Welcome From the Editor (Fall 2011)
Dear reader,
Welcome to the Art & Insanity of Creativity issue. While this issue’s theme may sound tongue in cheek, it is anything but. To quote Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis (1885-1957) “A person needs a little madness, or else they dare never cut the rope and be free.” Kazantzakis’ quote points to artist as rebel. Artist as free thinker. Artist going against the societal ties that bind us all. An artist is all these things—and therefore an artist needs the courage to examine the world we live in and our own human nature.
And then we have psychiatrist, scholar, and bipolar patient Dr. Kay Redfield Jameson whose book Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament contends:
…to make a literary, biographical, and scientific argument for a compelling association, not to say an actual overlap, between two temperaments—the artistic and the manic depressive—and their relationships to the rhythms and cycles, or temperament of the natural world. The emphasis will be on understanding the relationship between moods and imagination, the nature of moods—their variety, their contrary and oppositional qualities, their flux, their extremes (causing in some individuals occasional bouts of ‘madness’)—and the importance of moods in igniting thought, changing perceptions, creating chaos, forcing order upon that chaos, and enabling transformation. (5)
In reading Jameson’s book for research for an upcoming novel of mine, and to understand an illness that has touched my family’s life in many ways, I began to see and make connections I hadn’t before. Any illness—cancer, diabetes, bipolar disorder—is scary and can be life-threatening but it also can be life-affirming. That is where art and artistry comes in: exploring the dark, wandering there, with the sole purpose of finding the light.
December 20, 2011. It’s that time of year when the “best of” lists appear. From books to movies to the apps, the best of lists condense a year of art and creativity into ten slots. Well, here at Hunger Mountain, we know that the Art & Insanity of Creativity produced in 2011 deserves more than ten bullet points. So this holiday week, we offer new essays and fiction in honorof all the art and creativity that has been produced all year. We welcome picture book turned middle-grade author Audrey Vernick’s What My Last Book Taught Me, where Audrey addresses the dreaded “quiet” label. Travel with Lisa Railsback to Utilia (complete with stunning pictures of island life) in With Love From: Off the Grid. And in The Thing about Grace, Barbara Shoup takes us along on another kind of journey–a research trip to learn more about the real-life people and places that inspire her fiction. Lori Eslick in INKlings offers a unique way to measure one’s creative output with The Daily Inch. And don’t miss E. Kristin Anderson’s Myself Behind Myself, a fascinating psychological yet lyrical rendering of one girl’s psyche.
Last month we visited with NBA finalist Sara Zarr in our Industry Insider and chatted with her, in-depth, about her latest novel How to Save a Life, which has earned five starred reviews. Ron Koertge gave Stoner and Spaz fans a treat, taking us behind the scenes of his sequel Now Playing: Stoner & Spaz II with What My Last Book Taught Me. Feature-wise, we offered Out on the Bendy Branches by Lindsey Lane, a moving essay in which Lindsey encourages us all to write what we do not know. And editor Andrew Karre of Carolrhoda Labs was our In Response columnist, offering his unique voice on what YA is and how it is changing. Our new fiction was The Screaming Divas by Suzanne Kamata.
Don’t miss past work: our Katherine Paterson prize winner and finalists, as judged by National Book Award winning author Kimberly Willis Holt: Him by Heather Smith Meloche; Forty Thieves and Green-Eyed Girl by Christy Lenzi, and Cesar by Betty Yee. Another highlight was Writing from Both Sides of the Brain, a feature by Kelly Barson, which explains how both the left and the right sides of the brain are engaged in producing good fiction. We offered several poems by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, author of the recent Under the Mesquite. Our Flipside was unique: we offered three voices, a seasoned writing instructor, Uma Krishnaswami, author of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything and newer writing teachers, Sarah Aronson, author of Beyond Lucky and Debby Dahl Edwardson, a current National Book Award nominee for My Name Is Not Easy. Each shared her own unique method of The Art & Insanity of Teaching Writing. Earlier this fall we welcomed Kirsten Cappy of Curious City in our Industry Insider with her ode to REM, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It…” which delves into the multifaceted work that Kirsten does with her Curious City clients. We offered new fiction by novelist Jennifer Hubbard with The Stage Manager and A Cut-Out Face by Mima Tipper—both of which are psychological studies as well as damn fine short stories. And, we debuted the first of our features for this issue with Bobbie Pyron’s brave essay The Perks of Being Bipolar.
And lest this issue sound too serious—do not fear— there is plenty to chuckle at and laugh with in the pieces above and the pieces to come. So, please stop back often. Read, respond and let this issue aid the art and insanity in your creativity.
Best,
Bethany Hegedus, YA and Children’s Lit Editor
We are now accepting pieces for consideration for our Winter 2012 issue The Magic & Mystery of Identity and our Spring 2012 issue The Landscape of Literature. Please see here for submission guidelines. *Note: there is now a $3.00 submissions fee which is not a reading fee, but a charge that helps fund the cost of the online submissions manager. Since our readers and editors are scattered around the globe, snail mail submissions, which would also cost submitters roughly $3, are not viable. Thank you for your continued support of Hunger Mountain.*
