6
2021
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
A Time to Heal by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor We had no idea how appropriate featuring writing to heal would be when we first hit upon the topic for 2021. I for one had in mind the need for healing in the country, politically, and the world, environmentally. We certainly did not see a pandemic coming, and only two pieces in this issue, Barbara Bennett’s interview with Belle Boggs and Carol Scott-Conner’s essay, reference the pandemic at any length. Still, the other creative nonfiction selected for the issue fits into this section. Glenis Redmond’s second-prize essay for the Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize traces her development from absorbing to struggling against to rejecting her father’s negative influence upon her self-image. In their honorable mention essays for the contest, Hannah Towey and Susan Wilson remember lost loved ones. All three write to heal – or at least toward healing. We also determined that the poetry and fiction selected for publication here (2020 James Applewhite Poetry Prize finalists and the honorable mention stories in the 2020 Doris Betts Fiction Prize competition) reflect a healing quest of one kind or another. I am reminded of finding myself writing haiku in my head after my father’s death, although I haven’t written poetry since my undergraduate days. Months into this mental exercise, I realized I was trying to articulate and control my grief. No surprise, several of the books reviewed this year deal with the subject of healing. Perhaps we could have included all the reviews here, for the same reasons we included all the creative writing. Characters in the fiction, the personae of the poetry collections, and the memoirists suffer loss or struggle against the threat of loved ones lost to death, drugs, relationships ending. Some find healing, some are getting there. And readers are likely to experience catharsis as they relate to one or another of the struggles.
Which brings me back to my original motivation for focusing on healing through writing in this year’s issues. During this period of social and political unrest, finding myself living in a divided nation, across an emotional border from many loved ones, I am certain I am not alone in seeking healing through writing. I was sadly not as surprised by the eruption of protests over the summer as I was by the pandemic. I was, however, horrified by the echoes of a half-century ago in the violent killing of George Floyd that inspired the protesting against the violation of his civil rights, and most especially by recognizing people across the ideologial street – that is, people I know – siding with those spraying the tear gas rather than those outraged by injustice. We can find hope for healing change in many of the books reviewed in these pages. And we can encourage others to read, which, I know I don’t have to tell NCLR’s readers, promotes empathy and understanding. Just before the pandemic closed the university’s doors last spring, I was giving away a book a day for Lent, asking my students what they like to read and then giving them something from my office shelves. During spring break, before we knew we wouldn’t be returning to campus, I continued to set aside particular books for particular students. Selfishly, I’m making room for more books, as my shelves runneth over, but also, I am addressing the serious need to broaden people’s experiences. People’s limited exposure to “others” too often allows them to accept the false narratives fed them by spurious sources. What better way to allow them a vicarious experience walking in the footsteps of another than within the pages of a book. As I tell my students at the start of my literature classes, women in my family live very long lives, but for that whole time I can only be one person – that is, except every time I open a book. n