Introducing Emma Binder

As an editor for JuxtaProse Literary Magazine, I had the privilege of reading Emma Binder’s first story, “Wetbrain.” Binder’s characterization of her protagonist immediately impressed me, as she wonderfully captures how social and geographical contexts can become essential components of one’s identity. With that said, I now have the opportunity to explain even further why I enjoyed this piece so much.

I knew I liked this piece as soon as I read the opener. I could tell Emma’s writing was not a normal submission, but more intentional, more skillful. As I read the first lines, I was captivated by her ability to express Mikey’s impression of the river and the fishermen. She uses the trope of place both with complexity and concision—mixing memory, landscape, and community in the first six sentences. By the end of the first paragraph, I was rooting for the story to be good. I knew I wanted to advocate for the acceptance of this story in our upcoming issue.

As I would soon discover, the rest of the story is just as good. Her prose continues replicates Mikey’s subjective experiences in a way that is accessible for the reader. She handles increasingly difficult themes such as religion and conversion in a way that is not didactic, contrived, or disrespectful. She repeats themes and phrases with nuance throughout her story to achieve the difficult task of movement. And she paradoxically coats her story with an aesthetic beauty rooted in reality and ugliness.

I see in Emma’s writing the ability to do many things I wish I could do in my own. I find a sincerity that is neither naïve nor simplistic. My own fiction tends to be insincere, ironic, sarcastic, and elusive—and therefore exclusive. Emma’s is different. Her story is inclusive. And I’m happy I had the opportunity to read her work due to how it may help me with mine.

A great benefit of editorial work—whether I am an editor of a literary journal, a teaching assistant grading first-year English papers, or a friend looking over an unpublished novella—is that others’ writings always carries with them the potential to teach me something new. They show me some new way to tell a story, some new way to write a thesis, or some new form for it all. And it is not simply novelty for novelty’s sake that gives it value, but new expression capable of articulating new voices and new perspectives.

Part of the importance of editorial work is to recognize the voices we have left out in the past and to let them speak through our journals. Literary journals today can be much like the little magazines of modernism—Others, The Yellow Book, Blast—in that they are capable of providing a space and place for unique voices to emerge from the depths of the submission pile.

And Emma Binder, I believe, has a unique literary voice which I hope you all enjoy reading as much I do.