NCLR 2021

Special Feature: Writing Toward Healing

cover art by Cynthia Bickley-Green

NCLR 2021 Press Release [PDF]

BUY THE 2021 ISSUE

Pushcart Nominations
Molly Sentell Haile
Keely Hendricks
Andrew D. Scrimgeour
Gideon Young

Writing The Darkness Away

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor [PDF]

“Writing cannot bring our loved ones back, but it can sometimes fix them in our fleeting memories as they were in life, and it can always help us make it through the night.”—Lee Smith

The Art of Healing: An Interview with Lee Smith
by George Hovis

Kaleidoscopic Swirls of Lee Smith
by Sharon E. Colley
art by Catherine Edgerton

The Hope of “dark night songs”: Music and Healing in Charles Fraizer’s Nightwoods
by Paula Rawlins
photography by Susanna Euston

Teaching the Darkness Away: Humanities, History, and Education
by Christie Hinson Norris
Listen to Christie read her work here. ?

Being Here in This Body
2020 Linda Flowers Award essay by Mildred Kiconco Barya

The Culprit: Reflections on the Bleeding Edge
essay by Daniel James Waters
art by Nancy Marshburn

Finding the Heart of Medicine: Teaching at the Intersection of Healthcare and Writing
by Laura Hope-Gill
art by Justus Harris

New Voices Exploring Old Territory

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor [PDF]

“This section . . . includes an analysis of one of Randall Kenan’s short stories, reminding us that while he has recently passed on, his writing lives on.”

An Ethic of Everyday Nature in John Ehle’s The Road
2021 John Ehle Prize essay by Savannah Paige Murray

She. Being Holy Ghost
a poem by David E. Poston
art by Teri Leigh Teed

Wearing Pants: Reclaiming Masculinity in Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Ron Rash’s Serena
by John Hanley
photography by Bayard Wootten

kwansaba crown
a poem by Gideon Young
art by Dare Coulter

Making Sense of “Cornsilk”: Identifying Intertexts in Randall Kenan’s Short Story
by Timothy Nixon
art by Barbara Ellis

At the Grey Dog in Chelsea
a poem by Jodi Barnes
art by Chris Watts

“It’s based on nothing but fear, by a compulsion to catastrophize”: A Conversation with Nathan Ballingrud
2021 Randall Kenan Prize interview by Jim Coby
art by Barbara Ellis

The Newsy
a poem by J.S. Absher
photography by Vivian Maier

Mission Accomplished: Introducing More New Writers

section introduction by Margaret D. Bauer, Editor [PDF]

“With our 2020 contests, each time I checked to find out the author of the winning essay . . . I found the name of a new writer to our pages. I welcome these writers to the NCLR family.”