qarrtsiluni

Welcome to qarrtsiluni, at its new home! The summer edition, “Short Shorts,” made up of contributions of 100 words or less, was one of the most exciting so far. We published some forty posts, of which thirteen were by contributors who had never appeared here before, and the quality of the submissions is increasing overall, making the task of editing both more exciting and more challenging – as it should be!

In addition to fiction, non-fiction, poetry, interviews and translations, we’re also interested in publishing more visual art. Images may respond directly to the theme or to analready-published post. We are also looking for artists to whom we can send submitted pieces for their illustrative response. If you’d like your work to be considered, please write us at qarrtsiluni at gmail dot com.

–Beth

September-October Theme: Education

“Strangely circuitous and excessively wasteful of energy the path proved to be,” wrote Henry Adams about his years at Harvard. To critics of institutionalized education, such as the late Ivan Illich, that probably wouldn’t seem strange at all. “The pupil is … ‘schooled’ to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new,” Illich wrote.

Context is everything, and in The Education of Henry Adams, the author’s life-long pursuit of something called “education” frames every autobiographical recollection. What would our own lives look like through that lens?

But you don’t need to restrict yourself to memoir, much less to formal schooling. Tell us stories about dog training; write poems about learned vs. instinctual behavior among theearwig; send us photos suggesting something about the flow of ideas among the members of a jazz ensemble. But whatever you create, we ask that you sit up straight and pay attention! Homework is due by the middle of October at the absolute latest  as soon as possible, so we can start posting the earliest arrivals and can give subsequent submissions the consideration they deserve. Thanks.

–Dave