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Selfie, EDG

Dear Readers and Writers —

We launched Longridge Review 9 years ago this March. It was the professionalization of the Essays on Childhood project that began in 2011. We would never have gotten off the ground without our launch issue writers, Margaret Ward McClain, Douglas Imbrogno, Jeremy Dae Paden, and artist Sarah C.B. Guthrie.

I keep trying to think of a magical or easy-ish way to say this is the end; maybe I can’t do it because I’m not sure it is the end. The truth is, it is the end of how we have operated for nearly a decade.

The current plan is keep the site up as an archive, to consider a print anthology, and to look at either continuing exclusively with the Barnhill Prize here or finding a new home for said literary prize.

Longridge Review built a community, a literary family. Defining an end to that community is not in my blood. We have something here that cannot die or be taken away. We have shared our life stories, our narratives of pain and joy that we brought into the world. We built understanding and grace and epiphany.

None of this was my doing alone. I am deeply grateful to editors Suzanne Farrell Smith, Mary Heather Noble, Beth Duttera Newman, and Molly Young Maass; and to readers Semein Washington, Thea Princewill, and Crystal Good; and to M. Randal Owain, Carter Sickels, Mike Smith, Sonja Livingston, and Neema Avashia for serving as Barnhill Prize judges.

And to our brilliant and vulnerable writers, our luminous artists, and our smart and compassionate readers: You made this community work. You wrote and you read and you created and shared this special genre with ferocious love. Thank you for that, and for helping me bring a lifelong dream into reality.

I will always be grateful for you.

And until we meet again, stay true to your story.

Very Truly Yours,

EDG

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. William Faulkner wrote that in his novel Requiem For A nun, and my mom liked to quote it a lot. I found an addendum of sorts to it online recently, a quote by a writer named Greg Iles from his book The Quiet Game. I want to read it to you because I think it speaks to grief in a powerful way. Iles wrote, “Faulkner said the past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in web spun long before we were born. Webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity. Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken. We pursue images perceived as new, but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations. The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events. But some of us feel it always.”

Anderson Cooper, All There Is, January 10, 2024

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Elk River Reflections ©John Wirts

The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America.

Since 1976, hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in annual collections. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series. Every volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses with addresses.

The Pushcart Prize has been a labor of love and independent spirits since its founding. It is one of the last surviving literary co-ops from the 60’s and 70’s. Its legacy is assured by donations to its Fellowships endowment.

Longridge Review is proud to nominate 4 essays from 2023 for The Pushcart Prize: Best of The Small Presses XLIX.

Congratulations to each of these wonderful writers, and thank you to everyone who found a forever home for their essay with us in 2023!

Featured image by John Wirts.

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Kevin Hershey, photo credit Carla Zavala

It is our great pleasure to announce that Kevin Hershey is the 2023 winner of The Anne C. Barnhill Prize for Creative Nonfiction. His essay, Three Fairies, was an early favorite in the submission process, and was named the best of the best by contest judge Neema Avashia. Avashia writes:

It was such a pleasure to judge this year’s Barnhill Prize submissions. The writers who submitted this year took on a wide range of topics: from intergenerational trauma to interactions with nature to complex family relationships to evolving understandings of queerness. I’m grateful to these writers for their courage in putting truth on the page, for the care and craft with which they did so.

I’m a parent to a relatively new daughter, and I marvel almost every day at the joy she takes in seeing herself in the mirror. She revels in her own appearance, her own existence, with a kind of unabashed glory that both fills me with joy, and gives me some existential angst. Because, what happens when she stops looking at herself that way? Who or what will make her stop seeing herself as a thing of beauty? And how will I stand beside her in the moments where she loses sight of herself because of the messages the world gives her?

The essay “Three Fairies” resonated for me deeply because of the way in which it interacted with my questions. The writer’s detailed descriptions of this group of young boys who loved to dress up as the fairies from Sleeping Beauty, who delighted in capes and hats and wands, and who were supported in doing so by their moms, reminded me of my daughter’s early delight. And their reckoning with their own identity in a world that is not always kind, reminded me of my own. But what stayed with me most by the end of the piece was the way in which the adult writer is able to see his mother, and his best friend’s mother, so clearly: to see that the care and welcome they extended to their children did not just stop there–it extended to the queer community around them. That what he’d thought of as a child as a manifestation of his mother’s love was that, but also so much more–it was a manifestation of her commitment to a broader community of queer folks.

The emotional arc in “Three Fairies” is rendered so skillfully that by the end of the piece, I was filled with a deep love for the characters within it–the boys, and their mothers. The same love that the author was intending to communicate through the writing. The narrative clarity, the precision of language, and the author’s own vulnerability on the page, all led me to choose it as the winner of this year’s Barnhill Prize.

Neema Avashia

Neema also named as notable Lost at Sea (Harley).

Congratulations to Kevin, and to each of our finalists. On behalf of our editorial team, we are humbled and grateful to have the opportunity to read your work; most of all, you contributed to the dream of honoring Anne Barnhill by offering poignant and powerful narratives from your childhood experience.

Please see our home page or Creative Nonfiction menu tab for links to all of our essays, and thank you!

Kevin Hershey is a writer, early childhood educator, and graduate student of clinical social work. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Crab Creek Review, and Open Global Rights. He lives in New York City.

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Untitled ©Emily Sunderman

Creative Nonfiction, #26, Spring 2023

Gravel, Alan Caldwell
Colored Pencils, Melissa Greenwood
Pulling Away, Summer Hammond
Imaginary Friend, Linda Petrucelli
Five, Ryan Walker
Games of Chance, Melissent Zumwalt

Featured Artist

Various

Alan Caldwell discloses the domestic violence in his childhood home in a straightforward just-the-facts manner that’s chilling in its detachment. Gravel reveals an unsettling portrait of a child adapting his existence to survive a predictable cycle of misery.

Melissa Greenwood is relatable to any oldest child in this scene of teasing and tormenting her younger brother. It seems like her father is intent on teaching her a lesson about bullying, and he does. Just not the lesson he thinks it is.

Summer Hammond‘s brief ode to loss will stay with you long after the last line. I wrote this to Summer, “Dear heavens. I’m struggling not to just weep doing the final read throughs on this issue. Every piece does a unique job of pulling me back into those feelings, those fears, the weirdness of knowing and not knowing what this experience portends for your adult life. Then you grow up and maybe find the words, which you have done so beautifully here.”

Linda Petrucelli remembers her reunion with a favorite doll while she and her sister share the unenviable task of cleaning out their childhood home after a parent dies. Her capacity to return to old emotions is astonishing (I had this same doll), as is her clarity about letting things go.

Ryan Walker puts us in the room with him and his seriously ill brother. If I told you he tried to make contact with Sesame Street’s Big Bird when no one else is around, you might think this is going to be funny. You would be wrong. The loneliness of this narrative haunts me.

Melissent Zumwalt crafts a delightful reflection on her father’s gambling addiction; what I love most about this piece is how it surprised me. She is clear-eyed about the problems embedded in the behavior, but she also brings a generous spin to betting on oneself and the concept of hope.

This issue features one new image, one of my favorite pieces by Emily Sunderman of Middlebury, Vermont. Emily is a personal friend, and I am deeply indebted to her for sharing her various arts forms with me over the last decade. In addition, we pause to remember pieces of visual art from the first 25 issues of Longridge Review.

Submissions for our 2023 #BarnhillPrize issue open June 11 and close August 12 . Thank you for reading and for sharing the online literary landscape with us.

EDG

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Ghost Leaves © Colleen Anderson

Creative Nonfiction, #25, Winter 2022-23

My Short and Tragic Tap Dancing Career, John Backman  
Help, Please!, Melissa Greenwood  
Descended into the Carnage, James Morena  
Asthma, Rina Palumbo
My Bike, Mike Wilson  

Featured Artist 
Colleen Anderson

John Backman has a difficult memory of disappointing his mother; except he doesn’t remember it. He remembers the feeling of something he may have invented himself. What, if anything, actually is real about what he feels, and can he give his three-year-old self a way out after 60 years?

Melissa Greenwood‘s narrative is less than 400 words and still may leave a reader out of breath. She brings us into a chaotic home and tells us, “at a precocious 10, I’m the only adult in this house.” This is a difficult but important reminder of the heavy burdens children bear in domestic violence situations, and how profoundly aware they are of being trapped on all sides.

James Morena. I don’t even know how to begin to give you a heads up (pun intended) on this wild, weird, funny, and a little heartbreaking narrative of a little boy who opened the door to a big surprise. When you’re home with no one but your dog, and someone insists you open the door and you do and…..well, you just have to read it and find out.

Rina Palumbo crafts a frightening scene, sharing a bedroom with her asthmatic sister. Nights would start out well, and but morph quickly into distress. This piece really got to me. Rina brings us into that room, into that fear, and into the desperation of self-harm to escape emotions.

Mike Wilson writes about his bicycle, and so much more. Boy meets bike, boy bonds with bike, boy loses then is reunited with bike. But something has changed. This is a beautiful narrative about love, loss, and growing up.

Finally, I am delighted to share the nature art photography of Colleen Anderson. Colleen is a writer, songwriter, and graphic designer in my hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. I always enjoy her textured imagery and I hope you will, too.

We will be back on February 1, 2023, to open submissions for our Spring issue. Thank you for reading and for sharing the online literary landscape with us.

EDG

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Solvitur Ambulando © E. Gaucher

Creative Nonfiction, #23, Early Fall 2022

Brad Gibault, Uncle Monty
Tara Guy, Broken Bread
Anita Kestin, Chatham

Featured Artist

EDG

Sometimes we have essays that we loved but the timing was wrong and we check back with the writers to see if they are still interested in publishing with us. I feel so fortunate to be able to share these three with you now in a bonus issue of Longridge Review.

Brad Gibault is back! If you loved The Myth of Pat, you’ll enjoy Uncle Monty. Gibault has a talent I described to him this way in our correspondence:

You walk a thin line, but your skill as a writer keeps Uncle Monty’s story balanced and in the right zone. Despite your love and devotion to your uncle, you find a way to slip in little details about some of the troubles in his life. You let him be human. That’s where the good stuff is. When we deify and protect childhood versions of those we love, we don’t allow them to be human and we don’t allow ourselves to grow up.

EDG

Tara Guy gifts us with that rare blend of humor and grief as her child mind innocently inquires into why when “pagans” eat people it’s bad, but when Catholics eat Jesus it’s good; I’ll just let you discover this funny and heartbreaking narrative in your own way.

Anita Kestin‘s essay is a gorgeous and frightening dive into a very young child’s intuitive generational knowledge. She sees things in her grandmother she doesn’t understand but cannot unsee, and spends her life coming to terms with what she sees and needs to understand. Our readers weren’t sure the intensity of this one was earned until I pointed out Kestin’s bio. Read it.

And this issue’s “art” is a few of my personal snaps when I lived in Vermont. Because this Early Fall issue was unexpected, I didn’t have an artist on deck, so I am sharing my own photos. They don’t touch the levels of our true artists, but I hope they bring you a smile.

EDG

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Today marks ONE MORE WEEK of open submissions for the #BarnhillPrize. Read this unrolled tweet from last week for details on prize winners from 2019, 2020, and 2021, then send us your best!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Subs R open for 2 more weeks for the #BarnhillPrize. Who has won since 2019? See comments for more on @mjmahoneywriter @real_marsha @writergirl and pls share w/ your networks. TY! 🧵🤩

https://longridgereview.submittable.com/submit

Suburbs Plagued by Foraging Deer @mjmahoney judged by @ranowain

Mary J. Mahoney

What initially drew me 2 ‘Suburbs Plagued by Foraging Deer’ was the confident narrative voice. I felt at once that I was in the hands of a complicated storyteller …that understands how necessary it is 2 consider the complexity of the human condition w/o relying on E-Z answers.

The voice is curious yet anguished with a great amount of humor and all of this together deepens the insights the writer gains about place and family, especially in the nuanced ways in which the parents and sisters are balanced with regards to the new suburban home.

In the end, however, what drew me to this essay out of all the very self-assured and talented writers I was lucky enough to read for The Barnhill Prize was the impressionistic style of “Suburbs Plagued by Foraging Deer.”

Where the situation of the essay—a Catholic family moves from Brooklyn to a Long Island suburb called Deer Park—is simple enough, the subterranean story of longing and economic advancement, the story of tradition and generational shifts, is written with compelling subtlety.

4 Generations of Black Hair Matters @real_marsha judged by @CarterSickels

Marsha Lynn Smith

4 Generations of Black Hair Matters explores the changing hairstyles of four generations of Black women, and beautifully exemplifies what the personal essay can do. It’s both intimate and insightful.

By writing about her own life with nuance, intimacy, and specificity, Smith illuminates truths about American culture and history, and about race, gender, and class.

From the first scene, as the narrator considers “detangling” her granddaughter’s “springy hair coils,” I knew I was in confident, skilled hands.

Whether mining her mem0ries of her mother wrking over her hair w/ a hot comb or getting her first natural @ a barber shop in Chicago, or keenly examining why genrations of Black women embraced or rejectd particular hairstyles, the narrator of this essay is smart, supple, & funny.

I was absolutely drawn in by the narrator’s voice, and by the precise, nimble prose. 4 Generations of Black Hair Matters is a personal, perceptive essay that explores Black women’s hairstyles as powerful expressions of identity, beauty, and culture.

How to Make Jeweled Rice (Shirin Polo) @writergirl judged by Mike Smith

Beatrice Y. Motamedi

“How to Make Jeweled Rice (Shirin Polo),” like a lot of great lyric essays, recognizes alteration—of time and place, of voice, of perspective and language—as a dynamic generator of rhythm.

The steps of the recipe for Shirin Polo, handed down to the writer from her mother, anchors poignant childhood scenes of growing up in the 1960s as the child of Iranian immigrants in Milwaukee to an extended scene of visiting “Tehrangeles” as an adult.

The essay moves between the steps of the recipe to memories of childhood in which the writer comes to terms with the decision to assimilate into American culture.

From the problematizing of the popularization of rice in the United States—through a brief history of Uncle Ben’s, which successfully “stirred the pot” in the second half of the 20th Century—

—to an episode of people-watching on Rodeo Drive, there is a wry, winking humor at work throughout this essay, which grounds us through the movement between times and places as much as it charms.

Who will win the #BarnhillPrize in 2022? Maybe you will! Maybe someone you know w/whom you share this tweet thread. #WritingCommunity ❤️

Originally tweeted by Longridge Review (@LongridgeReview) on July 18, 2022.

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The Breakfast Club © Jamie Miller

Creative Nonfiction, #22, Spring 2022

Catherine Con, Mangifera Indica
Brad Gibault, The Myth of Pat
Mark Lucius, When You Wish Upon An All-Star
Beverley Stevens, A Proper Sunday Lunch
Marianne Worthington, Young and Red-headed

Featured Artist

Jamie Miller

The Spring issue is live, and the #BarnhillPrize is open. Life is good!

Catherine Con is back with another lush mystery-tinged narrative; this time her words bring us into a sensuous, dream-like meditation on wild mangoes. Brad Gibault leverages both humor and Greek mythology to explore his relationship with his school bus driver, Pat. Mark Lucius brings us back to witness how, at 10 years old, he faced more grown-up ethical decisions than have some adults and changed the athletic resumes of more than one person. Beverley Stevens sets a place for us at her grandmother’s formal dining table. Marianne Worthington uses her poet’s heart perspective on memories of her mother, angels, ghosts, and more.

And Jamie Miller with her art — well, you know how I feel about that.

EDG

P.S. And the #BarnhillPrize is open for submissions!

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The Barnhill Prize honors Anne Clinard Barnhill’s generous spirit of support for all who love to read and write; her lifelong empathy with those who mine their childhood experience to understand themselves now; the natural vulnerability in her compelling prose and poetry; and her boundless generosity in sharing her writing passions with the world.

©Sonja Livingston

We are thrilled to announce that Sonja Livingston will award the 2022 Anne C. Barnhill Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Personal note from EDG: I studied with Sonja at #WVWCMFA when she was a visiting professor. She is warm, brilliant, and humble. I am so pleased she said yes! She also created a delightful and insightful series of interviews on her YouTube channel, The Memoir Cafe. Go there and subscribe.

Sonja is an associate professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, and teaches in the Postgraduate Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA). She has taught at the University of Memphis and in The Writing Workshops Abroad for the University of New Orleans in Edinburgh, San Miguel de Allende and Cork.

Things to do today:

  • Learn more about Sonja on her website: https://www.sonjalivingston.com
  • Read her gorgeous CNF: The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion; Queen of the Fall: A Memoir of Girls and Goddesses; Ghostbread; Ladies Night at The Dreamland; and her wonderful CNF guide, Fifty-Two Snapshots: A Memoir Starter Kit. (All available through links on her website and wherever books are sold.)
  • Read about the #BarnhillPrize on our website and familiarize yourself with our mission.
  • Follow our blog to stay current on contest information as we move toward June 1.
  • Follow us on Twitter, our favorite hangout on the socials: @LongridgeReview
  • Follow Sonja on Twitter: @SonjaLivingston
  • Start penciling out your own essay for our contest. Submissions open June 1 and close July 31, 2022.
Read the #BarnhillPrize-winning essays to date:
2019: Suburbs Plagued by Foraging Deer
2020: 4 Generations of Black Hair Matters
2021: How to Make Jeweled Rice (Shirin Polo)

Most of all, be inspired, get excited, and write on!

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Untitled © Christopher Cascio

Creative Nonfiction, #21, Winter 2021-22

Wendy Fontaine, Green Pepper Standoff
Garry Howze, Learn Your Letters
Ann Kathryn Kelly, Propped
Dana Shavin, All You Can't Eat
Catherine Stratton, Our Secret
Melissent Zumwalt, The Swing Set

Featured Artist

Christopher Cascio

Not sure how we accomplished this, but today, February 1, is both the release of a new issue of Longridge Review AND opening day for submissions to our next issue. It would be groovy to believe I can accomplish this on the regular, but I think I’ll simply be grateful for the confluence.

Speaking of gratitude, I am awash in awe over our writers and artists. I feel this way every time we roll out an issue, but never take it for granted. Part of my mind holds back on expecting to love “the next issue” as much as I love the one or ones before it.

(Apparently, the universe is not humming along to the tune of my personal limitations Who knew, right?).

The diversity of CNF form, subject, tone, and conflict in these pieces is rich. You might notice a loose connection between all of them to relationships with fathers or father figures; in my first reads I didn’t notice it, but during the editing process it was impossible to miss. I learn so much from our writers, from their transparency and their willingness to dig deep, to put their humanity and that of those who brought them up in front of us readers and say, “This is who I was, who they were, and therefore part of who I am.”

What gets to me in this issue is how brave people can discover and own important turning points in their lives. There’s always a pivot, and I can feel the writers turning toward their personal sun. We don’t always see them walk into it, but somehow, I know they do.

Enjoy!

EDG