What's in Centered: Personal Essays & Memoir Excerpts. Letter from the Editor

2019 Issue

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Centered: The magazine of personal stories. I’m thrilled to present this collection of personal essays, memoir excerpts, flash nonfiction, photography, and artwork. It’s been an adventure of a lifetime to launch this magazine, discover new writers, and create a venue for readers and writers of personal essays and memoir.

As a writer, editor, and writing teacher, I’d noticed an increasing hunger for longform personal essays and memoir excerpts, yet also saw the venues for those genres diminish. I knew I wanted Centered to showcase longer works of writing. Maybe because we live in the age of quick soundbites and because we’re too often distracted by social media and news feeds, we long for something more substantial and less transitory. I know I do.

My mission with Centered was to showcase writing that invites readers into stories on a deep level. A place for readers to immerse themselves in the story’s world, become intimately familiar with its characters, and find meaningful takeaways. While not all the writing is longform, each piece offers readers an incredibly rich reading experience.

The theme that organically emerged from this collection relates to travel. These stories transport readers to worlds they might not otherwise visit. An ATV expedition leads us to Paddy’s Peak in British Columbia. An arranged marriage takes us to Bangalore, India. A rainstorm dictates a couple navigate Rome’s flooded streets. Suburbanites and urbanites farm-sit a Massachusetts chicken farm. And a solemn visit takes us to the Dachau concentration camp.

We, as readers, also travel back in time. We witness four childbirths in the 1960s and 1970s in France and the United States. On Rogers Lake in Connecticut, we meet a Coast Guard Academy cadet and her friends at their first crewing practice. We set out on a mission to find parts for a 1972 Pinto at a Hartford junkyard. In Pigg River, Virginia, an African-American woman fends off hog thieves. And while Scottish Highlanders thrive on a farm in Ellington, Connecticut, we witness elephants mistreated in a Stanleyville, Florida circus performance.

Some stories present questions inciting us to reflect upon women’s rage, if home is defined by where we live, a child’s shameful experience at a Poconos camp, or the bochinche of the neighborhood.

We’re shown the constraints of teaching with limited time in a high school classroom, ruminations on aging and a backyard oak tree, and a young mother trying not to drown in postpartum depression. We’re invited to reflect upon the moon, gaze outside windows as a meditative practice, and learn how to cook.

This issue features 21 written pieces. Our editorial process was symbiotic, and the strong pieces selected for this issue grew even stronger as we worked with writers to shape them for publication. We’re proud to represent this diverse group of writers and the over 32,000 words published within these 100-plus pages.

As a writer and editor, I understand the process of working with editors and publishers is most fruitful when it’s collaborative. I couldn’t have found two better collaborators than Kara E. Simmers, Managing Editor, and Michele Palmer, Copy Editor. They’re both immensely talented writers. I admire and respect them professionally and personally. I met Kara and Michele through my writing workshops.

Kara is a public speaking professional who teaches college communication courses. She recently coached students in my Six Months to Your Manuscript workshop at The Storyteller’s Cottage in Connecticut. Kara’s tenacity, creativity, and enthusiasm are boundless. Among the countless tasks she tackled so well throughout the magazine’s evolution was finessing Centered’s cover design.

Michele Palmer is a thoughtful, careful, and deliberate writer and editor whose discerning eye was instrumental in the execution of Centered. Thank you both for your dedication and hard work throughout the process of putting together this magazine.

As Editor in Chief of Centered, my deepest thanks to the writers who contributed to this issue: Eileen Benton, L. A. Flammang, Stacy Firth, Kara E. Simmers, Eric Arroyo, Lakshmi Iyer, Shea Benton-Reger, Michele Palmer, Nan Redmond, Linda Stallman Gibson, John Lally, Lesley Schurmann, Joyce Hausmann, Henri Adams, Amy Bowers, Joan Seliger Sidney, Cindy Sederquest, Thomasina Clemons, and Barbara Breen. Thank you to Sarah Bousquet, Catherine Whall Smith, and Kara E. Simmers for their original artwork and photography. A special personal thanks to my son Bennett Flynn for his encouragement and his keen input. To my dear friend, Georgia O’Meara, the typeface used in this issue is Georgia in honor of you. This issue is dedicated to John Richard Flanagan, Lorraine Flanagan Barton, and Harold George Barton, family members who have since passed but who influenced me as a storyteller, writer, and person.

In closing, my connection to personal stories runs deep. In addition to writing personal essays, my memoir Reunion of Broken Parts is in revision rounds. An excerpt of my memoir was a finalist for The Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and I’ve been twice nominated for Pushcart Prizes. I write the Literary Unleashed column for Inkling Magazine. I’m also writing a nonfiction book on the benefits of writing. As a developmental editor and a writing coach, I work with writers on their manuscripts – novels and memoirs – in addition to personal essays. At The Storyteller’s Cottage, I’m the Writer in Residence where I work one-on-one with writers and also teach weekly writing workshops. Additionally, I teach at the Westport Writers’ Workshop. I can be contacted via my website: www.cflanaganflynn.com.

And one final word of appreciation, the most important of all. Thanks to you, the reader. I sincerely hope you’re as moved by the stories that follow as I was upon first reading them.

All my best,

C

C. Flanagan Flynn

Founding Editor & Editor in Chief

I Rage

A woman explores her enduring rage.

Eileen Benton

First Practice

How does memory serve our first experiences?

L. A. Flammang

When It All Falls Down

Standing amidst a quiet catastrophe.

Stacy Firth

The Unknown That Awaits

A steampunk vampire seeks connection on mountain peaks.

Kara E. Simmers

Monty

How to avoid the neighborhood bochinche?

Eric Arroyo

Arranged Marriage

How to handle marital expectations imposed by culture, family, and self?

Lakshmi Iyer

Teaching by the Clock

What to do when there’s too little time?

Shea Benton-Reger

Beyond the Delaware Water Gap

Summer camp in the Poconos – not all fun and games.

Michele Palmer

I Would Choose the Moon

The lantern of lovers and witchdoctors, the camouflage of pirates.

Nan Redmond

Partners

Is a quarter-century-old oak with root rot doomed?

Linda Stallman Gibson

Anniversary Walk

Rome, rain, and romance.

John Lally

Eden Pond Farm

Two suburbanites and two hipsters on a 100-acre Massachusetts farm.

Lesley Schurmann

My Window on the World

What can we notice when we take the time to really look?

Joyce Hausmann

A Pinto Winter

The plight of a 1972 Pinto and its DIY owner.

Henri Adams

Stanleyville

Busch Gardens, The Dark Continent, 1983.

Amy Bowers

Childbirth

The French Connection.

Joan Seliger Sidney

Take the Photograph

When knowing what to document feels impossible.

Kara E. Simmers

Scottish Highlanders of Ellington

Shaggy, hefty beasts with large eyes hidden under thick forelocks.

Cindy Sederquest

Water for Air

Calling on the triathlon training of her younger years, a new mother struggles to stay afloat.

Stacy Firth

Gilda

A family’s legacy and a letter to the past.

Thomasina Clemons

Where’s the Ketchup?

A simmer sauce recipe for a lifelong distaste for ketchup.

Barbara Breen