published piece, “The Jubilee,” offers beautifully written detail and emotion with a haunting tale that will have any reader on the edge of their seat. Her flash fiction offers a look into the jubilee or celebration of crab hunting where the reader is immersed into the setting, to the point where you feel like you are right alongside the characters. Rather than following one character’s journey, Pamela includes many different perspectives from the characters. I do not want to spoil the intense storyline of this piece so I will not reveal more. It is a piece that needs to be experienced through reading that cannot be recreated through a summary.
Growing up in Delaware, Pamela was able to spend a lot of time outdoors and near the water that translates into her writing. Pamela’s been writing since the fourth grade and has been able to pursue her love of reading and writing in her professional life, currently working as the Director of Product Support for a nonprofit for children’s literacy in DC, CommonLit, a free online reading program. I had the opportunity to speak with Pamela about her inspirations and experience as an aspiring and rising writer. By Jessica Sullivan The emotional ups and downs in a novel are arguably what make novels great. For Carrie Callaghan, the emotional rollercoaster is almost always tied to relationships. Lithub describes Callaghan’s debut novel, A Light of Her Own, as a novel that “catches the reader in a web of intrigue, art, and ambition and does not let go until the final page.”
Salt the Snow, Callaghan’s stunning second novel, is based on the life of one of the first American female war correspondents, Milly Bennett. In 1930, Milly Bennet and her husband are living in Russia when her husband is arrested by the secret police. As Milly tries to get her husband released, secrets about both her marriage and the Soviet state that she served come to light. Her piece in Furious Gravity, The Tea Ceremony, examines friendships and the moment they form. I had the pleasure to discuss novels, writing, and other topics with Carrie Callaghan. by Gabrielle bremer “No matter. When She visited, I was doomed. Melancholy, I used to call her when I did not know what it was. That meant, that when She came, I was more creative, locking myself in a corner, writing poetry, and tearing up a little.” -Keida Kostreci, The Visits
Growing up in a time and place where mental health wasn’t talked about, Keida Kostreci, a native Albanian, didn’t have a word for her depression. The author navigated through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood with frequent episodes, unable to understand why she felt this way. She had different names for her visitor, like “The Bitch,” “She,” or “Melancholy.” Kostreci describes her as someone who comes when she pleases and never knocks at the door. She is powerful, sneaky, and very attractive. In her adolescence, Kostreci delved into learning. She wanted to be the best student. The author tackled Remarque, Kafka, Tolstoy, and Freud, and would engross herself in music, arts, and writing. Being the high achieving first born wanting to set an example for her two younger sisters, added to the pressure. “The Bitch’s” visits would intertwine with Kostreci’s adolescent insecurities. Today, Kostreci is a journalist for Voice of America, where she writes about a wide variety of topics, including politics in the Balkans and the U.S., gender equality and culture, and radical extremism. While “She” still visits the author periodically, Kostreci has become better at anticipating her arrival. She spends a little more time with her friends, husband, and children, and works a little harder to meet deadlines. Even though the visits are challenging, they are not debilitating. In fact, some things in Kostreci’s life have been better because of “The Bitch.” The Grace and Gravity series is honored to be the first literary publication to showcase Kostreci’s work. |
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