A brief note on writing and Arkana‘s nonfiction process.
by Jacqulyn West, Nonfiction Editor
I’ve finally learned to answer “yes” when people ask, “are you a writer?” Since I don’t write fiction and have a tenuous relationship with poetry, it’s seemed like a stretch to say what I’ve been writing is what others consider writing. Serving as Arkana’s nonfiction editor has changed my perspective and boosted my confidence, both about calling myself a writer and about nonfiction as a laudable and important genre.
Over the course of our first two issues, we’ve read over a hundred nonfiction submissions. We’re looking for pieces that fit our mission to publish work by people whose voices are not often represented in media, or work that challenges us to look at things with a new and different perspective. Many of the works we’ve received and read are good prose, but they don’t bring the fresh take or unusual aspect that we’re looking for. But when we get a piece that shows us a slice of someone’s experience that we’ve never seen published elsewhere, or a piece that opens up an exciting thinking space – like a hidden passageway in an old familiar library – that’s when the staff starts having conversations. “Did you read that piece? Could you believe they said that?! I’ve never heard anyone describe it that way. We should publish this!”
As a genre, nonfiction is nearly everywhere, from your shopping list and refrigerator notes at home, to personal ads and obituaries in the newspaper, to more formal and familiar essays and think pieces that describe or explain a person’s perspective or experience. Since nonfiction proliferates in our everyday lives with devices in our purses and pockets and screens everywhere, we’re dedicated to our search for the “mysteries and marginalized voices” in Arkana. We want to be the place where conversations start about ideas that folks have been carrying around without articulating, or where conversations continue about passionate concerns among our contributors and readers.
If there’s just one take-away I hope our blog readers and potential contributors get here, it’s that we trust our contributors to be the experts of their experience. We read each piece that is submitted and publish excellent prose with a clear voice that elucidates people’s real lives.
Check out the two works of nonfiction included in Arkana‘s Issue 2:
“An Opening Closed to the Public: A Black Lesbian Separatist at Play”
“Pruritus”
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