I stand over a hero’s grave, view blocked.
by Leah Angstman
Leah Angstman has served as editor-in-chief of the press company, Alternating Current, for two decades, bringing over two hundred books by independent authors and poets into the small press. She writes historical fiction, poetry, and plays; has had twenty chapbooks published; and has earned two Pushcart Prize nominations. Recently, she won the 2013 Nantucket Directory Poetry Contest and took Honorable Mentions in both the 2013 Bevel Summers Prize for Short Fiction (Washington and Lee University) and the 2013 Baltimore Science Fiction Society Balticon Poetry Contest. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Red Fez, Zygote in My Coffee, Shenandoah, and Suisun Valley Review. She can be found at leahangstman.blogspot.com.
What do you think the other two columns add to this piece? The side columns are an author’s conversation with herself. They are the personal tidbits that she doesn’t say aloud because they prove how personal a story can be, how certain moments in time can define who we are. As a writer who missed her calling as a historian, I think in terms of history, in terms of timelines—I order my life by events that came before; I number my days by what happened on each in history; I live life like a calendar, a biography, a blip, a cemetery. For me, the side columns are the most personal part of the entire piece, because they tell you who I am—my history in the history of others, all that I hold dear, my biographies, my blips, my cemeteries. It rips away the layer of mystery, of pretension, and lays the author uncomfortably bare. You’re walking through my cemetery, blocking my view.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
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Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.
Upcoming
09/09 • Rae Gourmand
09/16 • Chiwenite Onyekwelu
09/23 • TBD
09/30 • TBD