The Editor’s Project Series is an ongoing series run by Touchstone’s ever-evolving masthead. Each year, the editors of Touchstone design themed, genre-specific submission projects that contributors can submit to. These submissions are read, selected, and published separately from our annual Spring Issue.
Below, you’ll find our seventh and eighth projects in the series: Loud & Quiet Art and Mind and Body Nonfiction. Loud & Quiet Art was reviewed by Touchstone’s Art Team and selected by Touchstone’s current Art Editor, Ben Trickey. Mind and Body Nonfiction was read by Touchstone’s Nonfiction Team and selected by Touchstone’s current Nonfiction Editor, Joshua Konecke.
Mind and Body Nonfiction
"The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn affects the conscious mind and all reactions.”
— H.E. Davey
It's no secret that the mind and body has a strong connectivity. In our everyday lives, we may experience back pain, arthritis, hip dysplasia, etc. This physical pain and discomfort can affect us mentally as well. We may experience stress, anxiety, loss of confidence, stagnant thought, among other ailments to the mind. Similarly, if we're stressed or anxious, we may be more attune to our physical pain and discomfort.
Touchstone is proud to present nonfiction essays by two authors who understand this connection deeply.
Mind and Body Nonfiction
Skin: A Case Study
Mind and Body Nonfiction
Clean Bodies
Loud & Quiet Art
“The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears...”
– Albert Camus
We use film to capture sound. Take a camera crew outside and you can snag every resounding silence Camus knew existed in the world. But how do we distill the muted and raucous sounds of the world into the still image? Surely, if Camus knew the resounding, roaring silence well enough to catch it in words, then we can catch it in visual art too.
Visit Loud & Quiet Art to see sound captured in an image and hear from artist Nam Hoang Tran about how he finds sound in black and white photography.
Poetry in Flight
"Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, / are heading home again."
– Mary Oliver
Show us poetry that flies. Show us the sky and anything moving within it. Birds, clouds, frisbees, kites, wild geese: if it glides, flutters, flits, or hovers, we’ll welcome it here.
Sky is simultaneously a thing we all experience and an experience so distant it’s often a dream. We invite you to the aisles of an airplane. To hear poetry borne on the wings of a hummingbird. To encounter feelings that soar. To learn what it is to have wings.
Poetry in Flight
“Conversation” by John Peter Beck
Poetry in Flight
“P” by Olga González Latapí
Poetry in Flight
“Hummingbird” by Angela Sucich
Poetry in Flight
“Prayer Plane” by Sean Lyon
Poetry in Flight
“all of us up there” by Adriana Stimola
Hint Fiction
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”
- generally attributed to Ernest Hemingway
We’ve all heard that brevity is the soul of wit—but can it be the soul of storytelling? According to author Robert Swartswood, coiner of the term “hint fiction,” it can. Swartswood defines hint fiction, a subgenre of flash fiction that is steadily rising in popularity, as “a story of twenty-five words or fewer that suggests a larger, more complex story.” Like a photograph, a work of hint fiction "snapshots" a full story for readers to wonder at.
Writing within such strict confines of form challenges writers to stoke their readers’ imaginations with only the few short sentences at their disposal, fostering a uniquely collaborative storytelling experience that asks you, dear readers, to fill in the blanks.
Hint Fiction by Three Authors
Smell Poetry
“Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling?”
-William Carlos Williams
While writers tend to rely on sight, hearing, and touch quite often, smell provides an opportunity to capture personal experience in a uniquely tangible way. Smell is an underappreciated vehicle for understanding complex emotions, experiences, and memories.
We share these pieces with you, hoping you will consider what roles certain scents play in your life and how they impact you on a emotional level.
Smell Poetry
“Immortelle” by lindsay donovan
Smell Poetry
“saffron rabbit” by Christopher Riesco
Lost Connections: Non-Fiction
“All connections are infused with dreams of what is possible in the future. Thus, when we lose something or someone important to us, we aren’t just grieving the loss, we are grieving the shattered dream.”
-Dr. Bill Crawford
Seasons of life warrant change, and connections may be lost, or perhaps missed. Lost connections can come in the form of a place you miss, a person you may never see again, or a person you’ve never met, and yet you can still feel their dramatic impact on your life.
We share these pieces with you as an opportunity to meditate on your own lost connections, in light of the stories given here.
Lost Connections: Non-Fiction
“You, me, and that damned Turkey” by Nyssa Owens
Lost Connections: Non-Fiction
“Combination Man” by Laura M. Furlan
Speculative Fiction
"People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within. It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
-Ursula K. Le Guin
While literary fiction is beautiful and contemplative, we oftentimes overlook the fact that Speculative Fiction can be just as bewitching and mysterious as its other genre counterparts. These stories explore the journey of what it means to be human, whether sitting in a beige therapist’s office dealing with mythical creatures or standing on the rusty, hedonistic sands of Mars. They acknowledge Le Guin’s dragons and meet them head on.
We share these stories with you in hopes you will find a quest-worthy journey to undertake.
Speculative Fiction
“Set the Bed on Fire” by Andrea Chesman
Speculative Fiction
“Children of Sons” by Cameron Green
Angry Poetry
There is no such beast as too angry / I’m a canary down this mine of apathy / singing & singing my yellow throat on fire / with this scared holy purifying / spirit of anger”
“They’re Always Telling Me I’m Too Angry” — Chrystos
Many of the poems submitted to Touchstone are liberating in their joy and tender in their melancholy. These poems, however, call out to that ugly anger inside all of us. These poems, much like Chrystos’s canary, rage through their bodies and into us. These poems answer torrin a. greathouse’s call for “the ugly of tongue, / lolling serpent curled in the slick of my jaw, searching / for its own teeth.”
In reading these poems, we found our serpents. We share them with you so that you can find your fangs.
Angry Poetry
"Sheep's Clothing" by Virginia Laurie
Angry Poetry
"Search For Me" by Amanda Woodard
Angry Poetry
“Billy Nair’s on the Moon” by Shannon Frost Greenstein
Angry Poetry
Two Poems by Catherine Wright