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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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We published Cascio’s essay, Kid, in Issue 12 in the Fall of 2018; speaking about both his writing and his visual art, he says each piece he creates is “a recorded haunting.” I know I’ve never stopped thinking about Kid, so he must be right. Of Cascio’s latest collection Tent City (Alien Buddha Press), one reviewer writes this:

Christopher Cascio notices everything — about neighbor’s dogs, a wrestling match, fathers and sons, a rain-drowned house. Under his inspection the details of living burgeon into major themes, so quietly the oncoming explosions barely register. And then, boom. Call these beautiful, deftly-crafted pieces short stories, small bejeweled things. But they are the size of the world.

Roger Rosenblatt

RR’s word choice has my attention, because some of it is actually quite far away from words that come to me at first: beautiful, bejeweled. Other words ring true for me: dogs, wrestling, drowned, explosions.

The fusion is in Cascio’s eye for the beauty and value of difficult, superficially ugly truths. He is a master of unveiled views into unpleasant subjects that allow us as readers to “get past” the roadblocks that a less-skilled writer can’t avoid. Stabbings, picking fights, heart attacks, watching a home fall apart, finding the strength not to end your life even when it would make the pain go away…….I have this flashback to the end of A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean:

When I finished talking to my father, he asked, “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

Finally, I said, “Nearly all the bones in his hand were broken.”

He almost reached the door and then turned back for reassurance. “Are you sure that the bones of his hand were broken? he asked. I repeated, “Nearly all the bones in his hand were broken.” “In which hand?” he asked. “In his right hand,” I answered.

Norman Maclean

Maclean and Cascio are very different writers, but they share the same gift, the capacity to look through the outward ugliness of life to the core beauty that lies within. People can do and say and suffer some monstrous things that are not “the things” themselves. You’ll want this unique collection on your summer reading list! TENT CITY

You can find Chris on Twitter here: @ChrisJCascio.

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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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We are delighted to share that #BarnhillPrize finalist Douglas Imbrogno (The Egg, Issue 20, Fall 2021) will read from his WIP memoir tonight in Huntington, WV; he will be joined via Zoom by the beloved Homer Hickam. Hear it straight from Doug …. and you can Zoom in, too:

“The “Writers Can Read Open Mic Night” monthly series resumes 7 p.m. tonight (Monday, FEB 21) with Homer Hickam and myself as featured speakers in 15-20 minute slots, followed by an open mic. In honor of “Rocket Boys,” his memoir made into the movie “October Sky,” I’ll read from a “sorta memoir” in progress, “WHAT HAPPENED: Confessions of a Failed Boulevardier” — a chapter on the night humankind first stepped off planet. An epic thing happened that night, not often mentioned. Also, a chapter on what it’s like coming up underground into the sunlight of Paris. Homer will ZOOM into the event; I’ll be live in person at Heritage Station plus viewable on ZOOM.

Check this Writers Can Read Open Mic Night Series for the link (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82477986176?pwd=SHAvcjdwaGV3YzZBbUFmZUt0TllEZz09&fbclid=IwAR3zayj-AGwH6V5_e_YkhSZcFrVfKfTY_D6fIbveCXizu_jIADcS4reOFR4#success).”

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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

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Have a 2021 resolution to submit more of your work? Or maybe you want to kick off 2022 that way……. either way, we’ve got you covered in our submission window!

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Take a look at what we do, and if you have something that might match, we’d love to read your work.

Our mission is to present the finest essays on the mysteries of childhood experience, the wonder of adult reflection, and how the two connect over a lifespan.

We are committed to publishing narratives steeped in reverence for childhood perceptions, but we seek essays that stretch beyond the clichés of childhood as simple, angelic, or easy. We feature writing that layers the events of the writer’s early years with learning or wisdom accumulated in adult life.

We welcome diverse creative nonfiction pieces that depict revealing moments about the human condition.

We will consider one creative nonfiction piece (up to 3,500 words) per submission period. Please do not submit more than once during the reading period. Individual authors will not be published more than once per calendar year.

Please visit our website for more detailed guidance: https://longridgereview.com/submit/

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These words from her submission’s cover letter are shared with the permission of 2021 #BarnhillPrize winner Beatrice Motamedi; we hope they inspire you to think about sharing your own essay. Subs for our Winter issue are open now through January 3, 2022.

Read her essay, How to Make Jeweled Rice.

I’m in a memoir workshop right now and it’s been a revelation to realize how much I haven’t understood about what I experienced as an immigrant kid growing up in Milwaukee, and how those experiences, many of them still deep wells that I haven’t yet plumbed, continue to shape me. Or in your words, “the mysteries of childhood experience, the wonder of adult reflection, and how the two connect over a lifespan.”

When I began writing memoir, I worried that my stories would be too dated or unrelatable. Now I understand that it’s not when something took place that matters; it’s the imagination and sensibility that one can bring afterwards to what happened in childhood that can transform it into a story that can open your mind, and others as well. To my delight, the Barnhill Prize honors this kind of writing.

— Beatrice Motamedi