TWBTO Literary Journal: Fall Collection 2024-THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS (Subs open Sept. 1-Oct. 1)

The Way Back to Ourselves Literary Journal Presents:

Fall Collection 2024-

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

SUBMISSIONS OPEN September 1-October 1, 2024:

Click on “Contact” to learn more. Please carefully follow the submission guidelines for your work to be considered. Work can NOT be previously published in other journals or magazines, as well as blogs, social media, and Substacks. WE NOMINATE SELECT PIECES FOR THE PUSHCART PRIZE. Have questions? Please email us at thewayback2ourselves@gmail.com.

NEW: All literary journal submissions must be sent to our new email editor.twbto@gmail.com.

FALL’S THEME: The Peace of Wild Things

Come! Be enchanted by peace, the wild, and the work of Wendell Berry!

1.

As the editors and I were trying to find a fall theme for the literary journal that would live up to the huge success of the Spring Journal’s Collection: Renaissance, I was reading the poetry of Wendell Berry. We discussed some ideas: Do we pick another “Re” themed word? Do we complement Renaissance in some way? Or do we do something completely different? In the previous journals, it seemed the theme always came so easily.

As last, I felt like I was at a creative impasse, and I didn’t like it.

I pondered, “God, where are you leading me?” each night as I fell asleep to the deeply profound and spiritual poetry of Wendell Berry. Then, I’d wake with lines to write because of his words. I saw God everywhere through his rugged, simple, and often austere lens. I was better for it.

My time in his verse almost felt opposite to the high art and vivid colors of the Renaissance. Berry’s work was about stripping ourselves down to spirit, love, and the earth—only. The more I walked out into the poetic wilderness of Berry’s world, the more at home and perceptive I became about the natural and spiritual world.

His meditations were breathing new life into me as a faithful creative, writer, and servant.

And then it hit me. God was talking to me all along—and it was through Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things. With this epiphany, I KNEW we had ourselves a GORGEROUS theme that was all her own: THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS.

2.

So where do we go from here?

Bring us your wild, your peace, your poetry, your rugged heart, your Romantic verse from the woods… your mediations with God at sunset… your naturalistic canvas and sketches… your black and white photography…

We want to know what wild things—be it spiritual, natural, or relational—bring you peace. We want to know your journeys: the brokenness, the ranging mountains of it, the winding dirt roads… the deep satisfaction of deep satisfaction… the unearthing of mercy and grace.

Find them, make them, and bring them all!

Bring your peace!

Bring your wild!

We want to stand in awe.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, WHERE DO I BEGIN? That’s easy… Go sit outside in the woods or meander a flowered path for a little while more and get yourself a copy of Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things. Do this, and trust us, you’ll know what’s next.

You belong here,

Kimberly Phinney, founder & editor-in-chief

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence  of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

From The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Counterpoint, 1999)