Side A:
Side B:
March 2, 2025
It's AWP month!
For those of us that are lucky enough to go, the conference is a chance to convene and celebrate writing community, to meet our peers, to discover new writing, to buy new books, to meet our favourite editors. (Not panels, though. Not sure who's going to those.) Some will be taking the mic for their very first reading; others will be hopping across off-sites as repeat offenders.
That sense of community feels more important than ever. Going to AWP isn't without its hazards and moral conundrums (are planes going to fall out of the sky? is LA healed enough after the wildfires to withstand the onslaught of 10,000+ writers?) But if I had to guess, anyone making the trek is doing so in spite of those considerations—and because claiming community is a joyful act under under an increasingly fascist state.
For anyone that doesn't know, I'm writing to you from Canada. I'm watching the horrors and absurdities unfold with dread, same as you are. I can't imagine how it must feel to live in the midst of unravelling and very real existential threat. There's also the matter of threats against my country's sovereignty, a painful betrayal after decades of peaceful trade and allyship. Our own leaders have called on us to cease travel to the the States.
As I cross the border this year, it'll be with some level of guilt. I made the plans before any talk of a 51st state, before any talk of trade wars, and frankly, I can't afford to cancel them. But the larger consideration is community. For better or worse, I've thrown in my lot with American indie lit (Nü American, as it were), and it's become my artistic home these last few years. To not go would be to deny myself the care and connection that exists there, among people I've come to love dearly.
Holding space for art—and the myriad tiny rebellions that result from it—is an important act. It says, loud and clear, that art matters in the midst of survival. That art is integral to survival. AWP may be a lot of things—a bookfair, a conference, a blithe networking event, a writer spring break—but it is, at it's purest, a time to celebrate connection. The gaps bridged between line breaks and paragraphs, the selves we see in the work of others, the quiet life giving—and sometimes, life saving—that happens every time we read something that sings sharply to us.
Whether you're going or not, I hope you're pushing for community in any way you can find it. Maybe you're plugging away at your daily word count, maybe you're in the Submittable trenches, maybe you're organizing readings, maybe you're editing lit mags, maybe you're buying indie books from local booksellers. Whatever it is you're doing, keep doing it. It matters. Don't let them convince you otherwise. Don't let them take it from you.
Anyway, now that I'm done being windy. Volume 21 is yours to enjoy.
"Eyes to the Wind" is a quiet meditation on distance running, and the grinding mentality that comes with it. Bryan sent me several drafts before he perfected it, and I'm so pleased to present it to you as something unique in M7's history. I get a lot of car stories, a lot of party stories, a lot of bar stories, but I this is the first workout story, and I couldn't be more excited.
Holly Pelesky's "Something Like That" is a nostalgic ode to a lost summer. It's got all the greatest hits; summer camp crushes, lazy river tubing, sunburns, and that hazy thing summer does to stretch time when you're young.
"Hejira" is a poem drenched in delicate imagery, a trademark of Frances Boyle's work. It's hard to pick a standout line because each is vibrant and radiating.
"The Lady in Red" is another M7 first, I think. The scene is an endearing one; a mother dancing with abandon as her kids orbit around her. Dancing stories are hard to pull off but Maria Mocerino does it with style and sex appeal.
I don't really know how to categorize or describe Sean Meggeson's "Ashes to Ashes", but that's why I like it. Sean's work is ethereal and dreamlike, and I have a feeling Mr. Bowie himself would appreciate the effort.
"Wildflowers" is a little reflection on grief and letting go. Andrew Monge's little story catalogues a widower living through loss one moment at a time, and laying his lover to rest in a garden of wildflowers after seasons of mourning.
I know I'm always banging on about community in these editor's notes, but I think about it a lot. It's on my mind constantly. I keep returning to it because it counts, and I hope you find a little of it here.
xo,
Kirsti
Comments