Anne Landsman's Speech from the Summer Fete

We had the honor of hosting Anne Landsman as our guest speaker at our Summer Fete, and she shared some beautiful, insightful words with us. We have the privilege of sharing them with you now, and you can read her speech here:

Hello everyone!

Thanks to Willard Cook, publisher of Epiphany magazine, Noreen Tomassi, editor-in-chief, to the board and to the entire staff for all the work they do to get the work of practicing writers into the world. Thanks to my husband, James Wagman, whose unwavering support over the years has grounded me, and helped me to be a practicing writer. Thanks to my daughter, Tess, and her partner, Jeff, who are with me tonight, whose presence here I cherish beyond words.

First, I wanted to dig into what Epiphany is and perhaps the best way to do that, apart from reading the whole magazine aloud to you, is to be reminded of it’s mission - which so perfectly aligns with my own sense of what it is to be a writer, and what is to write about the human experience.

“Epiphany is a semiannual print and online literary journal that supports practicing writers at every stage of their careers. For 20 years we have published work that transcends convention and demonstrates literary mastery.

Our name derives from the Joycean idea that an epiphany is the moment when “the soul of the commonest object… seems to us radiant.” Like the semicolon in our logo, an epiphany is a pause followed by a shift. Like the semicolon, an epiphany can consist of a confluence between two ideas. Like the semicolon, an epiphany is both a part of language and outside of it.”

Don’t you just love that?

You are all here because you care about language, you care about writers, you care about the written word, and, by your presence, you are supporting Epiphany’s grand vision and mission.

We are at a precarious moment culturally, in our universities, in our institutions, in the press and in the political arena, basically everywhere. Zadie Smith, in a recent New Yorker essay, wrote about how, for many who feel they want to stand on one side of an issue or another, without deep introspection and knowledge but with a need to belong to one group or another, “Language (is) euphemized, instrumentalized, and abused, put to work for your cause and only for your cause, so that it does exactly and only what you want it to do.”

And to add to this, in an era of virtue signalling where words and phrases are spoken that indicate you are on the “right”, politically correct side of an issue, there is also now vice signalling, where you can show your machismo by writing (or talking publicly) about killing your own puppy for misbehaving, taunting the homeless, lionizing Al Capone or the fictional cannibal, Hannibal Lecter. To quote a recent TED Talk on language: “Words are never just words. They carry context and controversy; they can signal identity or sow discord.” And from T’ruah, “Words create worlds.”

So if we know only too well the destructive power of language, how it can normalize evil and be the medium through which lies, half-truths and conspiracy theories proliferate, we also know it’s redemptive power, how it can sing, how it can soar, how it can change hearts and minds.

And this is where the importance of literary magazines, like Epiphany, comes in. They are the places where language expands, breathes, is renewed. Epiphany goes one step further than many other literary magazines, though. By fostering and encouraging emerging writers and not only publishing seasoned writers with a track record, itincubates new talent, grows new writers of all ages. And it does so both online AND in its print version. It’s so important in these days where our world becomes so much less tactile, to hold a book or a literary magazine in your hands, to sense the fragility, friability as well as the endurance of paper.

I had my own start in the literary world in just this way. After a graduate degree in film, and several years spent in the world of screenwriting, I pivoted to writing fiction, publishing the opening chapter of what would later become my first novel, “The Devil’s Chimney”, in the American Poetry Review. Odd, I know, to have a novel excerpt published in a magazine mainly dedicated to poetry, but what came through, in the piece, was my obsession with the sounds of words, something I care about to this day.

Having support and acknowledgment at this point in my career was huge (although I’m not sure I understood it at the time) and I’m forever grateful to the editor, Steve Berg, who published that early piece of writing. Being a writer is a marathon, not a sprint, and these early supplies of gas in the tank are necessary fuel for the long journey.

And here I want to read what the editor-in-chief, Noreen Tomassi, wrote to the readers who review the work that gets submitted to Epiphany, the ones who receive the piles and piles of poems, stories, essays - the gatekeepers of the magazine, if you will.

“I hope you know how crucial your role is, not only here at Epiphany, but in the literary world as a whole. So many writers begin by sending work out into the void hoping some astute reader somewhere will recognize its value and help usher it into the right hands. The entire ecosystem depends on readers like you. Of course, you’ll have to wade through many less-than-perfect submissions to find that one story or poem or piece of creative nonfiction that excites you, but please hold out for it. Keep going. Nothing feels quite so good as knowing you’ve discovered a wonderful piece of writing.”

I am truly humbled, Noreen, by these beautiful words, by your deep love of literature, in all its forms. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart to you, and to Willard, for your vital role in the literary ecosystem, for the range and variety of what you publish, both the new voices as well as the previously published ones, for being ethical, at all times, as well as flexible and adaptable.

There is something to be said for generational knowledge, perhaps much maligned in our speedy, youth-obsessed, attention-diminished culture. It’s a concept that’s well understood in farming where knowing a field over time, what plants flourish there, what seeds to save, what the seasonal rhythms are, is so vital. For, after all, you reap what you sow.

So let’s plant seeds that encourage a culture of open-mindedness, that foster growth and understanding and save the ones that have endured and weathered the changing conditions. Both expand our sense of what it means to be fully alive.

Anne Landsman is a novelist, essayist, and filmmaker. Her novels, The Rowing Lesson and The Devil’s Chimney, were awarded South Africa’s two top literary awards, the Sunday Times Fiction Prize and the M-­Net Literary Award and were nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ribalow Prize and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. She’s also written for numerous publications including Vanity Fair, The Washington Post and The Guardian, and has taught fiction and screenwriting in the M.F.A. programs at Columbia University, Brooklyn College and the New School for Social Research. She is currently directing and producing a documentary film, Daughters of the Wind, about Palestinian girls who ride and train horses.