T
ell me a story.
A simple but profound request. In
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Harari argues that storytelling is what allowed us to thrive as a species.
Though we live in a time of TMI (too much information), big data, data analytics, search engines, AI and cloud computing, what we really need is a sorting tool we already have. The story. Tell me a story.
A story allows us to celebrate and make sense of our world in all of its beauty, horror and complexity. Whether comedies, tragedies or something in between, stories reveal our lives in all their richness of place, character, action, paradox and poignancy.
This issue continues that deep storytelling tradition, presenting six outstanding examples of the genre: "The Gifts That I Carry," a hymn to muscle cars and the open road by James Callan; "Only in Davis," Nancy Stone's humorous take on her hometown; "My Goose is Cooked," Vicki Lindner's hilarious description of a recipe gone wrong; "Tropical French," a luminous memoir of French Indochina by Nancy Penrose; "My Mother's Fears," a touching, coming-of-age tale by Bill Oliver; "Remote Island," a cautionary tale about corporate burnout in the world of Zoom by Allie Jones.
I'd like to thank the following people for their help with this issue: all the writers who contributed, Managing Editor Kathleen Glassburn for keeping things on track, and Irene Wanner, Kate Jackson, and Elisa Stancil for careful reading of submissions and editing of manuscripts.
We hope you enjoy the 18th issue of
The Writer's Workshop Review. Please let us know what you think, and if you have a story that might work for us, please send it. We read all year and welcome submissions at any time. We look forward to hearing from you!
Nicholas O'Connell, M.F.A, Ph.D., is the author of the forthcoming Crush: A Year's Apprenticeship as a Winemaker
(University of Nebraska Press, 2025), The Storms of Denali
(University of Alaska Press, 2012), On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature (U.W. Press, 2003), At the Field's End: Interviews with 22 Pacific Northwest Writers
(U.W. Press, 1998), Contemporary Ecofiction
(Charles Scribner's, 1996) and Beyond Risk: Conversations with Climbers (Mountaineers, 1993).
He contributes to Newsweek, Gourmet, Saveur, Outside, GO, National Geographic Adventure, Condé Nast Traveler, Food & Wine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sierra, The Wine Spectator, Commonweal, Image, Rock + Ice
and many other places. He is the publisher/editor of The Writer's Workshop Review
and the founder of the creative writing program ( http://www.thewritersworkshop.net).
