Letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
They say you should write what you know. We’ve all heard this advice, and it’s good advice. So much of the truly great writing in the world comes from writers who pull directly from their lived experience. How are you supposed to know what it’s like to watch a friend get blasted by a landmine unless you’ve been there? How are you supposed to know what it feels like to watch your kid play with crickets in the backyard unless you’ve felt it for yourself? According to those who have experienced these things, the details are never what you expect. The way the light falls. The frozen-trembling feeling in your chest. We write what we know because that’s where we find the highest concentration of truth.
Today I want to put in a word for writing what you don’t know.
When I’m not being a writer or editor, I work as a nurse. I have this habit of writing stories from inside the heads of my patients, particularly those with dementia. Their brains work differently from mine. Sometimes they try to escape the building. Sometimes they cry all night long. Sometimes they talk to people who aren’t there, or think they’re on a cruise ship, or try to get on the phone with a long-dead family member.
Once I found my patient in hysterics because, according to her, a broom was poking her in the leg. There was nothing touching her leg apart from the mattress. One by one we went through the objects in the room to locate the item she meant. Eventually she identified the trash can by the door as the offender.
“But this isn’t touching you,” I said.
She just stared at me.
I couldn’t understand what was happening in her head in that moment, and I never will. But I wanted to understand, so I tried to write about it. I created a character like her, and gave her a backstory and centered myself in her head as well as I was able to.
Now, nobody would read my story and conclude that I’m an authority on the lived experience of a dementia patient, but in trying to put myself in the head of a person unlike myself, I felt a step closer to understanding her. And it’s hard to write from the perspective of another and not have a little more investment in their wellbeing by the end.
Reading, I think, is an equally empathetic act. We read because we want to understand the experience of another, not to look at it from the outside, but to live it alongside the narrator. In doing so, we inevitably find the threads that lead us back to our own experience. In reading we find that we are connected to each other in more fundamental ways than we realized. That’s why Barnstorm publishes the works of so many unique writers—to connect humans more deeply with humans.
I’ve never received a gift of oranges from someone I love, as Ayla Gard describes in “Canarino,” but I’ve experienced longing. I’ve never tried on a wedding dress like Charlotte Ungar describes in “Lesson in Buoyancy,” but I’ve experienced the unease of girlhood. And I’ve never struggled to survive blind and homeless as Itto Outini describes in “Second-Hand Cheese,” but like Outini, I’ve experienced moral pain. The emotions described in these stories are universal.
I hope you’re able to find kinship with the three talented authors published in Issue 4. Happy reading.
Warmly,
Aspen Kidd
Editor-in-Chief