The Masters Review - Vol VII

The Masters Review Volume VII With Stories And Essays Selected by Rebecca Makkai! This is our seventh volume - our best anthology yet. The anthology was published in October 2018. Stories and Essays from today's best emerging writers with an introduction from one of literature's most celebrated authors, Rebecca Makkai.

What does it mean to be an emerging writer? All I know is that I was labeled as such at one point-I was invited to several festivals featuring "emerging writers," all around the time when I had stories out but no novel, or one novel and no clue what was supposed to happen next-and that sometime thereafter, with no warning, I stopped emerging. It felt wildly unfair to me at the time, because wasn't I just a brand new little baby writer with nothing but exciting promise? But no: by the time your second book appears, apparently you've emerged. Recently, I was joking with a couple of friends (writers who "emerged" before I did, and more thoroughly than I ever have) about launching, for those of us who've been around the block, a Submerging Writers Festival.

Which is all to say: I know, I remember, that this "emerging" thing is both fun and terrifying. As much as I look back with nostalgic longing at the moment when my first story was accepted for publication-when everything was potential and excitement-it's only now from this point, looking back, that I know what that moment was the start of. At the time, for all I knew, it was a fluke. It was a mistake, soon to be corrected with an awkward follow-up note. The journal would fold before the story came out. A printing error would omit half the piece. No one would even read it. Everyone would read it, in horror that it had been published. When the journal in question finally arrived at my house (nine whole anguishing months later!) I couldn't bear to look directly at the story. I made my husband look at it and check that it was real, that all the words were there, that they'd spelled my name correctly.

To judge any contest is daunting, but one for emerging writers is especially so. There's the question, first of all, of what this would mean to the writers chosen-something I have no way of knowing. Is this a writer on the verge of giving up, or one who's received ten acceptances and a six-figure book deal this year? If I squint hard enough, can I tell? (No; I cannot.) And then there's the question of promise versus polish. Everyone here has an abundance of both, but for the final spot, as I'm considering a story weighted more towards spark and promise against one weighted more towards polish... Which way do I go? (Well: spark and promise. But not without a lot of hair-pulling.)

To the ten writers chosen, and indeed to all thirty of the writers whose work I was privileged to read and to consider: Yes, this is it. Big things are happening, because you're ready, and the world is a dumpster fire but we need you and we need your stories to take us up above it all. This is it. Ready for liftoff. Let's go. - Introduction by Rebecca Makkai