The nature of memory, the nature in memory
What protects us, what plagues us, what haunts us, what unites us.
Content warning: The following letter deals with the cycle of life and death in nature and includes mentions of the death of a very young animal as well as a human miscarriage. Readers who would prefer to skip this content entirely will find the complete set of this month’s listings (with no additional content whatsoever) here. Please protect your mental health fiercely. We’ll see you next month, friends.
We set up the cameras after the bears arrived.
A black bear and her cub, easily scaling our deck, climbing our fence, trampling our garden, lumbering across the yard—the same yard where, not five minutes earlier, both our large dogs had been napping in the yard. I watched the bears from the window with my heart in my throat and felt both relief, to be safe behind the glass, and rattling discontent, as if I might never truly feel safe again. It was my first full summer in Alaska. Moose had already broken into the yard twice. Now the bears were awake, and it seemed they, too, would visit whenever they liked.
So we set up game cameras, ones that would send a notification when an animal appeared in their view. I hoped not to stop the bears and the moose—no mortal could—but rather to at least have enough warning to get myself and the dogs inside before anything scaled the fence. The cameras did what I wanted them to do: Allowed me to pretend the outside world was safe enough to return to. To feel something like peace as I sat in the rare Alaskan sun, feeling its warmth on my skin for the first time in months. To not fear my dogs or my spouse being trampled or clawed whenever I closed my eyes. The truths in these cameras allowed me to lie.
They also showed a rich inner world of fauna I’d have never known existed. A mother bear with three fresh cubs—impossibly, perilously small, as gangly and scrambly as little gremlins—scampering up to the front door one night around three a.m. Our resident lynx hell-bent on stalking a snowshoe hare one night; the wiley hare skipping unscathed through the trees the next. A little fox playing with its dinner, tossing a dead squirrel in the air over and over directly in front of the camera. A pair of moose twins, so recently born their shorn umbilical cords were still visible, frolicking on new legs in the late May sun.
They also showed me things I wished I’d never seen. Like what happened just last week, around 1:30 a.m., something the cameras could’ve never shown in detail if not for our never-setting sun. A moose and her newborn calf walked down the driveway from one direction. Two black bears, likely a mother and an older cub or an adult bear and an adolescent, came from another. The bears saw the moose and started running—not away from the looming mother moose, but toward her. Toward her calf. And the mother moose and her calf began to run.
The cameras only showed fragments of what happened, and even those I wish I could forget. I have only the math of what remains: Two black bears entered, and I did not see them exit. A moose and her calf ran offscreen. Then the calf reappeared, alone, walking down the driveway. The mother had somehow leaped our fence and gotten trapped within it for a precious few minutes, cantering in a panic all around the yard before charging out again into the night.
Surely this wasn’t all bad: I had seen the calf walking away, and I had seen the mother escape. No signs of a kill appeared around the house. I went about my morning the next day with a flutter of hope in my chest, hoping the two had been reunited overnight. Until the same moose appeared again in the driveway, swaying and huffing and scanning and entirely, awfully alone. Until I heard her calling, over and over, for the baby that would likely never come.
She came back a dozen times over the next 48 hours, keening, hoping, circling. It’s a strange and terrible thing, to be haunted by a living, grieving moose. A stressed moose is a dangerous one, and a stressed mother moose is doubly worrisome. My heart broke anew every time I saw her appear yet again in the driveway. Yet there was nothing to be done except keep the dogs inside and pray a moose’s memory is shorter than a human’s.
Because I know too well how sentimental these paragraphs seem. I brace in the margins, waiting for some calloused heart to tell me again how nature works. Reader, I have lived too long this far north to not know how nature works. Nature pulses outside my window. Nature informs every part of this wild, frozen earth. And nature currently courses through every system in my body, and I feel its presence more acutely than I ever have in my one short life. Because I am currently four months pregnant, and there is not a single thing within me unaffected by nature.
It is nature that causes my stomach to swell and my hormones to rise and my heart to beat faster, more urgently, more efficiently. Nature is shifting and reassembling my body so it may amass new life within it; nature is hard at work rewiring my brain to prepare it for birth. It is nature that is remaking my body’s chemistry in real time, doubling this fierce desire in me to protect the young, even those that are not my own, even those that are not my species. And it is nature that has built human memory, brick by brick, neuron by neuron, not for sentimentality but for survival. So we remember what has brought us pleasure; so we remember what caused us pain, so that we may avoid it in the future. When I watch the moose circle my house, more desperate each time, begging her lost baby to return, my brain lodges it deep in my memory as a warning. This could happen to you, nature says, brutally calm in my ear. This has happened to you.
Remember?
And I do. I do remember. I remember too well.
I’m forced to remember my miscarriage last fall, the weight and the ache of it, every time the mother makes her slow grief circle around my house. I remember the minute I first found out, remember the dawning realization, the long hopes dashed, the quiet agony. I feel it all anew in her calls.
But as awful as this is to carry today, memory also reminds me to wait for tomorrow, because I’ve learned over the many griefs of my life that some relief waits for us both. She will eventually stop coming to the site of her loss, distracted by hunger or a new pregnancy or the long winter that waits on the horizon. She will, to some unknowable degree, forget what she has lost, and I will stop remembering mine so acutely without her ache to remind me. But I know too that on some primal level, nature has made us the same: Both of us are wired to remember what we have lost whenever we see it echoed in front of us. And when she walks with a new calf on some late summer night and sees a dark pair of black bears in the distance, she will remember this loss in her bones, and her muscles will startle into action before her brain can react. Perhaps memory will do for her what it was always designed by nature to do. Perhaps her past will spare her this future.
My memory is not so efficient; it churns and it lags and it shudders, haunted and overburdened by too many moments I wish to forget. And yet how fortunate I still feel, as I watch her circle the house alone for the dozenth time—that for all its brutality, nature has also allowed humans narrative, language, the urge to tell our stories. To share our successes as well as our warnings, to share danger and pleasures around the fire. To share pains and triumphs is to build community. There is so much nature to be found in community, and there is safety there, too—honest safety, not false security born of lies from a camera’s lens, but the truths and comfort that come from knowing we are not alone as we move through this world, all of us united in seeking small pleasures, avoiding such pain.
Until next month—
Keep writing,
Nicki
July 2023 calls for submissions
We have plenty of fall/darker-themed submissions this month as editors prepare their autumnal publications, so enjoy the feast, dear hearts. And if anyone is hungrier for June deadlines, three calls from last month’s newsletter are still open and waiting for you.
This month’s listings in brief
Spotlight pick
The Rumpus: Craft-of-writing submissions for a new column
This month’s spotlight pick is unusual in that it has no set deadline, but I suspect it will be of interest to many since it is themed, writerly, and brand new. For its latest column, “we are looking for essays on parallel practices, the things we do that are not writing but that inform and illuminate how we create,” The Rumpus explains. Send unpublished essays between 1,000 and 4,000 words. Contributors who opt in for payment will receive a portion of a $300 pool split amongst all of The Rumpus’ published writers that month.
Deadline: Rolling
BreakBread Magazine: Work from writers under 25
Know a younger writer in your life looking to get something published this summer? BreakBread Magazine, “a youth literacy project dedicated to cultivating creatives under the age of 25,” welcomes previously unpublished poetry and prose from younger submitters. Note that submitters must submit their own work and not have their work submitted on their behalf by parents, guardians, or teachers, although parental permission is required for writers under age 18. Send up to two poems no more than four pages long or up to 25 pages of prose.
Deadline: July 1 (Note: The magazine’s website says submissions will be “open through July,” but their Submittable page has submissions closing on July 1, so that is the deadline I’ve used here.)
Thema: The Magic of Light and Shadow
Longtime subscribers will remember Thema, a theme-centric journal that only accepts printed and mailed submissions, from a previous issue, but their second call of the year is now upon us. Mail stories and poems relating to “The Magic of Light and Shadow” to editors by July 1 to be considered for the journal’s next issue. Contributors are paid $25 for short stories and $10 for poems and short-short pieces (fewer than 1,000 words).
Deadline: July 1
Three Ravens Publishing: Horror-comedy creature-feature stories
For the third installment of Three Ravens Publishing’s It Came From the Trailer Park horror-comedy anthology series, editors seek short stories that fit a “rockabilly/psychobilly/horror punk flair” theme. Stories should range between 7,000 and 10,000 words and have “the same feel as The Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Shaun of the Dead, or Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.” No submission fees; all authors selected for publication will receive a percentage of anthology sales divided equally between contributors.
Deadline: July 1
Havok: Genre flash fiction with a “legendary” theme
Havok specializes in flash fiction (300 to 1,000 words) in mystery, sci-fi, comedy, thriller, and fantasy genres that is based on one of its “season themes.” Last year took readers on a tour around the world based on geographic location; this season, the journal’s 10th, focuses on a set of “legendary” themes: Legendary locations, things, events, etc. Those interested in writing about legendary locations (the Garden of Eden, El Dorado, Wonderland, Mount Olympus, Shangri-La, etc.) have until July 2 to submit their work, although submissions about legendary things and legendary events also have deadlines approaching in the near future (August 6 and September 1, respectively). No submission fee.
Deadline: July 2
Diet Milk Magazine: Gothic prose and poetry
Diet Milk Magazine, a twice-yearly publication devoted to all things Gothic, is now open to submissions for its fall/winter issue. “Neatly genred or genre-bending, classically styled or modern, we want your prettiest, most pungent dread,” editors say. “Give us withering romance, creatures that lurk and lure, families to be feared and houses that haunt; give us isolation and creeping, oppressive unwellness. Quietly thrill, terrify, and leave us wanting more.” Send up to three poems or a single short story up to 5000 words; short stories longer than 5,025 words should be queried first with editors or risk automatic deletion. Payment is $15 per poem or $.01 per word (with a $40 minimum) for short stories. No submission fees and an estimated three-week response time.
Deadline: July 8
Arboreal Literary Magazine: Illusion-themed submissions
For its third issue, Arboreal Literary Magazine invites writers to submit works that “venture into the realms of imagination and unravel the illusions that shroud (or illuminate?) reality.” Send up to four poems or prose up to 4,000 words. No submission fees, no payments.
Deadline: July 15
Hungry Shadows Press: “Bad Horror Tropes Done Right”
Editors are seeking horror submissions for the second installment of the “It Was All A Dream: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right” series. “What is your least favorite horror trope? Why? Has it been overdone? Is it predictable? Is it unrealistic? Here’s your chance to fix it,” editors explain. Send horror, weird, or dark fiction between 1,500 and 3,000 words that features a well-known horror trope. Payment is $.05 per word up to 3,000 words along with a digital copy of the anthology. No submission fees.
Deadline: July 15, with an extended submission window for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and marginalized writers until July 22
Mom Egg Review: Submissions on ages and/or stages
Poetry and prose with a focus or lens on mothering/motherhood are welcome at Mom Egg Review. The theme of its annual print issue is “AGES/STAGES.” “Please give us your most original creative takes on ages and/or stages,” editors urge. “Think locally and globally, metaphorically and literally. We can’t wait to read your work!” Send up to four poems or prose up to 1,000 words. The submission fee is $3, but submitters may also request a submission scholarship by emailing the publication with their submission, cover letter, and bio (a free-entry earlybird submission window occurred earlier this year, but has since closed). Submitters will receive a response by November 2023 and the final issue will be published in April 2024.
Deadline: July 15
MUSE: Articles about robots for readers aged 9 to 14
MUSE, a “discovery magazine for children and teens,” invites writers to submit queries for an upcoming “BOT TALK” issue, which will focus on the “brave new world of bots, nanobots, and robots.” Submit a detailed query via Submittable, including a cover letter, resources, and an outline of the article.
Deadline: July 17
Cosmic Daffodil: “Natura” poetry and prose
“What is nature to you?” ask the editors of Cosmic Daffodil. Send up to two pieces of natura-themed flash fiction or nonfiction between 300-500 words or up to five poems (10 pages max). No submission fees.
Deadline: July 25
Dark Peninsula Press: Post-apocalyptic suspense and horror
For the fourth installment of its The Cellar Door anthology series, Dark Peninsula Press seeks stories about “how mankind has come to survive after our near annihilation.” Send works in the genres of post-apocalyptic, thriller/suspense, survival horror, creature feature, and/or supernatural/paranormal; editors also welcome the odd and humorous. Stories should range between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Payment is $25 as well as both a print and digital copy of the published anthology. No submission fees.
Deadline: July 31
Last Leaves Magazine: “Feast” poems
For its seventh issue, Last Leaves Magazine invites poems about feasts: “We’re looking for harvest poems, recipe poems, last meal poems. But we don’t just want some food. We want a feast, the kind that makes you sick,” editors say. “We want gluttony, we want to feel gorged, we want to forget that we’ve ever felt hungry. Send us your best, the feast is coming.” Send up to five poems and no more than 10 pages. No submission fee, no payment.
Deadline: July 31
NonBinary Review: “World Tour” prose & poetry
“From the first migration of our ancestors out of Africa to the globe trotting of the jet set, our planet and our culture have been shaped by people traveling vast distances,” editors of NonBinary Review say. “We're looking for stories about epic journeys over vast distances with many destinations. We're looking for travels that have changed the way people have viewed their world. We're looking for travels that have broadened the outlook, not just of the traveler, but of civilization.” Send up to 3,000 words for prose or up to three poems up to three pages each. Payment is $.01 per word for prose or a flat $10 for poetry.
Deadline: July 31
Sley House Publishing: Genre short stories
“We are looking for well-written short stories in the genres of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, noir mysteries with dark elements, and thrillers, each around 6,000 words,” explain the editors of the upcoming Tales of Sley House anthology. The technical deadline is July 31, although this may be extended if all 18-21 slots are not filled by that date. Payment is $25 as well as both a print and digital copy of the published anthology. No submission fees.
Deadline: July 31
I’m weeping silently in the dark, trying not to disturb my snoring mom in the next room. What great sorrow and joy life and nature have to offer! Wishing you both solace and congratulations, friend.