New England Review

NER Interns: Where are they now?

Brita Fisher

Brita Fisher ’15 talks with NER intern Hannah Frankel ’22 about social justice organizing, teaching, and following your interests.

Hannah Frankel: What did you study at Middlebury and where do you live now?

Brita Fisher: I majored in Literary Studies and minored in French. I’m currently living in Calais, Vermont.

HF: Tell us a bit about what you did after you graduated and how you decided what to do.

BF: Right after college I taught English in France for a year, and then taught high school French and a literature elective in English at a private school in southern Vermont for two years. Throughout my time teaching, the curricula I was writing focused on both literature and issues of social justice. For example, we studied immigration, racism in France and the US, decolonization movements and how they intersected with the Civil Rights movement in the US, as well as mass incarceration and the Movement for Black Lives.

During that time I got involved with community organizing through the Root Social Justice Center in Brattleboro, the Vermont Workers’ Center, and Resource Generation. The Root focuses on local racial justice organizing, the Vermont Workers’ Center is an economic justice organization with a campaign for health care as a human right, and Resource Generation organizes young people with access to wealth and/or class privilege for the equitable redistribution of resources to social movements.

After two years teaching in southern Vermont, I thought that I wanted to do something more aligned with organizing for work, so I got a job through AmeriCorps at Vermont Legal Aid in Burlington doing community legal education and community outreach. In the end, I found that working at a nonprofit felt very different than the organizing I felt more passionate about. When my contract ended after a year, I got a job baking to prioritize mental and emotional space for the unpaid community organizing work I had continued to do. I baked for a year and a half before getting a job delivering packages for FedEx. This fall I started a two-year program through Goddard College where I’ll get an MA in teaching and a license to teach English in high school. The program is self-designed so I’ve gotten to center an intersectional social justice lens.

Brita during her time as a literature student at Middlebury College.

HF: How has your professional life changed between then and now?

BF: My professional life has gone through a lot of changes since I graduated. I suppose where I am now—in school for teaching, working part time in food service, and deeply involved in the Vermont Workers’ Center and Resource Generation’s Vermont chapter—represents a blend of where I’ve been since graduating. The biggest changes have been orienting my life around community organizing and then making the decision to go back to teaching in a school. I really value what I’ve learned and accomplished in different organizing contexts, especially in developing and facilitating political education workshops as part of campaigns, and I am excited to add teaching back into my life.

HF: What’s one thing you remember about your time as an intern with NER?

BF: I remember the feeling of being in the cozy and welcoming office and the awe I felt at getting to be involved, in any small way, in the work NER was doing. For Literary Studies we were reading almost exclusively books published before the 1930s, so participating in the active publishing of new material, and seeing how that happens, felt exciting and inspiring to me. The generous way that Marcy and Carolyn brought me into the different processes feels central to my time at NER.

HF: What would you say you learned as an undergrad that really benefits you today, either personally or professionally?

BF: I would say what I learned about my own analysis and writing process—how I like to approach it and what works for me.

HF: What advice do you have for current students that have similar interests and goals as you had when you were a student?

BF: The most concrete advice that comes to mind is to not wait until senior spring to take an intro level class you’ve been wanting to take. I write poetry for myself and waited until senior spring to try to take an intro level creative writing class. I wasn’t able to get into it because I was a senior and wasn’t able to take any of the upper level classes because I had no prerequisites. I’d known for a while that it was something I wanted to do, so I wish I had prioritized taking that class earlier.

HF: What are your favorite ‘guilty pleasure’ reads and what have you read lately that you enjoyed?

BF: I came across the books Daughter of the Forest and Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier when I was in eighth or ninth grade. Something about the way she writes about trauma, healing, and the power of myth and storytelling in a fantasy context really moved me then, and I read them multiple times. I periodically return to them when in need of a comfort read. As for what I’ve enjoyed recently, last week I read Passing by Nella Larsen, which is a short and intensely powerful novel about race, racism, and power.

HF: Thanks so much for taking the time to answer all my questions! I hope school goes well and wish you happiness and fulfillment in the future.

Meet the Readers

Eric James Cruz

“What obsessions are my fellow writers pursuing?  How are others using language as a means to discover and question the world around them?”

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and what do you do when you’re not reading for NER? 

My calling is to help young people act upon their humanity by cultivating their intellectual and emotional lives. As a high school English teacher and director of the creative writing and literary magazine program at Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio, Texas, I daily get to see my students grow in their awareness of themselves and the larger world they are coming into. My life is pretty rich: teacher, poet, husband, father. These roles intersect into what I know is a rare life, one in which my labor, passion, and love all inform one another.   

What made you decide to be a reader for NER, and how long have you been on staff?

On the advice of my mentor and friend Matthew Olzmann, I got in contact with Jennifer Chang to see if I was a good fit to read for NER. I felt my love for reading poetry coupled with my desire to amplify great work by new and established writers might fit into the ethos of NER. I also wanted to be a reader for NER in order to grow my understanding of the larger conversation happening in poetry at this moment in time. What obsessions are my fellow writers pursuing? How are others using language as a means to discover and question the world around them? These questions interest me greatly, and now, nearly a year into my tenure, I can honestly say that my perspective and appreciation of the work my fellow poets are putting into the world has deepened me in ways large and small.  

Have you ever read a submission that later got selected for publication? 

I have not yet read a submission that later got selected for publication, but I can say that many of the works I’ve read during my time at NER have left me filled with wonder and that stillness that only good poetry can elicit. I’ve had many wonderful conversations with Jennifer about great pieces throughout my time at NER. 

What is your reading process like? What do you look for in a submission? 

My process is very measured because I feel this immense responsibility to read work carefully and deeply. It is insane to me that I get to have a hand in deciding what is and what is not published, so I usually read a submission two to three times to make sure I’ve honored the time and effort put in by an artist. Poems that resonate with me ultimately uncover further complication, nuance, or complexity.  I love poems that investigate the relationship between the exterior and interior worlds we inhabit. Poems that utilize the music of language, the breath of the line, and the rootedness of concrete language as a way to invite the reader into active participation with the work also capture my attention.  

Of the pieces you’ve read at NER—whether in the magazine or among the submissions—which was your favorite or most memorable to you personally? 

The poem “Like a Wide River” by Paul Otremba is one of my favorite poems from NER in the last four years. There is such a beautiful dance between lineation, line spacing, image, and music in the piece; it is a wonderful fusion of content and form.  

How has reading for NER influenced your own writing/creative pursuits? 

A trusted poetry teacher of mine once told me that if I ever hoped to be a great poet that I must “daily participate in the life of poetry.” As I’ve thought about this advice over the years, I’ve come to realize that being a great poet is not about the number of publications, awards, or how well known one is a poetry personality; it is about how much one reads, takes opportunities to grow in one’s craft, writes when inspired and when it is just too hard, and, above all else, celebrates the larger community of fellows artists who are on a similar journey to you. Reading for NER allows me the opportunity to practice being a good literary citizen. It also inspires and encourages me to lend my voice to the larger chorus and, however big or small my part may be, appreciate the chance I have to sing within it.  

What do you read for pleasure? Is there something you’re reading at the moment that you would recommend? 

I love to read poetry, science fiction, political theory, and, as nerdy as it may sound, craft essays!  Currently, I can’t put down Toni Morrison’s The Source of Self Regard or Jim Harrison’s The Essential Poems. In both books, I get to engage with the minds and hearts of two artists that are entirely original, fierce, and willing to use the platform of language to interrogate, dismantle, and help reshape the world around them.   

Our staff readers, all volunteers, play an essential role in our editorial process and in our mission to discover new voices in contemporary literature. A full list of staff readers is available on our masthead.

Introducing NER 43.1

Spring 2022

Hares are “unusually shy and wild in spring, which is their rutting season,” explains Brewer’s Book of Phrase and Fable in explicating the idiom “mad as a March hare.” The brown hare on the cover of the new NER—shipping now from the printer—beckons readers to explore this mad and wild season with the 29 writers and translators whose work is just now finding its way into print.

In the warrens of this issue’s nonfiction, Kim McLarin chronicles her lifelong struggle as a Black woman in a country that does not love her back; Sherrie Flick reports on a pink house in the Slopes of Pittsburgh; and Xu Xi looks back on decades in the workforce, through the lens of iconic lines of fiction. Mark Harman follows Borges as he navigates Joyce’s Ulysses, and Terry Eicher translates, for the first time into English, an essay on poetry by the founding president of Senegal, Léopold Sédar Senghor. Also included are two works of lyric nonfiction by Sara Michas-Martin and Robert Anthony Siegel.

Stories include speculative fiction by C. P. Boyko and an exploration of method acting and archaeology by Alyssa Pelish. Castle Freeman Jr. offers a vignette from Vermont, and emerging writer Rob Franklin imagines what happens when an out-of-work writer shows up at the home of his hero. Featured also is an excerpt from a new novel by Ana Ménendez, set in a mice-infested art-deco building in South Miami Beach.

In poetry are two new works by our 2016 Emerging Writer Award–winner Hai-Dang Phan, and translations of Anzhelina Polonskaya and Marina Tsvetaeva. Sally Wen Mao presents a series of concrete poems; Rosalie Moffett explores the hysterosalpingography and the exclamation point; and Megan Fernandes offers a short take on Rilke. Other poets in the new issue include Tammy Armstrong, Justin Balog, Wo Chan, Niki Herd, Steven Kleinman, Lisa Williams, and Keith S. Wilson.

See the full table of contents here, and order a copy of the current issue today in print or ebook, or—better yet—subscribe and support NER all year long!

NER Interns: Where are they now?

Lucas Gonzalez

Lucas Gonzalez ’10 talks to NER intern Bella Cady ‘22.5 about his current work as an educator and what it means to “go boldly” into the literary world.

Bella Cady: What was the highlight of your experience as an NER intern?

Lucas Gonzalez: I had the unique chance to be the very first summer intern and totally immersed myself in the role. There was so much to do, and every little detail of my job felt new and exciting: riding my bike up to the old office at the Kirk Alumni Center in the mornings; wandering through the stacks of NER back issues; sifting through dozens of submissions, all of which were snail-mail back then. It sounds more and more romantic as the years roll on. I remember driving with Carolyn Kuebler to a storage facility outside of town to find obscure editions of the magazine in the cavernous NER archive. I recall that an entire garage-full adjacent to the archive was filled wall-to-ceiling with Stephen Donadio’s books alone, a detail which still staggers me. For years, I kept one of the coffee machines office manager Toni Best found for me at a local yard sale to make sure I was caffeinated enough to read through submissions and still work on my own writing at home. Thanks, Toni! Ultimately, understanding how NER—the writers, editors, and staff—worked together to create a standard-setting literary journal gave me a sense of the road map for my own journey.

BC: You were a co-creator of Blackbird, which is still in print today. What was your motivation for bringing an arts journal to Middlebury? 

LG: My motivation for bringing a new arts journal to Middlebury was to shine a light on our literary and artistic community. Blackbird was manifested through a collectivist mindset of good friends. We realized a print publication was the perfect medium for creating a focal point for literary and artistic life at the college. It took the effort and dedication of a large group of multi-talented people who had the motivation, communication skills, technological know-how, and discerning aesthetic sensibilities to put it all together. After months of planning, discussion, content review, and production stumbles, we held the first issue in our hands. We knew we had accomplished something special by bottling the collective lightning. The fact that Blackbird continues to publish today goes to show we struck a nerve, and says something encouraging about the enduring vitality of literary magazines in our culture.

BC: Are there any particular skills that you developed as an undergraduate–in school or through internships–that you believe most benefited you in your professional work? 

LG: I learned great project management through my time at NER. When I graduated, I was hired at 826 NYC as an intern, managing publication projects and volunteering as an after-school tutor. In my graduate years at Columbia University, I served as Community Outreach Editor at Columbia Journal. When I co-created the Incarcerated Writers Initiative at the journal, I remembered NER’s ethos and commitment to publishing regional, emerging, and marginalized writers. After months of outreach to currently-incarcerated writers, activists, and community organizations, we received over three hundred submissions from writers in over 30 states, everything by mail. It was like being back in the Kirk Alumni Center. The pieces we published I often reread and teach in the classroom. 

I feel the resonance of my NER days in my current role, where I serve as faculty advisor to an amazing literary magazine, Stone-cutters. The magazine is an institution at Harvard-Westlake School, where it has been published for 27 years running. Much like Blackbird, the literary magazine operates as a literary/arts collective on campus. We publish a Winter Tabloid, a Spring Annual print publication, and release online content to our website, www.stone-cutterscollective.com. We also run student-led craft classes and workshops for all genres and mediums, visual, literary, and beyond. I also help organize Wider Than The Sky: A Young People’s Poetry Festival (www.widerthanthesky.org). Guided by a group of stellar faculty and organized entirely by our students, we’ve welcomed poets like Richard Blanco, Claudia Rankine, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Kaveh Akbar to our midst, focusing specifically on outreach to the wider Los Angeles community, especially underserved communities and schools. 

BC: You’ve pursued both an MFA and MA since your time at Middlebury. Do you have any advice for students considering advanced degrees in the literary world?

LG: My advice would be to go boldly. If you’re thinking about a career in teaching and writing, the degree is a tangible way of getting a foot in the door and making your way in the literary world. Across the journey through both my MA and MFA, I made valuable connections with teachers and friends who guided and supported me towards realizing my ambitions, and continue to be my network and support system as a writer and educator. 

Lucas during his time as a student at Middlebury College.

BC: What brought you to teaching? How do you employ your experience as a writer to encourage aspiring writers?

LG: My very first informal teaching gig was on a dairy farm a few minutes south of the Middlebury College campus. A friend and I volunteered as English language instructors, teaching a group of men from Mexico employed as seasonal workers on the farm. The men ranged from aged 24 to 60. Each had traveled across the United States across the southern border to provide for their families. We hoped to offer language as a tool for access and agency in the complex odyssey of working undocumented in the United States. I came to realize something new and very real about the power of literacy. Writing brought me to that farm, and that farm brought me to teaching. Connecting it all is the hope that through education, we work alongside our fellow human beings with a common purpose towards bettering our world.

In terms of how my experience as a writer informs my work as a teacher, it’s easy for me to relate to the experience of struggling to find, refine, and hone one’s writing voice. As a practitioner of my craft, it’s much easier for me to know how to guide students with specific techniques at the level of their prose, creative expression, or exploration of a text. My hope is that my students can tell that I’m a genuine geek, and that my own sense of curiosity rubs off on them when it comes to the subject matter. I remember all my best teachers had truly awe-inspiring levels of nerdiness at the core of their persona in front of the classroom; they cared about their subject, but also cared about you and your own rapidly-expanding mind. As an educator, I hope to instill in my students a sense of interest in my academic discipline, while also affirming the infinitely nourishing feedback cycle of taking your own passions seriously.

BC: What have you read recently that’s moved you? 

LG: Aside from various literary magazine subscriptions like Rattle, Fence, and Crazyhorse, I like to read through as much of the National Book Award long lists in poetry and fiction as I can. I also like to follow the work of my friends and former teachers closely. I was floored by Timothy Donnelly’s collection, The Problem of the Many. I have also recently been stunned by Barbara K. Fischer’s Ceive, Jay Deshpande’s The Umbrian Sonnets, Emma Cline’s Daddy, and Joseph Fasano’s The Dark Heart of Every Wild Thing. This year, I’m most looking forward to the publication of my thesis workshop mate’s first collection of poems, Alexis Jackson’s My Sister’s Country.

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