46
2013
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
number 22
New Works by Some Old Friends Margaret D. Bauer, Editor More and more, we are discovering that the book reviews that NCLR publishes are appropriate for this section of NCLR Online as authors whose works are selected for publication in NCLR go on to write books that are selected for review. Our flashbacks for this issue feature reviews of numerous poetry collections, including a volume by former North Carolina Poet Laureate – and NCLR devotee – Kathryn Stripling Byer; two volumes by regularly featured writer Robert Morgan; and another by the first recipient of our own James Applewhite Poetry Prize, John Thomas York. Also reviewed: two fiction volumes that include stories first published in NCLR (authors Steve Mitchell and Charles Dodd White); a new novel by Charles Frazier, whose previous books have been written about in NCLR, who shared an essay with us in 2012, and who has been interviewed for our 2013 print issue; and a nonfiction novel by regular NCLR contributor Bland Simpson. And still more reviews (with even more coming in the North Carolina Miscellany section). So, too, do many of the state’s literary award stories seem appropriate for the Flashbacks section: some awards or recipients reflect themes we have featured in past issues; other recipients are multiple award winners, and, again, they are old friends of NCLR, having generously shared their talent with our readers in previous issues. And speaking of old friends, this issue’s flashbacks also include poetry by literary icons James Applewhite and Fred Chappell, who have appeared in several past issues. You’ll be able to read more poetry by both in the forthcoming print issue, too. Poems by two of the 2012 Applewhite Poetry Prize competition finalists are in this section: Susan Laughter Meyers, who is becoming a regularly featured poet in NCLR, and Richard Betz, whom we are publishing for the first time, but whose poem is appropriate for this section because it hearkens back to our popular 2010 Appalachian issue. In addition,
RIGHT NCLR 1992, art
by Stanton Blakeslee; 1996, art by Stanton Blakeslee; 1997, art by Kent Williams; 1999, art by Tama Hochbaum; 2006, art by Karen Lee; 2007, art by Kelly Adams
another of the 2012 Betts Fiction Prize honorable mention stories is here because it marks the third time the author, Gregg Cusick, has had his submission selected for publication in NCLR. Bringing to mind last year’s special feature section on North Carolina Literature into Film, see in these pages an interview with our own fiction editor, Liza Wieland, and filmmaker Mary Kate Monahan, who adapted one of Liza’s short stories into a short film. We thank Tanya Nichols for providing this opportunity for our readers to “hear” from Liza. (Regular readers might recall that back in 2007, we included an interview with our poetry editor.) Also in the 2012 issue (in the North Carolina Miscellany section), we published Fred Chappell’s opening reception remarks about the Stuart Wright Collection in ECU’s Joyner Library. Here, you will learn more about this amazing new source of archival research about, largely but not exclusively, writers of the Southern Renascence. I thank my colleague Thomas Douglass for understanding our last-minute decision before press-time for the 2012 print issue to hold his essay for NCLR Online so that it might reach as broad an audience as possible. I call readers’ attention to the Wright Collection’s catalog and invite those who explore the materials about North Carolina writers represented in the collection – Randall Jarrell and Fred Chappell, for example – to submit their findings to NCLR for publication consideration. Surrounding this introduction are covers of the various issues in which you can find writing related to or by the authors featured in this section. We invite readers to explore the tables of contents of these issues on our website to find their work – and so much more. And remember that all of our back issues are available for purchase. Please help us to empty our storage closet by ordering the issues you don’t yet have in your own library – or by buying a complete set of NCLR issues for a public library near you. n