A Creative Writing Anthology

During the Covid hiatus (2019-2021), the production of creative writing anthologies stopped.  This fall, it restarted with He is My Collection: A Gaggle of Love.  The launch was in December 2022.  The contributors: Level 2:13, UTAS, Muscat.  He is My Collection, is a line from a contributor’s work, paying homage to his peer-buddy who helped him without full stops. Once, when the manuscript was midway, I asked the students,

     “Are you writers?”

            “Yes,” they responded, without whoop, like Sunday follows Saturday.

 Their writing is outright and brassy as a disk jockey tinning song.  Like, move-over, I have something to say.  Herein, a son cocoons his mother from grief; in another, a mild psychological disorder is brought to the fore.  And in another, a contributor heats the heart of the matter, she infers. Then in matters of dialect, a writer remains cautious.  Bullying is touched on.  There is writing on racism.  And a bitsy faraway place in Oman braves a placement in the face of Ms. Salalah, drop dead gorgeous, who bags every beauty prize. There are fashionistas who march to the beat of their fashionista power. Yet the writers’ assertiveness is lambent.  And big-hearted.  In Arabic, they have husn-adh-dhann, that is, they leave space for the benefit of doubt, they do not judge. The writing is insistent, but has horse-sense, and wisdom deep as a blue sinkhole.  

Bionote: Yasmin Ladha is a poet, a fiction-writer, and an essayist. Her latest publication appeared in Individual and Contextual Factors in the English Language Classroom. (Springer 2022)