introducing: G&G vol. xi
Grit
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Grace in love
Volume X
Art Credit: Maven Kahn
Book Design Credit: Nita Congress
Book Design Credit: Nita Congress
Preface
To walk through DC in springtime is to glimpse every type of love. The love between friends pecking cheeks before they part outside the Metro station. The love of a policy maker for her work as she sprints down K Street in a suit and sneakers, eager to jot down a newly minted idea before it leaves her. The love of a parent, swelling as he wanders Eastern Market and spots the perfect sweet treat for his child. The love taking root in the hearts of the two women enjoying a bluesy third date at Madam’s Organ. The long-reaching love between nations, blooming along the Tidal Basin for the hundredth-some time. The city can barely contain all the love it fosters; it thrums with all shades of it.
Love comes at a cost, bringing texture and tension to our lives. Once we have found love, how do we maintain it? What adjustments can be made if it doesn’t fit just right? Once it is broken, can it be repaired? And if not, how do we find the strength to let it go? From tension comes conflict—and conflict, of course, is at the center of story.
Because DC knows every type of love there is, it’s no wonder its women writers are so deft at the telling of stories that center love in its many forms! For Grace in Love, the tenth volume of the luminous Grace & Gravity series, Melissa Scholes Young has curated pieces that explore love in all its rich varieties. In the diverse and powerful stories Melissa has chosen, we see love that buoys and love that disappoints; love that forces characters to revisit painful pasts and love that launches them urgently into brighter futures; love that transcends death and love that saves lives; pure, motherly love; love that lusts and swears and lies. Above all, we see that a love story is no simple thing, that it is as complex and alive as the city these gifted writers call home.
-Shannon Sanders
Love comes at a cost, bringing texture and tension to our lives. Once we have found love, how do we maintain it? What adjustments can be made if it doesn’t fit just right? Once it is broken, can it be repaired? And if not, how do we find the strength to let it go? From tension comes conflict—and conflict, of course, is at the center of story.
Because DC knows every type of love there is, it’s no wonder its women writers are so deft at the telling of stories that center love in its many forms! For Grace in Love, the tenth volume of the luminous Grace & Gravity series, Melissa Scholes Young has curated pieces that explore love in all its rich varieties. In the diverse and powerful stories Melissa has chosen, we see love that buoys and love that disappoints; love that forces characters to revisit painful pasts and love that launches them urgently into brighter futures; love that transcends death and love that saves lives; pure, motherly love; love that lusts and swears and lies. Above all, we see that a love story is no simple thing, that it is as complex and alive as the city these gifted writers call home.
-Shannon Sanders
Shannon Sanders is a Black attorney and writer born and raised near Washington, DC. Her debut short story collection Company is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in fall 2023. Her short fiction has been awarded a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and appears in One Story, TriQuarterly, Joyland, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and three sons in Silver Spring. Find her on Twitter: Twitter.com/ShandersWrites.
Introduction
When I moved to the DC region more than a decade ago, I fell hard and fast for the literary community. I thirsted at readings, sometimes rushing between two a night. I cruised independent bookstores and public libraries daily. I courted book launches and especially the after parties. I wrote reviews and interviewed local authors. I bought all the books. I was a lot.
Rumors started about how close the literary community and I were getting. We spent more time together. I joined a book club. I published two novels. I taught writing classes. My crush grew into a relationship, and we professed our mutual love. One magical evening, Richard Peabody, the founder of the Grace & Gravity project, shared that he thought the anthology series of DC area women should be edited by, well, a woman. I said yes. I fall for local art too. On a twinkly summer night, I visited the VisAbility Art Lab, a studio that supports artists with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Maven Kahn’s evocative sculpture reminded me of the complexity of love too. At the reception, I met the artist’s mom, and we talked as moms do about how loving our kids expands our humanity. I was thrilled when Maven agreed to share their art with us. I knew I had to feature it on Grace in Love’s cover.
Love is a risk. So is a submission call. DC area women writers bared their hearts to us. They longed for outer space, geography, travel, and relief from natural disasters. My heart softened as I read about love at first sight, self-love, unrequited love, family bonds, sibling strength, and lust. We heard from writers holding space for hurt and healing, who learned sometimes love means letting go. You’ll encounter their pain in this incredible collection of stories. You’ll swoon at their passions.
Our editorial team, starring Lindsay and Annie, are bringing you this book with help from a grant awarded by American University’s Humanities Truck. It’s become like a food truck for feminist publishing and has allowed us to create videos, host book events, distribute free copies of local literary journals, pay speakers, and for the first time ever, fund Editor Prizes. I hope you see yourself in these pages. I want you to be loved and to be cherished. And when our hearts break, maybe we can hold hands. It is my honor to edit Grace & Gravity, and with each volume, my infatuation for this literary community grows. Thank you for showing up for the love of words.
-Melissa Scholes Young
Rumors started about how close the literary community and I were getting. We spent more time together. I joined a book club. I published two novels. I taught writing classes. My crush grew into a relationship, and we professed our mutual love. One magical evening, Richard Peabody, the founder of the Grace & Gravity project, shared that he thought the anthology series of DC area women should be edited by, well, a woman. I said yes. I fall for local art too. On a twinkly summer night, I visited the VisAbility Art Lab, a studio that supports artists with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Maven Kahn’s evocative sculpture reminded me of the complexity of love too. At the reception, I met the artist’s mom, and we talked as moms do about how loving our kids expands our humanity. I was thrilled when Maven agreed to share their art with us. I knew I had to feature it on Grace in Love’s cover.
Love is a risk. So is a submission call. DC area women writers bared their hearts to us. They longed for outer space, geography, travel, and relief from natural disasters. My heart softened as I read about love at first sight, self-love, unrequited love, family bonds, sibling strength, and lust. We heard from writers holding space for hurt and healing, who learned sometimes love means letting go. You’ll encounter their pain in this incredible collection of stories. You’ll swoon at their passions.
Our editorial team, starring Lindsay and Annie, are bringing you this book with help from a grant awarded by American University’s Humanities Truck. It’s become like a food truck for feminist publishing and has allowed us to create videos, host book events, distribute free copies of local literary journals, pay speakers, and for the first time ever, fund Editor Prizes. I hope you see yourself in these pages. I want you to be loved and to be cherished. And when our hearts break, maybe we can hold hands. It is my honor to edit Grace & Gravity, and with each volume, my infatuation for this literary community grows. Thank you for showing up for the love of words.
-Melissa Scholes Young
Reading Events
Monday, May 1st at 6-8 pm- Grace in Love Launch Party will be held at the Politics & Prose Bookstore on Connecticut Avenue FB Link HERE
Tuesday, May 16 at 7:30 pm- a Grace in Love reading through The Inner Loop at Shaw's Tavern on Florida Avenue FB Link HERE
Saturday, May 20 at 10:15-11:05 am- a Grace in Love panel at the Gaithersburg Book Festival located at the Gertrude Stein Pavilion in Bohrer Park FB Link HERE
Wednesday, June 7 at 6-10 pm- a Grace in Love reading at The Grill From Ipanema restaurant on Columbia Road NW FB Link HERE
Thursday, June 8 at 7:30-9 pm- a Grace in Love reading at Sandy Spring Museum on Bentley Road FB Link HERE
Tuesday, May 16 at 7:30 pm- a Grace in Love reading through The Inner Loop at Shaw's Tavern on Florida Avenue FB Link HERE
Saturday, May 20 at 10:15-11:05 am- a Grace in Love panel at the Gaithersburg Book Festival located at the Gertrude Stein Pavilion in Bohrer Park FB Link HERE
Wednesday, June 7 at 6-10 pm- a Grace in Love reading at The Grill From Ipanema restaurant on Columbia Road NW FB Link HERE
Thursday, June 8 at 7:30-9 pm- a Grace in Love reading at Sandy Spring Museum on Bentley Road FB Link HERE
Masthead
Melissa Scholes Young, editor
Melissa Scholes Young is the author of the novels The Hive and Flood and editor of Grace in Darkness and Furious Gravity, two anthologies by women writers. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Ms., Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Ploughshares, Literary Hub, and Believer Magazine. She has been the recipient of the Bread Loaf Bakeless Camargo Foundation Residency Fellowship, the Center for Mark Twain Studies' Quarry Farm Fellowship, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellowship. Born and raised in Hannibal, Missouri, she is an associate professor in Literature at American University.
Wendy Besel Hahn, Nonfiction Editor
Wendy Besel Hahn recently relocated from the Metro Washington D.C. area to Denver, Colorado, closer to her roots. Although living near the nation’s capital for 22 years increased her passion for political writing, she is a Westerner at heart: born in Idaho, raised in Utah and Colorado. Her childhood involved doing triple-lutz jumps on the shag carpet in the living room that made the turntable’s needle skip on her parents’ John Denver records. She is most interested in how geography, religion, and historical events shape characters, both in fiction and nonfiction. After earning an MFA from George Mason University, she attended Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference as a nonfiction contributor in 2016. She has also served as a panelist at Fall for the Book and Gaithersburg Book Festival. Her work appears in The Washington Post, Scary Mommy, Redivider, Sojourners, and elsewhere.
Richard Peabody, Series Founder
Richard Peabody is the founder and current editor of Gargoyle Magazine and editor (or co-editor) of twenty-two anthologies including Mondo Barbie, Conversations with Gore Vidal, and A Different Beat: Writings by Women of the Beat Generation. The author of a novella, three short story collections, and seven books of poetry. A native Washingtonian, he has taught fiction writing workshops at various locations in the DC area since 1985, though primarily for the Johns Hopkins Advanced Studies Program since 1995 where he was awarded The Johns Hopkins University Excellence in Teaching Award, 2010-2011, and the Faculty Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement (Master of Arts in Writing Program), 2005. He has held residencies at Blue Mountain Center, Byrdcliffe, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He also won the Beyond the Margins “Above & Beyond Award” for 2013.
Annie PrzypysznY, Assistant Editor
Annie Przypyszny is a student at American University, majoring in Creative Writing. She has poems published in Pacifica Literary Review, The Northern Virginia Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Ponder Review, The Healing Muse and others.
Lindsay Forbes Brown, Assistant Editor
Lindsay Forbes Brown received her MFA from American University, where she served as Editor in Chief for FOLIO. She is a Kenyon Review and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference alumnus and is currently Assistant Editor for Grace & Gravity. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is featured in or forthcoming in Barcelona Review, Cimarron Review, Gargoyle, Hobart, J Journal, JMWW, Off-Chance, Pembroke Magazine, River Styx, So to Speak, Sonora Review, and on her website: lindsayforbesbrown.com.
