Headlight Anthology, n° 24

Carlos & Sherine: We are thrilled to see Headlight in print again. Since 2019, when issue #22 came out, there have been too many twists to recount; but we all know the story of the pandemic and how it put a lot more than lit journals on pause. In 2020, for the first time in 22 years, Headlight was not printed. In 2022, we bought a new domain and were able to archive, as a digital release, our issue #23—first titled “elevated” and later nicknamed “the lost issue.” We then promised ourselves to reinvent our journal as a multimedia space. Now we have the great pleasure of sharing our issue #24 with you. The hybrid text that opens this volume, “Turning Twenty-Four on the Rise of the Sturgeon Moon,” by Manahil Bandukwala, was the first we accepted. Manahil didn’t know we were also turning #24, so we took it as a great omen! The pieces that follow are but the treetop, because there would be no Headlight without our community’s mycelium. As we revised our editorial processes, we renewed our partnerships with Concordia University and our literary community at large. SpokenWeb lent us office space and the podcast studio they share with the Centre for Expanded Poetics, which also donated us paper, ink, and know-how. We received grants varying from $150 to $750 from SAGE, the Department of English, GSA, CUAA, FAS/Office of the Dean, and CCSL, besides voluntary tips from many contributors. Our editors have also given hundreds of hours of their time. We are grateful and hope this new beautiful issue shows how much.

Ariella: So, for me, it’s all about voice: strong voices, bold voices, funny ones, kaleidoscopic ones. The fiction pieces that you’ll find in this issue are the ones that whispered to me, pestered me, enchanted me, long after I had closed my laptop and wandered off in search of a crunchy snack, a cup of joe, or a breath of outside air. These stories speak in voices so jarring, strange, or wonderful that they demanded to be heard, and I, the reader and the listener, had no choice but to release them onto the page and into the atmosphere. So go, be free, consume them, and once you have, catch me on the flipside: in a booth at A&W or on a Reddit thread about celebrity conspiracy theories.

Alex: What fascinates me about creative nonfiction is its magical ability to draw profound meaning out of ordinary human experiences, and this is something our authors excelled at when framing parts of their lives into powerful stories. Tina Wayland’s elegant prose and soothing rhythm take us on a mesmerizing journey through Montreal’s back alleys and offer an arresting view of the seasons passing by through a mother’s eyes, showing us what it means to watch your daughter grow at a time when “a tendril of fear ran through everything.” Lauren Smith’s stunning imagery and tender reflections, on the other hand, provide the daughter’s perspective as she celebrates the holidays with her friends and ruminates on her late father’s methods of communication, offering a remarkable exploration of human connection and understanding that is “unspoken.” Moving away from parent-child relationships—but still giving us meaningful glimpses of it—Paz O’Farrell’s intimate narrative and intriguing vignettes about her relationship to food and body weight make us laugh, gain subtle insights, and look at pineapples in a different way. It has been a tremendous pleasure to work with these three wonderful writers and to be able to share their stories with you.

Olive: I was so impressed by the incredible range of poetry submissions we received for this issue. From concrete to prose, the poetry featured in this issue truly reflects the talent of our contributors. When curating our poetry section, I was drawn to the buzzing energy these pieces emit. Like the “dark wide-irised” moment in Sophia Cirignano’s “Giverny,” and the “green wildfire of mint” in Kim Poirier’s “greening,” these poems breathe life with their unexpected twists. I am so excited to share these fantastic pieces with you.

Miranda: This will be the first issue to feature the authors’ own voices accompanying their written work, and I’m honored to have been a part of the process. Working alongside these talented writers to bring these texts into the sonic realm has been an incredibly fulfilling experience. From the breathless urgency of “Onyx and Rose Gold,” to the quiet sincerity of “The Tending of Small Gardens,” I hope you’ll find, as I have, that these recordings offer a new dimension to each piece and to Headlight as a whole.

—The Editors of issue #24 Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Spring 2023