LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

I am fueled by envy, a trait I’ve found most people are loathe to admit they also possess.

That familiar pull when I encounter something that makes me envious creates cords around my self worth that I can’t unbind until, almost in spite of myself, I am hurtling toward the creation of the life I wish I had. I think envy can be a beautiful gift if you decide to recognize that yearning as a friend whispering “go for it!” about what you fearfully want most.

This lifelong simmer of longing in the shadows of not-being-enough is how NINETENTHS Press was born. A long boil. Unseasoned chicken flesh. A soon to be Easter egg. The little meat balls my grandmother throws into her escarole soup right as the stock bubbles that she won’t give me the damn measurements for to make. It took me 5 years of thinkin’ on it, two iterations of a domain name, and a few losses of people who half-heartedly offered to co-edit before it demanded birthing.

Envy simmers until it becomes or it turns the whole damn pot inedible with insecurity. I count myself extremely lucky in life for my consistent eventual feasting on peeled eggs. My envy has brought me solo travelin’ and intent on healthy lovin’, good schooling, and the occasional foray into proving myself.

Proving myself as an artist and writer is the point where my envy fails me. The perpetual branding and rebranding we’ve all collectively decided to do with each other trips me up on the making AND the sharing. Through my life I have day dreamed of arriving at a place where I will finally feel successful as a creative person. And by successful I mean validated. And unfortunately in our society validation often is entangled with how good we are at convincing others our passions are useful to them.

And that’s why NINETENTHS. Because if me, there’s a good chance you too. You too fear the chasm between where you are now and where you want to be. You too read of others successes and are convinced they must have some immunity to failure or sadness, something you just do not have. You too are overcoming decades worth of “proof” that who you are and what you make is not good enough. We all share this. It shouldn’t feel like our fragility and grief is solitary.

Because of this, I’ve asked people to reimagine the bio. By submitting what they’ve considered their greatest failures in the traditional third person, it gets just close enough at the original to poke fun at how absurd these things can really sound when re-constructed. Because really, what makes a life?

Our biographies have just become resumes. And resumes have become how-well-you-can-spin-it. This isn’t it. This doesn’t tell us anything about each other. This capitalistic reflection shouldn’t be so prolific in art and lit journals, that have an admittedly niche counter-culture audience. Being a successful artist or writer means doing. That’s it. You do not have to sell anything here.

The irony of this project’s existence is that no matter what my intention is about shedding the ego-stroking that can come along with creative successes, it’s existence creates “successes” and “failures” through the submission process. There will always be failure and success, in our creative lives and in our stumbling through living. We yell fuck the establishment until we become the establishment. We envy until we are envied. Then we envy our former selves, who only knew want and not the secret disappointment of getting and still not being satisfying.

But in these pages, the contributors have agreed to peel back or have at least gone along with pretending they have. They’ve embodied their worst. They’ve claimed it as theirs. What life altering power! To be the one to show yourself as something too long boiled! To just share your work and a glimpse at shared humanity and have that be enough. No long list of validators required to be received as legitimate.

We are all crooked, we’ve taken wrong paths, we’ve failed at being loved well enough, then we’ve put loving ourselves the lowest. We’ve played their games of fake-it-to-you-make-it; I’m asking you to play another game. For those who have agreed to stop with me, however momentarily, thank you. 

Here’s the first issue of NINETENTHS Quarterly.

Sincerely Yours,

Holiday Noel Campanella
Editor-In-Our-Shared-Grief