Welcome to this Issue

On day two of this year’s wild writers retreat, one of the staff members at Wintergreen Studios asked how long our group had been meeting. When told that we had all met for the first time the day before, she was amazed. Somehow, in less than twenty-four hours, the seventeen of us had coalesced, formed a coterie where conversation was seamless and inclusive, laughter abundant, and a sense of generosity and mutual respect evident. A benign form of groupthink had descended upon us. But how to account for this rapport? To some extent, it really was a so-called meeting of the minds, minds lured to this off-grid location to think, to write, and to work on individual projects while communing with others who were equally immersed.

I use the term groupthink here, but I’m putting my own slant on it. The term was first introduced in 1971 and was defined as a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned individuals makes decisions based on the urge to conform or in the belief that dissent is impossible. They go along because they believe they can’t express doubt or disagree with the consensus. In my version—group think—individuals are allowed to be part of something bigger, but also able to hold their own views. The thinking in the group is what gives it possibility, what makes it expansive, and generative. It’s what forms community.

In John Bemrose’s “Our Very Petit Mort” a group of men, friends since childhood, get together annually. They have an alignment of purpose, their childhood connections, as well as the structure of the annual party. But the conversation tends to linger at the surface, there is a sense of groupthink in the way they interact. When one of them tries to unravel the backstory of another, to get to some sort of truth that they’d all (it is implied), been avoiding, he is quickly shut down. This begs the question: does this really constitute a community?

Elsewhere in fiction, George Murray considers marital unrest in “One Last Thing,” while in Megan Callahan’s “Death Magic” two young girls explore death rituals, and Nicole Boyce’s “Lesser Mascots” take us into the world of young love and trade shows. In “All We Have,” Lucian Childs and the late Alex Turner revisit the gay scene in 60s Vancouver, while Ruby Harris explores the consolation of friends during a period of grief in “To Life.” We’ve also published our Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award shortlist here including Janina Fogels’ “Restoration,” Lindsay Foran’s “How to Build a Bomb,” Gareth Marks’ “Outlet,” and Rishi Midha’s “Banksy.”

In nonfiction Liz Johnston revisits childhood swimming lessons in “Individual Medley,” while in “Tomorrow, the Next Day, and the One After That” Kelly S. Thompson is consoled by her disobedient pet bull terrier. Aga Maksimowska delves into unspoken family stories in “High Place Phenomenon,” Philip Ashdown examines his father’s love of cars in “The Passing Lane,” Suzanne Doerge recalls a terrifying period in 1980s Nicaragua, and in Alexander Hackett’s “The End of Religion,” a young man questions the role of the church in Quebec.

We also return to our Dispatches series with Lisa Richter and Gary Barwin who discuss the role of the Jewish writer in these times in “Two Jews, Three Opinions: A Judaism with no centre but whose community is everywhere,” and Ashraf Zaghal’s essay “To Write About Jerusalem.”

In poetry we are delighted to welcome Susan Glickman back to our pages with her “Falling in Love with Poetry” essay. We also have Erin Wilson with three poems “Covenant,” “Ravens,” “A Note on Pain”; Jaeyun Yoo with three poems, “Self-portrait in fetal position,” “Frida,” “What I Didn’t Share;” and Gordon Taylor also with three poems, “Leap,” “Shower,” “Facts about Survival.” Jill Solnicki is also here with two poems, “Meditating on a Lizard, on a Wall, in Mexico,” “My Father’s Dream.” For Spirit Ink we have the poem “Wabanaki Wasp” by Raymond Sewell and Cecelia Brooks.

The notion of community is a much-touted aspiration, but the alchemy of how it comes to be, however fleeting, is something that interests me. I’ve thought a lot about what it is that flips a mere gathering of people into one where values, intentions, or even emotions become attuned, in a way that is positive or constructive rather than destructive or oppressive. Sometimes it just takes a couple of big round kitchen tables where you can gather to eat, and talk, and share progress, as is the case at our retreat at Wintergreen Studios. Sometimes it just takes a shared passion, such as what each of us has for the written word. This is what happens when a group thinks.

—Pamela Mulloy