June 28, 2024 - Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

I’ll start off by saying, thank you for being here. I first found the wonderful world of Curlew about five years ago when I was looking for a welcoming space to house some prose pieces I had been working on. Now, thinking about those first pieces shows me exactly how much I have grown into my voice as a writer over these past few years and what a steady hand Curlew has had in that.

When I first submitted work, I had just moved back to Brooklyn after a year in L.A. and was experiencing a rare moment of sureness in my life. After exploring a new city and several career paths I felt rooted in my decision to come back to New York and focus, fully, on writing. During that time I made it a priority to solidify myself as real writer, feeling that compensation was what validated that title. While I took part in a handful of creative projects that sustained this belief for a few years, there was an ongoing exhaustion that accompanied freelance work and it seemed to be slowing down the progress I wanted to be making in my own writing, so about six months ago I pivoted yet again. Currently, I work at a very enjoyable, non-writing related day job while scribbling down short stories in my off hours, and I have never felt more like a real writer.

Throughout both of these chapters, Curlew has been my literary anchor. By granting me the opportunity to write for the magazine consistently, my editorial predecessor, Jordan Myers, provided me with a place to explore the point of view, narrative and form of my writing. Those three factors take new shape with each story, and I credit Curlew as the fuel that kept me writing when I didn’t feel like writing.

For me, editorship comes with an air of imposter syndrome, in the sense of what gives me the right when it comes to reading and selecting work. After a few days of asking the question out loud to myself (and patient friends), I kept coming back to the same, fervent answer. Even on days when I doubt my own ability as a writer, the confidence I have in myself as a reader never falters. I have done it for a very long time and I have loved it for a very long time, and to illustrate this I have located a quote from my mother’s journal in regards to me at age one:

6/5/95

Often chooses to read books rather than nurse first thing in the morning.

And still, when I read, it feels like there is nothing more important. So, for now, that stands as my endorsement for the role of editor. In the future, I hope that my experience here does as well. 

I look forward to taking the next few days to catch up with current Curlew contributors and start collecting new submissions for our Daily Page.

Until next time!

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Lerman (aka The Editor)