Paul Harding’s Tinker, a novel published by the Bellevue Literary Press, won the Pulitzer Prize last week.
Two summers ago, I interned at that small publication within the walls of Bellevue hospital. Each morning, I would walk down First Avenue, past the man on the corner with the red turban around his head who was selling avocados, bananas, mangoes. Through those glass doors I walked (the first time, remarking how much like an airport it looked!), confronted by the hospital within the hospital; the old retained within the new. Stories reverberated within the air; the ninety-year-old woman in the clinic who only spoke Spanish; the small chapel behind the elevators; the special ward for Rikers Island prisoners. I did not come to Bellevue as a doctor or social worker or nurse (or patient!); I came as a writer.
On the sixth floor of Old Bellevue hospital, nestled in the back corner, runs the Bellevue Literary Press and the Bellevue Literary Review. The staff is small; most work remotely. From the window in my office, at times, as I opened envelopes and closed envelopes, I would watch the people heading towards the clinic. I would read stories, poems, essays and evaluate. The best stories are those which are not created in a vacuum, they are those that are touched by the world and in turn touch the world.
And the best thing about working in publishing is that you “discover” these stories. Though I no longer intern at the BLR, I still review manuscripts. Undoubtedly, most of the work which comes in is unsuitable for publication. Lots of rejections, which makes me very sad. But then, there is that moment when you find something brilliant and amazing, something which you cannot wait to share with the world. A few months ago, I discovered Amanda Auchter’s poem “The Thundering” which won the Marica and Jan Vilcek Prize for Poetry and was published in BLR’s Spring 2010 issue. Watching a work rise from slush pile to print reminds me that we all have a Pulitzer somewhere inside us, which we must find.
Now: Write it!