by Joy E. Stocke
The Elements of Style
What a difference three years make. When we began publishing Wild River Review in March, 2006, many looked skeptically at us. Why would we give up print? Where would we find an audience on the web? Did we no longer love print?
First, we love print. But, print has become only one medium where writers craft words into stories. We are also fond of books, the paper kind, and dedicated to the editorial principles and grammatical standards set by print publishing and journalism.
If necessity is the mother of invention, we were a bellwether in this regard: the cost of printing, mailing and distributing a monthly magazine had become so expensive that we saw online publishing as a viable way to continue our mission and expand it.
And so we set out to do just that, featuring established and new voices in fiction, poetry; interviewing scientists, inventors, authors, not only traveling the globe, but reaching readers around the globe as well, something we were unable to do with print.
The concepts of fluidity and rigor guide Wild River Review. And we are fond of making corny river metaphors at staff meetings and gatherings. Most of the time we feel as if we’re in a rubber dinghy, one that smacks against rocks, follows a tributary to dry land and then needs to be dragged across gravel. But we trust the process and believe in it.
In this issue we return to our cyber roots with an interview from our first issue, The Melancholy Life of Orhan Pamuk where Turkish author and Pulitzer Prizewinner, Orhan Pamuk spoke about his novel, Snow and memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City. At the time, he was living in New York City after being accused in Turkey of a treasonable act, saying that the first genocide of the 20th century had occurred there against the Armenian population.
I met him on a street corner near Columbia University where he…led me to a building with a conservatory and a piano and high ceilings and one table. Ground rules were laid immediately. “I don’t want to talk about my conversation with the Swiss journalist,” he said. “I want to talk about literature…”
The charges against Pamuk have since been dropped, but not the issue of genocide. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was recently in Turkey where the issue was addressed. According to the Turkish Newspaper, Hurriyet – the online edition – “The new U.S. administration appreciated Turkey’s opinions and sensitivities regarding the Armenian claims on the 1915 incidents, the Turkish Foreign Minister said on Saturday, adding later there was however still a “risk” over the U.S. stance on the issue.”
In another installment of Angie Brenner’s and my account of our journey through Turkey, The Eagle of Ararat, we travel to eastern Turkey to see what we can find out about the Armenians and the Kurds who live in the region.
“This is a crazy place in so many ways,” says the Eagle. “A few years ago, a local official planned to destroy the church and say that no Armenians lived here. But, the church has been photographed so often and travelers have written about it. Even he had to agree the idea was stupid. Although no one will say it out loud, everybody knows the Armenians have been here as long as anyone can remember.”
In her piece, The Elements of Style , Executive Editor, Kim Nagy explores the intersection of science and literature with Sunetra Gupta.“It is easy to imagine novelist and scientist Sunetra Gupta behind a microscope,” says Nagy.“Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University, the biologist, fiction and non-fiction writer examines ideas, characters, and diseases such as influenza, with a careful, interior focus.”
Gupta shares the nuances of the two worlds she loves. …In science, it would be murder to have your conclusion before you begin experiment” she says. “It is a journey when you set out to test that hypothesis and you don’t actually know where it is going to lead you… Let’s not ever forget that science has its own aesthetic and that the equation between scientific research and writing in some ways collide.
From these collisions are born certain moments in fiction, and certain conceptual leaps in science…The difference is that in science I want each piece, each element, to mean some thing exactly…Whereas when I use a word in fiction I almost want it to have all kinds of possible meanings.
In Hey Detroit, Meet Me in Havana, Peter Soderman, creator of Quark Park travels to Cuba by way of Cancun in search of classic cars.
Cancun, where I await a flight to Havana, is a gastronomic vaudeville for Margaritaville Americans bent on rogue acts of gluttony. They even tried to get me into a time-share condo, “NOW, before time runs out!” For which I told them:
Number one: “Bernard Madoff ponzy-schemed my life savings.”
And two: “I need a time-share in Cancun like I need a burlap Speedo.”
And in the The Hidden Pearl – visual artist, Annelies van Dommelen, shares how she incorporates the language of nature into her work.
My eyes were to the ground, mostly, as I was always looking for treasure. It came in the form of a vine or scroll, rocks suggesting texture and pattern, animated roots of trees forming hands; and limbs reaching out for something. I fell in love with the burl, the hidden pearl of a particular tree; ferns awakening, cicada leftovers, and a wing of a butterfly.
The web offers a way to see the world as whole and interconnected and Wild River Review will continue to offer our perspective. While we no longer have paper and ink costs, we do employ writers, editors, and web designers who have their own bills. Your contributions are the fuel that keep us going and nourishes their careers. So, take a moment to contribute. No donation is too small.
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