While editor Beth Staples is on maternity leave and sabbatical for the 2021-22 academic year, Brenna Womer is stepping in as interim editor. What better way to introduce Issue 71.1 than with an interview between the two women at the helm of Shenandoah?
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Brenna, we are so lucky to have you taking over Shenandoah for the year! This conversation finds you almost halfway through. I birthed a baby and you’re about to birth the first issue—what have been some of the highlights of this semester?
I feel endlessly lucky to be here and can’t believe the issue is about to launch! These last several months have whizzed by, but some highlights: immersing myself in the creative-nonfiction queue back in August after we opened submissions for two weeks. I’m still making my way through them, but right off the bat, there were a few pieces I just had to accept immediately, and I can’t wait to see those published in the spring. Another highlight has been seeing which prose pieces our interns decided to bring forward for discussion. Watching them lead discussion, ask hard questions, and make arguments for and against publication has been inspiring, and one particularly stimulating discussion led to an immediate acceptance, which was exciting, especially for the intern who called our attention to the piece.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the semester, though, was holding your sweet babe for the first time! As you know, I’m an only child and childless by choice, so it’s on very rare occasion I have the opportunity to hold and be around a baby, much less a newborn. Sitting with you in your home, talking about the magazine and teaching and life, holding baby Remy—it’s been such a privilege and a joy. A highlight to say the least.
What brought you to Shenandoah and W&L? Tell us a little bit about your background.
Before I came to W&L and started as interim editor of Shenandoah, I was at LSU in Baton Rouge, serving as the faculty advisor for New Delta Review and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing. It was just a one-year position while a member of their fiction faculty, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, was on fellowship at the University of Mississippi, so I was back on the job market almost immediately after accepting the position at LSU, and that’s when I saw the posting for this position at W&L. I was drawn to it because I’d be able to keep teaching creative writing, which I love and always hope to do, but also because the opportunity to edit Shenandoah is an actual dream.
I worked on Moon City Review and Passages North during my MA and MFA programs, respectively, and those involvements were the major highlights of my graduate-school experiences. So much so that I sought out a position as contributing editor for Story Magazine once I was out of graduate school because I missed working on a literary magazine so much; I was desperate to get back in the queue. At LSU, as faculty advisor for a grad-run magazine, I was expected to be pretty hands-off, which isn’t really my style—ha!—and I began to suspect I’d be much happier as the editor of a publication, so this opportunity at W&L and with Shenandoah was a perfect opportunity to test that suspicion. Turns out, I was right, and I’ve loved every moment—even the most daunting and frustrating ones—of being EIC. You left incredibly big shoes to fill in your yearlong absence, but I appreciate having something to strive for and someone to learn from.
You’re a writer too. What are you working on (if working on something has been possible this semester)? Can you point us to one of your favorite pieces online and give us a bit of backstory?
I am! I’m a multi-genre writer, but lately I’ve been more focused on creative nonfiction and poetry; though, I do have a very-early-stages novel in the works. (To say I’m chipping away at it would be generous.) Over the past several months, I’ve had quite a bit published, but it’s all work that was written during quarantine when I had a bit more time on my hands. I did write a poem called “alien(us),” which was inspired by holding Remy for the first time, and that was just published by Ghost City Review. I also have the start of an essay minimized on my laptop, and I pull that up to work on whenever I have the energy and a spare moment. (Not so often this past month, but I’m looking forward to diving in once Issue 71.1 is in the world.)
As for a favorite recent piece of my own, about a month ago I had my first-ever craft essay, “Cultivating Empathy through Mimetic Forms,” published by Grist. It’s an essay I’ve been writing in my head for two-plus years and started putting on the page over a year ago, so to finally see it in the world is exciting. I’m also really happy with this flash essay, “Hunny,” published last month by Pithead Chapel, another online magazine I admire.
What excites you about this issue? Is there a piece you’re particularly proud of?
So much excites me about this issue. The fiction selected by Editorial Fellow Jenzo DuQue is some of the most innovative I’ve read—Celeste Chen’s “Antioch” is a revelation—and working with Jenzo and the writers in his section has been the most stimulating, illuminating, and rewarding experience. Some other pieces I think we’re incredibly lucky to be publishing: Megan Mayhew Bergman’s story “Peaches, 1979,” Tracy Lum’s essay “An American Name,” Emily Nason’s poem “Oomancy,” and Robert Wood Lynn’s poem “On My Way Home from the Hospital.”
One piece I’m particularly proud of is Shell St. James’s novel excerpt, Chapter 2 of The Mermaid of Agawam Bay. St. James’s novel is YA, and there just aren’t very many literary magazines publishing YA fiction, or novel excerpts for that matter, so I’m extremely proud Shenandoah is. Also, the excerpt is fantastic; I’m hooked and ready for the full manuscript! The essay St. James wrote to accompany the excerpt is also very special: “Let a Little Magic In,” published on The Peak.
The last thing I’m both excited about and proud of is our optional-trigger-warning feature! Coming into this position, I felt strongly that we should start offering trigger warnings as needed, but I’m aware of the controversy surrounding them. As a person with triggers, I’m almost always grateful for the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether to engage with a text, but I also appreciate that, for some folks, trigger warnings can be distracting and sometimes serve as spoilers for the piece. That’s why I’m so hyped for the button our web editor Jeff Barry created! If a piece contains a potential trigger, there should be a button by the title that informs the reader there are warnings for the piece, and if the reader wants to know the potential triggers, they can click the button to reveal them. I know there’s never a catch-all solution to please everyone, but I think this innovation does a good job meeting folks on both sides of the debate.
How was working with the student interns this semester? How did they help contribute to the issue?
Working with our student interns has been a blast. They’re so excited and exciting; they’re astute and clever and hardworking. They’ve contributed a lot to this issue. They did the initial copyediting and fact-checking for all the issue’s fiction, and then each intern chose a bigger project to close out the term. August Donovan recorded, transcribed, and edited an outstanding conversation with Douglas W. Milliken, author of the essay “Anyone Can Have a Good Time,” and that will be published on The Peak in conjunction with the issue launch. Bruce Tickner interviewed Shell St. James, and Iain MacLeod interviewed Megan Mayhew Bergman, and those features will be published on The Peak in the next month. Will Robertson and Elle Young made promotional cards—one with the author’s name and title of their piece(s) and another with a quote from their work—to send each writer for the issue launch, a project inspired by my experience with the fabulous editors at No Contact who do the same for their contributors.
What do you do in your non-Shenandoah time? I’ve eaten some of your pies and I admire your Instagram presence and I’ve never seen anyone fully decorate an office so quickly. Plus, Basil the dog—what a cutie! Tell us about your non-editor life.
Life apart from magazine and teaching duties is pretty quiet, and I like it that way. In the spring and summer, I love to garden herbs and veggies to cook with. Even though it’s way easier to spend two bucks at Kroger for a package of thyme when I need it, I prefer to nurture and tend (and talk to) a garden. I really appreciate this conversation, the one I mention above, between our intern, August, and Douglas W. Milliken, in which they discuss how intimate that plant and garden connection can be.
Speaking of herbs, my sweet Basil! She’s such a big part of my life—my first soulmate. She’s a rescue from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (a bonafide Yooper) where I did my MFA. During my first six months of the three-year program, I was deeply depressed, and my doctor suggested an emotional support animal when I shared with her that the only time I felt joy was when I saw dogs at the coffee shop where I did my writing. I visited the local shelter, UPAWS, and there she was—Basil—though, at the time they were calling her Pretty Girl, which I hated. Because she’d just been picked up, they were waiting to see if her owners might claim her, so I had to wait a couple days before I could put in my application. Adoptions were on a first-come basis, so on the day she was finally eligible for adoption, I stood outside the shelter’s front door (in February) for a half hour before they opened, printed application in hand, freezing and hopeful. We’ve been madly in love ever since.
My second soulmate is my spouse, Evan, who is a Democratic organizer, a gamer, and Basil’s favorite human. (Yes, I’m salty about it.) It’s pretty rare that Evan and I have time off work simultaneously—we’ve been married two years and still haven’t taken a honeymoon (though, maybe the pandemic is more to blame for that than our careers)—but when we do, we like to grab drinks and food, see movies, walk Basil, and drive to nearby towns to look around. We like to indulge our curiosities together.