Letter From The Founder
Happy new month!
For this month’s Symposium- our fourth to date- we are diving into the evocative topic of Home. All contributors were given that one single word as a prompt and then had free rein to create whatever they wanted as long as it touched on that idea and what it meant to them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly this has seemed to bring out either the philosophical or the poetic aspects of our writers. I suppose thinking back on home, on family, on growing up, on laying down roots (or lacking such things) will do that to you.
On a personal- and deeply ironic- note I was unable to contribute this month as I had family issues to deal with. But I can say that while traveling back to see my family and spending time with them that reading these pieces to assemble this Symposium was both a huge help and also very entertaining.
I hope that you, dear reader, will feel the same way once you have imbibed all of this months offerings.
Until next time,
Live well,
Tom.
Essays
Chambers of the Heart by Acca
‘Some find home again right away, but for me it took a quarter of a century.’
A truly beautiful reflection by Acca in her Symposium debut. The description as home being a feeling and not a place resonated with me deeply.
The "Un"-ness of Home by Yuelian
A fascinating musing from Yuelian which gets into being both Taiwanese and American and the tensions that can exists between these two and how the true tether is neither. Read it and you’ll see. There's a lot packed into a small space here.
Home by Tim
Two letters dropped through the door today. One an invitation home to suckle on the bosom of identity. The other a reminder of the ongoing work the wandering nomad has of tying the threads running between their past, present and future selves together into as neat a ball as possible.
I love Tim’s unhurried and warm prose style as much as I enjoy the message itself. Style and substance both, which I would like to think is a hallmark of the STSC creations as a whole. Excellent stuff.
The Murmuration of Grief by Huw
Grief, geography, nature, hiking boots and more. One of Huw’s very best this, which is high praise indeed.
Home – A tale of pain and longing by Felix Kammerlander
Regular readers will know that Felix has been on a dense, penetrating, philosophical run of essays as of late. But that is not the only gear he has, it is not the only weapon in his arsenal as this shorter, more poetic genre-defying reflection demonstrates. (I was torn between putting it into several different potential categories). I really enjoyed this one.
Homes Away From Home by David
An ode to running shoes. Sounds unlikely but it turns out to be absolutely fantastic. David’s experience as a regular poetry contributor shines through in this one.
Understanding Home Through Thigmotropism by Trilety
From just-begun to the age of 18, we moved 12 times. Mostly between a few proximal towns. Among my mom’s many marriages and breakups, we made homes filled with books and plants.
This is a fantastic essay (as always) and gives further credence to my personal pet theory that Trilety has a great novel or a great memoir in her. Hopefully time will prove me correct.
Where is that City N? - by Vanya
After a sojourn to scribe strange stories our man Vanya is back in the non fiction realm with this discussion of the mysterious City N. Utterly unique and delightful as always.
To Risk Home - by Pr0ph3t
As soon as we set ‘Home’ as the topic I knew that Pr0ph3t would step up and hit it out of the park. His regular readers (and if you aren’t among this number you need to sort yourself out) will rejoice in his offering which is the quintessence of our mans now-familiar style.
Home is Where the Fart Is by Jeanne
A fun, profound, typographically maverick (shades of e.e. cummings?) exclusive contribution. I also need to praise Jeanne’s invaluable help in compiling everyones submissions for this months symposium while I had family business to attend to. This issue almost certainly wouldn’t exist without her, or at least would have been delayed.
I Am Home - by Clint
In all human relationships, we hurt each other, we argue, we disappoint, sometimes, even inadvertently, we betray one another. It's astonishing any of us, after finding love, stay together at all. But then, the gray light of a new day again adorns the eastern sky, and those demons don't seem quite so powerful.
Lovely, lovely stuff from Clint. But given the quality of all of his pieces to date this didn’t come as a surprise.
No Place Like - by Edward
Great stuff from Edward, a unique voice in a gang of unique voices. Highly underrated and I suspect undersubscribed to. You should get on board and I suspect this piece will convince you to do so.
Away by White Rose
White Rose delivers a great great work here in her Symposium debut. And although I live half a world away the stuff on accents and class really struck a chord with me. Excellent stuff here.
Symposium #4- Home by Sam
Our symposium only contributor Sam has once again dusted off his typewriter to bless us with another analogue piece. I think the shadow the overtyping mishit keys and the uncorrectable typos give an extra human dimension to what is already a very evocative and humane piece. Perhaps in future we will have ‘Analogue’ as a topic and have all of the submissions be typewritten/hand written/ recorded onto cassette..
Photo-Essay
The Burnt-Down House - by DB
D.B. deservedly gets a category all to himself this month. As those who have checked out his short films knows DB has an excellent and highly attuned visual sensibility as well as real writing chops. And this contribution sees these two things comes together wonderfully.
Poetry
The Carver – Adam Kozak
Adam’s combination of technical excellence and ability to evoke imagery and emotion in his poetry is remarkable. A huge talent on the way to true mastery.
Homesick and hopeful by James
I learned two things from this. 1) what the word ‘acrostic means’ and 2) just how excellent a poet James is. Well, technically I knew number 2 already but this was a sensational way for James to confirm his ability.
So that was the STSC symposium on Home. We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it.
Thank you for your support with these projects we put together, thank you for reading them and thanks for all of your comments, feedback and notes. Thank you for taking the time to share them and pass on the word.
And of course above all thanks to all of the contributors and those who help support the STSC via my personal Substack, especially those who keep a low profile, I hope we will be able to coax more of you into taking the plunge and participating in future issues.
This is still just the beginning.
Cheers.
We've hit our stride.