by Donna Kain, Art Editor
Hi. I’m the new art editor for the North Carolina Literary Review, and I’ve been around the block. I’ve done a lot of things in a lot of places. When people ask me where I’m from—and they’re probably sorry when they do—my answer is complicated. I was born in Maryland. When I was six, my family moved to the Philippines, then Okinawa. We came back to Maryland when I was ten, but it didn’t feel like coming home.
My parents were from New York City, and, though they moved to Maryland in their early twenties, they were always from New York. My mother was an actress; my father was a spy, and the big city was part of their cachet, their larger-than-lifeness. So, where else could they have been from? Iowa?
I lived in Iowa. Then Milwaukee. Then Iowa again. Lots of corn and beans there. What kind of corn and beans, you ask? Ask a farmer; they’ll look at you like you’re dumb as a box of rocks and drawl, “Seed corn, feed, corn, and soybeans,” as if everyone knows that. Seed corn is mostly GMO, by the way, and the productive fields of Iowa float on an elaborate system of drainage tiles that turned Iowa from marsh to farmland. How do I know this? I worked for the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development when I was a grad student at Iowa State. I also taught composition, worked as a night auditor at a hotel, painted houses, and hung wallpaper. Before Ames, Iowa, I hailed from Kirksville, Missouri, a town of 16,000. I lived in an even smaller place for a couple of years: Potsdam, New York, which is nowhere near New York City, and very, very cold.
Before going north, I went south to Merritt Island, Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center. People say Florida sounds like fun, but it’s a hard place, and very, very hot. In Florida, I owned a sign company, worked in nail salons, served at restaurants, sold real estate, managed retail stores, and framed art at galleries. I have been a licensed manicurist, a licensed realtor, and a certified picture framer. Working in galleries was cool and connected with my early aspirations to become an artist. My aspirations hardly aligned with my concurrent jobs at hardware stores and service departments at car dealerships.
Why am I telling you all this? I guess because I’ve worked at East Carolina University longer than anywhere else and lived in Eastern North Carolina longer than any place else.
Some days, I almost feel like I’m from here. So, what does it mean to be from a place? Maybe it’s less about where you’re born and more about the connections you make, the communities and people in the place you choose to settle that seep into your skin.
The people who illustrate that lived experience, who record lives, memories, environments, and cultures through art and literature, help make a place. NCLR celebrates writers and artists, both born in and transplanted to North Carolina, who enrich our connections and celebrate the communities that collectively define North Carolina. They help create a unique sense of place that has as much to do with planting roots as having roots.
The opportunity to work with NCLR is part of my choosing to be home.