Thank you to Lee Hope and to all who keep the Solstice fires burning bright. Working with Lee and with our wonderful new Assistant Fiction Editor Monica Jimenez, I have loved reading and selecting stories that shine a light of truth-telling and compassion at this dark time.
Marianne Leone and Suzanne Strempek Shea show us how much truth and wisdom can be contained in short pieces. Suzanne finds life-and-death drama by drilling into the details of one Catholic schoolgirl’s small-town life: “The Five Star was showing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, about a flying car when the nuns played us a movie warning us to be safe around electric poles because some boys somewhere else in Massachusetts had been goofing off and climbed up one.”
Frank, funny and all too timely in the Epstein era, Marianne Leone’s fearless flash narratives pinpoint the impact of incidents rarely examined: “We are a loud and proud girl group. As we crest the hill, a man stands laughing across the street. We get closer. The man is jiggling his floppy penis. Shrieking, we flee, our girl power gone in an instant.”
Jessica Treadway is another master of lean prose that pulls no punches. “The Forest” is trademark Treadway: concise, clear-eyed, compassionate. Also brutally honest. Has there ever been a more raw and realistic description of someone learning they may be dying? “She’d worked herself into a state. Snot, tears, shouts—the whole nine yards. ‘I would have taken so many more days off. I would have spent all my money. Goddammit!’”
JJ Amaworo Wilson’s magnificent story “Bassoon (the Sea of Cortez)” held me from the start with its quietly powerful narrative voice and its irresistible quest to track down the world’s first song. I love how it starts small-scale, then expands in such an unexpected and ultimately hopeful way, ending with a majestic scene on the sea of Cortez: “A pod of dolphins, twenty strong, raced through and above the water, arching their backs, swallowing the distances.”
To me, all the stories in this issue gracefully swallow up the distances between us.
Elizabeth Searle is the author of six books of fiction– most recently The Drama Room: A Collection in Three Acts– and the co-author of a Feature Film, I’ll Show You Mine (Duplass Brothers Productions). The film was released in select theaters and is widely available on home screens via AmazonPrime, Peacock and more. Elizabeth’s novel, We Got Him, was a finalist for the Midwest Book Award and her previous books include A Four-Sided Bed, nominated for an ALA Book Award, and My Body to You, Iowa Short Fiction Prize winner. Her books Celebrities in Disgrace and A Four-Sided Bed are the basis of short films, and her film scripts have won multiple awards. Her feature film and her theater work Tonya & Nancy: the Rock Opera have drawn national media attention.
