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Welcome to CityBeat's annual literary issue. As one would expect, these pages are devoted to written words: those who create them, those who read them, those who like them.
While there's no doubt plenty of worthy subjects, we've narrowed our gaze to highlight a few local purveyors who have recently caught our eye. Two fiction writers, Brock Clarke and Jack Kerley, speak about their craft, while Christine Mersch surveys a variety of organizations that offer help for those who aspire to be where Clarke and Kerley already reside — the land of published authors.
Speaking of which, C.A. MacConnell is this year's winner of the Mercantile Library Short Story Competition, which CityBeat co-sponsors. Read her winning entry on page 28.
"I admit I've entered this contest every year for 15 years," she says, noting that winners are ineligibile for future Mercantile contests. "Now that I can't enter, I don't know what to do."
A Cincinnati native, MacConnell has a master degree's in English/Creative Writing from Hollins University. She recently finished her first novel, The House of Anchor, which she's "climbing up the hill to get published."
Finally, sprinkled throughout the longer features are a variety of shorter write-ups intended to intrigue, if not inspire, further literary investigation. Enjoy.
