Summer/Fall 2017

We are proud to present our Summer/Fall 2017 issue.

We had a great number of quality contributions, and we’re happy to showcase works from both established writers and emerging writers.

Although Wraparound South is not usually themed, we assemble our issue based on works that gravitate towards a subject that organically emerges from the many submissions we receive.  If we were to chose a title for this issue it would be “Crossing Barriers” as the works of our talented authors this season take on the uncomfortable challenges of class, race, political, and geographical barriers, and the wisdom that comes from bucking the familiar and stepping into the foreign and the unknown.

In “Not a Simple Love” Robert Earle explores the titillating difficulties of approaching a cross-racial relationship, while in “Believe You Me” Jeremy Townley’s Vladimir Putin makes a break from the CIA’s clutches in the guise of a gas station mascot, crossing geographical barriers as well as barriers of normalcy and imagination.  In “Only Assholes Write Memoirs” John Oliver Hodges offers a disarming look at the difficulties of emerging as a young writer from his famous father’s shadow, and finds himself interrogating the ostensibly noble motivations of writing to attain fame.  In “People I’m Talking About” Terry Barr meditates on the racial divides dominating the South of his early youth and the music that would eventually serve to melt some of those divides.  And check out John Andrew’s “On Dancing With Southern Boys” on the seductive power of words to transcend patriarchy and sexual roles, or Billy Malanga’s “Mother Said” on makeup and transformation, or Maryanne Sthal’s “Schrödinger’s Bozo” to reconsider ownership and obedience between pets and humans. There is something here for the thoughtful reader and for the reader of leisure both.

Enjoy this issue of Wraparound South: we hope something among these digital spaces will inspire you to cross your own bridges and barriers, and to step into foreign soil that you may find, perhaps, not so unfamiliar.

Laura Valeri, Managing Editor