What We Are Becoming

What We Are Becoming: 2024 Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Literary Arts 

By Various Authors; Introduction by John T. Edge 

South Arts, Hub City Press; 2024 

Softcover: $17.95 

Genre: Short Fiction 

Reviewed by Edward Journey 

It is good news that South Arts, which has been supporting Southern arts in some form or another for almost half a century (it was previously Southern Arts Federation), now has a literary arts component under its far-reaching umbrella. It has kicked that new outreach off with an anthology of short fiction, What We Are Becoming, with an Introduction by John T. Edge, a Foreword by South Arts CEO Suzette M. Surkamer, and featuring nine stories by winners of State Fellowships for the Literary Arts in the nine states served by South Arts. 

It is a diverse collection of writers and a reflection of a South that is “forever becoming,” in the words of John T. Edge. In Randi Pink’s “Killed the Mockingbird,” Calpurnia steps out of the shadow of the Finch family and defines herself as “the load-bearing walls” of To Kill a Mockingbird. “Obeah” by Camille Boxhill opens with a meditation, of sorts, on Jamaican voodoo as Candice, in her mother’s house, reflects on her past, her present, and her mother’s reaction “if she knew my plans” for the future – “Would she blame herself? Disown me?” Much is left unsaid in “Obeah.” 

An excerpt from Constance Collier-Mercado’s None of This Is Real features a long and edgy phone call between two exes regarding the child they co-parent, revealing much about the causes of their failed marriage. Another excerpt, from What the Wolf Wants by Ashley Blooms, considers Esther’s childhood as “a blur of front doors and cracked foundations, leaking roofs and creaking floors, messy goodbyes and half-buttoned coats, and always, always, always, hurried escapes.” Esther plots her own escape from a wandering, thieving family, haunted by a dead baby’s ghost, leaving strands of his blanket as “a path in the woods” for him to be able to follow. 

“Caesura Pittman, or a Negress of God” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, set in 1866 New Orleans, is a first-person narrative by the title character – a free woman of color committed to ensuring that her attempted rapist gets the justice he deserves in a racist court system.  Lane, the twice-bereaved central character in an excerpt from Melissa Ginsburg’s The House Uptown, deals with the realization that “everything was easier when she was on her own.” Joanna Pearson’s creepy coming-of-age story, “Amo, Amas, Amat,” follows a perhaps oblivious girl as she comes to grips with the loneliness all around. In “The Singing Membrane,” a story by F.E. Choe, a glassblower gives her dwelling over to migrating birds in placid, unsettling resignation. A recent widower and his son adjust to a radically new place after losing a spouse/mother in Yurina Yoshikawa’s “Dogwood.” Hoshie, the widowed man, smiles at concerned inquiries in a way “that’s crafted to reassure the other person that I’m grieving but functional.”  

“Grieving but functional” is a condition that recurs in many of these stories. Perhaps it is a coincidence that a sense of loneliness and solitude is a pervasive theme in this post-pandemic collection, but it is also fitting. Even so, the book is neither a depressant nor a balm. It is a fascinating collection of voices that diverge and mesh and provide an array of perspectives on who we are and, as the title suggests, where we’re going. The quality of the collection is, to me, uneven, but that is also part of the appeal. Each individual reader will find their own stories that do not resonate alongside stories that speak deeply and personally. The ultimate triumph of What We Are Becoming is the decision by South Arts to bring contemporary literature by both new and established writers to a supportive audience.    

Edward Journey, a retired university professor and theatre professional living in Birmingham, regularly shares his essays in the online journal “Professional Southerner” (www.professionalsoutherner.com).