Elizabeth Bird
HOW I’M RECALIBRATING FOR THE THIRD AGE
A Craft Essay on Creative Nonfiction Writing
While “Third Age,” certainly sounds more enticing than “God’s Waiting Room,” no matter what you call it, retirement brings creeping intimations of mortality. Time is finite; what can we do as writers to make meaning in the twilight?
For decades, I’d been writing—churning out articles, chapters, and books as an academic anthropologist. Now I wondered: Did anyone ever read them? On my deathbed, will I wish I’d written more? What of me as a person will remain in all those pages?
After years of writing about others, it seemed time to explore on the page who I am before it was too late. I knew the power of storytelling; I’d written about it, from tabloids to folk legends to horrific memories of war. I’d heard others speak to that power, but I didn’t know how to apply storytelling to myself, a woman apart from the academic.
*
Recalibrating was the adventure I needed, but that transition wasn’t easy. I knew the rules of my world. Do the research, write the article, submit. Cite your sources meticulously. Make sure you have a hypothesis, a clear methodology, and a sound conclusion backed up by data. Only quote someone if you have their exact words, with a recording to prove it. If tenure is your goal, start with the highest-ranking journals in your field; even if they reject you, their peer review process will tell you why, often in excruciating detail. Use that to rethink, revise, resubmit.
Less important is the writing itself. Academic style has undoubtedly mellowed in the last few decades. The deadening passive voice is a thing of the past—no more “it was observed by the researcher that ….” Editors at a top journal in my field encourage “clear writing and straightforward organization.” In the modern spirit of “reflexivity,” some self-assessment is in order; anthropologists now acknowledge that no researcher is a blank slate, and that personal identity infuses ethnography. But rein it in—readers want to know what you found out, not who you are. In anthropology, the voice of “the other” takes center stage.
So how to move gingerly out of the wings?
*
I’ve always enjoyed reading personal essays, from Joan Didion to Annie Dillard to Roxanne Gay, and this genre seemed right for self-reflection. But what could I possibly offer?
I had lived forty years in the U.S., but my British roots still tugged, so it made sense to start there. Over several weeks I built an essay inspired by a short journal written by my mother on an idyllic summer holiday at the height of World War II. The essay was about her, but also about our relationship, regrets, and loss. There was only one person I could show it to—Ali, my younger sister in Scotland. The pandemic was raging, and we had been talking for hours on Zoom, often about what we were reading. A book club aficionada and no literary pushover, she told me she loved the draft, and became my cheerleader, encouraging me to “push the personal” more than I dared. And she told me firmly that I must get it to a wider audience.
That was the next challenge. Should I share my writing beyond the family? Was my creative writing actually any good? Naively, I sent the piece to a few well-known literary magazines, quickly learning the sting of the form rejection. Not right for us. No more to be said.
Living lockdown life online, I signed up for a personal essay class and began to further dismantle my resistance to self-revelation. My teacher, a well-published essayist, patiently requested “more you in there.” I learned, with a guilty stab of pleasure, that “creative non-fiction” allowed me to write dialog that captures a moment, even if the exact words are lost. By week four, I sent her an essay I could hardly believe I wrote, detailing my less-than-happy school days as a bullying victim. She deemed it “perfect,” and while I was still uncertain if there was an audience beyond family, she simply assumed I wanted to publish.
If I did, it was time to get serious about stepping into the terrain of literary magazines, or “litmags” as I learned to call them. Feeling like a clueless tourist struggling to decode an alien language, I needed a local guide. Dismissing the “top tier” magazines to which I had sent my first effort, my teacher suggested others that, while well-regarded, boasted acceptance percentages in the single digits, rather than the virtually imperceptible acceptance rates of the big dogs. Thanks to her, I had several essays ready to go.
And then the impossible happened. After polishing that first essay about my mother, and entering it in Under the Sun’s summer contest, I was stunned to be named an award-winner. The editorial team even offered some helpful editing suggestions—they too would “like to hear a little more self-reflection.” Such kindness was more than enough to keep me motivated, though little did I know how unusual it was to receive that kind of unpaid-for feedback.
Next, I began to explore the infrastructure of the litmag world—the submissions sites, the writers’ newsletters, the online communities.
But then, not long before that first story was published, my beloved sister suddenly died, so many miles away. For months I was frozen, unable to manage a word. But gradually I came to realize that writing my grief could help, and I allowed that to flow onto the page. The essay that emerged, perhaps my first truly personal piece, became my second acceptance, published in Streetlight Magazine. Bittersweet.
*
By the end of my first year of writing creative nonfiction, even as rejections piled up, I had a few essays in print. But the process still seemed opaque, and the lingering social scientist in me yearned to decode the rules of this new culture. I tried to interpret the rejections, from the “no—and don’t dare come back” tone to “we liked your style and encourage you to try again.” But the mystery remained. In my academic life, journal guidelines are prosaic but straightforward: “We publish articles that advance, synthesize, and interpret the application of anthropological method and theory to the analysis and solution of practical problems.”
What do literary gatekeepers want? I attempted a systematic content survey. They try to tell us in their guidelines, but “enigmatic” doesn’t quite capture it. “We publish the best works we can get our hands on.” Would that include me? I suppose it could—worth a try. Journal after journal advises writers to “send us only your best,” as if somehow there are legions of us trying to palm off work we know is mediocre.
Others are downright bossy: “send your predictable stuff to those hoary old journals who’ve been printing the same thing since 1970!”
Indeed, predictability is the cardinal sin. Everyone wants writing that’s “challenging,” “risky,” or “irreverent.” I try to imagine what “reverent” writing would look like. They want “weird,” or “gritty,” or “subversive.” But maybe not too weird: “We have the right to refuse any work we deem morally substandard.” Yikes!
Others veer deep into the murk: “We seek work that stings us awake and leaves us revitalized, fortified against the viruses of apathy and inattention.” Or “we seek to find antitheses to that which defines us.” I left academia for this?
Then there’s writing as an assault course. “Smack us in the face!” “Deliver a killer pitch,” or “grab us by the throat.” Write with “honesty that gets you right in the kidneys.” The kidneys? Is that where we appreciate honesty? Perhaps most startling: “We want your work to leave a brilliant bruise.” In the kidneys, perhaps?
This all left me paralyzed with indecision. Is this piece predictable? Is it dishonest? Is it (please, no!) boring? I imagined the editorial meetings at State University Literary Review. Young, hip MFA students lounge around the table, ready to embrace the bruise.
“Predictable!”
“Retired professor?” Eye roll. “Writing about aging? Eeew!”
“Kidneys not feeling it!”
I know. Stereotyping them while imagining them stereotyping me. I should be ashamed.
I persevered, reading countless essays as I tried to target my submissions more precisely. From what I could gather, magazines run by students seemed to value angst, sexual revelation, and literary experimentation. My more conventional efforts seemed to resonate with independent venues, where perhaps a few grayer heads prevailed? Other than that—no clue really. A piece I was quite proud of was rejected in record time by a magazine I thought was perfect. They acknowledged the fit of the topic, which is more than I usually get, but it “didn’t come together for us.” A few days later, another similar-tier mag accepted it joyfully: “a lovely, moving, and relatable essay.” I’ll take it, even though I don’t know why.
*
Now into the third year of my literary reinvention, I’m coming to terms with the mystery, finally recognizing the ambiguity as integral to the challenge I was craving. In part, this is because I’m now having the chance to experience submissions from the other end. Under the Sun invited me to read for them, and once again I had to recalibrate. Over my career, I have reviewed hundreds of academic manuscripts; I know what to look for. Argument, evidence, a clear conclusion.
Now, essays flow in, that experience still guides me. I want a narrative arc; I want a satisfying ending. But I also want writing that moves me—a sublime phrase that evokes new images, or an insight that touches almost physically—maybe not in the kidneys, but somewhere. I want to be moved to wonder, or tears, or even laughter—humor being such a scarce resource in the litmag world. I want to know why this story matters to someone other than the author. And as we on the reading panel share our comments and cull submissions, it’s clear that what is magical for one may leave another cold. Somehow, our editors conjure it together, and final list emerges. Choices are made: Which of these two excellent “grief” pieces shall we take? How might these similar pieces speak to each other in interesting ways? Some great as essays slide off the list; many will find a home elsewhere. All receive careful attention. Though hardly a systematic process, it works to create a rich and coherent issue. It’s impossible to imagine an academic journal operating like this; I am in a different country.
Post-academia, I had yearned for a jolt to challenge my aging brain, and I have it. And while puzzlement is still part of the process, I have more empathy for editors’ impossible task of articulating what they’re seeking, and why they strive to stand out with striking phrases, or resort to variations on “send us your best.” I feel for those for whom literary publishing is the path to tenure, pay raises, even a modicum of fame. The road of the literary academic, even equipped with an MFA, the supposed entry ticket, is thorny indeed.
Having blundered into this new terrain, I’m finding the adventure exhilarating, even if I’m still flying half-blind. In this third age, I’m free to explore what I never had time for as I built my career: myself, the past, the present, the grief and glory of being human. Rejections flow in unabated, and they sting; once in a while though, instead of “not right for us,” I get “we love this and want to publish it.” Yes! Some editors have welcomed my stories with kindness and care, giving me a new voice on a very different page. And in this quite terrifying final act, that is a gift I have come to treasure.
A retired anthropology professor, Elizabeth Bird published many academic articles and books before turning to creative writing in 2021. Her work appears in Under the Sun, Biostories, Streetlight, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, HerStry, Mutha Magazine, 3Elements Review, Witcraft, Summerset Review and elsewhere. She currently reads for Under the Sun. Her essay, “Interlude: 1941,” was a Notable in Best American Essays 2023. Visit her website.
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