MENTORSHIP RECIPIENT

Mentor Commentary:
Isaiah Hunt

Recipient Reflection: 
Abigail Carlson

On "We Will Not Leave Each Other, Never So Long as We Live" ​by Abigail Carlson

by Isaiah Hunt

I think the best kind of metaphor story (besides metamorphosis) is the transformation story, the sudden change from one thing to another. These transformation stories, which exist in both fairy tales and literature, follow the trope of a human turning into an animal, because a particular animal’s behavior can be a perfect comparison to our own humanity. Personification, at its best.

So when I read the first line, “My sister calls to tell me her husband turned into a bear”, I was hooked. When I read a short story, I pay attention to the first line, the information the line gives me, and how its few words carry the weight of a story. If you have a brain like mine, the questions weren’t ‘how he turned into a bear’, but ‘why a bear?’, and ‘what does the bear represent?’. Hibernation, strength, and undeniably, the Man vs. Bear debate about a year ago that surrounded twitter came to mind. But the surprising direction that Abigail Carlson took with this story is what sold me, and I became deeply compelled to work with Carlson.
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I want to praise Carlson on the dilemma of the narrator who has been taught by her mother to be there for her sister through thick and thin, and now must navigate this vague relationship between her sister and her husband. I know family can be as messy as it is cherishing. Of course with what we cherish, we want to protect, give it the best of ourselves even at our worst. To chit-chat about these topics and pursue the itch to create, Carlson and I are alike in these many ways. The conversations Carlson and I had were still rooted to her story, but ascended to themes of family and fairy tales, and mortality and generational trauma, which fueled Carlson’s revisions. Like many good revisions, it’s all about chopping off the meat to get to the bone of the story, that foundation of what the author might want their readers to take away. “We Will Not Love Each Other, Never So Long as We Live” is that loving bone. 

Isaiah Hunt

When Isaiah isn’t studying Pan-African history or obsessing over 90s and Y2K culture, he is teaching Fiction Writing and Afrofuturism at John Carroll University. He is currently working on a collection of linked stories that focuses on the entertainment industry, commercialism, Black cyberculture, and R&B, along with a companion novel set in a near-future Cleveland. He received his MFA from Northeast Ohio Masters of Fine Arts in ‘22, is one of the recipients of the Ohio Arts Council Award for Fiction in ‘24 and is a Clarion West ‘24 alumni. You can find his stories in his instagram bio: @Casual.dream.