Letter from the Editor
I never know how to conduct myself in phone interviews. The quick, conversational style makes them resemble something that could be face-to-face if you squint tightly enough, but there’s no body language to read, and admittedly technology isn’t my strong suit. Typically, I pace in circles around my living room, crinkling my toes into the floor. I dress nicely even though no one else can see. I anticipate which questions the interviewer may ask, and I spend the conversation living in the future tense. After, everything blends into interviews I’ve done before, a sticky, gummy conglomerate of vague memories.
Which is why, when a phone interviewer asked me the most pervasive and frustrating question I’ve ever received about publishing, I had no idea what to say. (As a spoiler, I did not get this internship.) It’s a question I still consider with every issue we compile, every piece I analyze for BWO and beyond. I had been telling the interviewer about my interest in publishing and amplifying marginalized voices, especially ones exploring how complex intersections in identity can be. When I finished talking, without hesitation, she said, “I agree, but how do you decide which marginalized voices to publish and which ones aren’t strong enough?”
Publishing is an industry, and especially as the editor-in-chief, so much of my role involves logistics. There is an input, and there is an output. As soon as you choose one piece to publish, you lose space for a different piece you could’ve published. You curate a mission, and you curate an aesthetic within that mission. “Not strong enough” is simply code for existing biases, valid or deeply problematic. And these decisions don’t exist in a void: real people manage them. It’s not off-target to call them gatekeepers. Sometimes, when (usually big and established) publications say they want more submissions from marginalized creators, what they mean is that they want a certain kind of submission, a certain perspective, approach, or technique they already enjoy. The result can be a descriptive but not substantive representation: voices from a wider array of backgrounds are made visible, but without as many changes in available narratives, genres, or structures. The literary landscape remains stable even as more people move in.
I never wanted BWO to close itself off from growth and reassessment. I wanted us to constantly think about expanding as a publication and as editors, about how we could shape a space for descriptive and substantive representation. I wanted us to move deeply into every piece we considered, seeing how it creates the texture of its narrative, the subtlety, effort, and technical skill behind it. I wanted to see submissions that played between or outside traditional styles and stories, in whatever form creators thought could best encompass what they needed to say. I’m overjoyed that this is the first issue with a “Spoken Word” section. For me, spoken word has allowed anger to weave into poetry more, an emotion I missed in other spaces. The topography of anger is vast, full of hills, valleys, and variability. It texturally changes how the literary landscape looks and what it can mean.
All the pieces in this issue span across experiences and reflections on those experiences. Zoe Lafontant’s “King” is, as Maheen eloquently said, “a clarion call, bold and upfront in what it believes, stunningly brutal.” Elsewhere in our “Poetry” section, Vans Bano softly explores bodies and the relationships we can create with each other through them. It isn’t always simple or straightforward, but “sometimes the most human thing about us is that we aren’t on our knees / & i promise / you, that is enough.” In “Fiction,” Hannah Stewart layers allegory and illusion over everyday life in critique of our casual cruelties. Other prose includes Faith Camarena’s introspective, reflective essay on choosing her name, and across from it, Lillian Robles critically analyzes Jane Eyre, Twilight, and Byronic “romance.” Between genres, Eug Xu composes (pun intended) a series of visual poems that “attempt to understand or at least complicate what it means to exist in this world and in a body that doesn't necessarily agree with one's identity,” invoking Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory” and chronic illness as “a little demon steaming black smoke, frothing around, nestling into my bones.” Everywhere, stories are inextricable from their structures, and these pieces could exist in no other form.
As you read through this issue, I hope you ask yourself how each of these pieces fit into the larger literary world, how each word echoes through a wide expanse. I promise you’ll find new connections: there’s so much here.
Courtney Felle
Editor-in-Chief
Marriah Talbott-Malone Prose Editor
Maheen Shahbazi Poetry Editor
I never know how to conduct myself in phone interviews. The quick, conversational style makes them resemble something that could be face-to-face if you squint tightly enough, but there’s no body language to read, and admittedly technology isn’t my strong suit. Typically, I pace in circles around my living room, crinkling my toes into the floor. I dress nicely even though no one else can see. I anticipate which questions the interviewer may ask, and I spend the conversation living in the future tense. After, everything blends into interviews I’ve done before, a sticky, gummy conglomerate of vague memories.
Which is why, when a phone interviewer asked me the most pervasive and frustrating question I’ve ever received about publishing, I had no idea what to say. (As a spoiler, I did not get this internship.) It’s a question I still consider with every issue we compile, every piece I analyze for BWO and beyond. I had been telling the interviewer about my interest in publishing and amplifying marginalized voices, especially ones exploring how complex intersections in identity can be. When I finished talking, without hesitation, she said, “I agree, but how do you decide which marginalized voices to publish and which ones aren’t strong enough?”
Publishing is an industry, and especially as the editor-in-chief, so much of my role involves logistics. There is an input, and there is an output. As soon as you choose one piece to publish, you lose space for a different piece you could’ve published. You curate a mission, and you curate an aesthetic within that mission. “Not strong enough” is simply code for existing biases, valid or deeply problematic. And these decisions don’t exist in a void: real people manage them. It’s not off-target to call them gatekeepers. Sometimes, when (usually big and established) publications say they want more submissions from marginalized creators, what they mean is that they want a certain kind of submission, a certain perspective, approach, or technique they already enjoy. The result can be a descriptive but not substantive representation: voices from a wider array of backgrounds are made visible, but without as many changes in available narratives, genres, or structures. The literary landscape remains stable even as more people move in.
I never wanted BWO to close itself off from growth and reassessment. I wanted us to constantly think about expanding as a publication and as editors, about how we could shape a space for descriptive and substantive representation. I wanted us to move deeply into every piece we considered, seeing how it creates the texture of its narrative, the subtlety, effort, and technical skill behind it. I wanted to see submissions that played between or outside traditional styles and stories, in whatever form creators thought could best encompass what they needed to say. I’m overjoyed that this is the first issue with a “Spoken Word” section. For me, spoken word has allowed anger to weave into poetry more, an emotion I missed in other spaces. The topography of anger is vast, full of hills, valleys, and variability. It texturally changes how the literary landscape looks and what it can mean.
All the pieces in this issue span across experiences and reflections on those experiences. Zoe Lafontant’s “King” is, as Maheen eloquently said, “a clarion call, bold and upfront in what it believes, stunningly brutal.” Elsewhere in our “Poetry” section, Vans Bano softly explores bodies and the relationships we can create with each other through them. It isn’t always simple or straightforward, but “sometimes the most human thing about us is that we aren’t on our knees / & i promise / you, that is enough.” In “Fiction,” Hannah Stewart layers allegory and illusion over everyday life in critique of our casual cruelties. Other prose includes Faith Camarena’s introspective, reflective essay on choosing her name, and across from it, Lillian Robles critically analyzes Jane Eyre, Twilight, and Byronic “romance.” Between genres, Eug Xu composes (pun intended) a series of visual poems that “attempt to understand or at least complicate what it means to exist in this world and in a body that doesn't necessarily agree with one's identity,” invoking Johanna Hedva’s “Sick Woman Theory” and chronic illness as “a little demon steaming black smoke, frothing around, nestling into my bones.” Everywhere, stories are inextricable from their structures, and these pieces could exist in no other form.
As you read through this issue, I hope you ask yourself how each of these pieces fit into the larger literary world, how each word echoes through a wide expanse. I promise you’ll find new connections: there’s so much here.
Courtney Felle
Editor-in-Chief
Marriah Talbott-Malone Prose Editor
Maheen Shahbazi Poetry Editor