Friday from the Archives: “Measured” an essay by Susan Wilson in NCLR Online 2021
Our 2021 special feature was “Writing Towards Healing.” Editor Bauer, in her opening of our single online issue that year, wrote “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…. Still, the other creative nonfiction selected for the issue fits into this section. …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.”
Writing is important to process loss, grief, and sorrow, both individually and collectively. Wilson wrote about the death of her grandmother and her cousin. “Carefully chosen words chalk the passing of years, mark accomplishments, and make us smile. All of us trying to be brave while we grieve the words whose absence disclose what never was. All of it neatly laid out as if it were deliberate and planned. It is too soon to celebrate.”
Using small familial details to write a story that heals not only something inside the writer but also helps soothe those who read it is why creative nonfiction is valuable. “Losses must be fed. My grandmother died
years ago, so I have made the pies,” Wilson wrote. “The flour roughly scooped with a cup, the salt poured into my palm then thrown into the mix, the shortening sliced from a stick. The buttermilk poured and the dough kneaded until it felt almost right. But I have nowhere to dry apples and no time to wait for them to sweeten with age. Mine are fresh and tossed in sugar. The pies baked until they were done. None of it measured. None of it timed.”
Susan Wilson won our 2025 Albright Prize and her essay will be published our 2026 flagship issue. This year’s annual Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize Contest is now open, accepting submissions for short, previously unpublished, creative nonfiction in some way related to North Carolina, through March 1st. We typically publish runners-up and honorable mentions and sometimes finalists, as well, now that we have three digital issues to fill. Submit with the next special feature or a past one in mind, or just your own story.
Read the rest of Wilson’s essay online. Add the 2021 issue to your collection today!
