MENTORSHIP RECIPIENT 

​​NORTHEAST OHIO SPOTLIGHT

Mentorship Recipient
Keep a Light On

Recipient Reflection: 
Bonnie Brewer-Kraus

On "Keep a Light On" by Bonnie Brewer-Kraus

by ​​Laura Maylene Walter

So much about “Keep the Light On” struck me during my first reading: the eerie premise, the relationship between the narrator and her husband, the snappy pacing and transitions, the subtle humor, and how the story subverts expectations about what became of Brett. Bonnie created a palpable atmosphere in very few words, and the image of Lola standing on the street in the dark, gazing up at the mysterious light in her absent son’s room, stayed with me long past my first reading.
 
In the original draft, I appreciated the dark hints about Lola’s son, Brett—his knife-throwing phase, the “sad wreck” of his room—and the fact that the story doesn’t take the familiar, expected route of Lola grieving her son’s death. As glad as I was that Brett was alive, in that earlier draft, I worried the climactic conversation between Lola and Brett might be too brief and overtly stated. As a result, I thought perhaps it didn’t rise to the complexity that infuses the rest of the story. Bonnie, meanwhile, was more than willing to return to her characters and invest additional time into their histories, personalities, and development.
 
Bonnie’s revision work delivered us Brett’s new name, Pluto, as well as the concept of his “illumination” and a clearer picture of the cultish community he’d taken up with. These details gave Brett a new dimension, but I was pleasantly surprised by just how much his phone call also gives new insight into Lola’s character. She remains a mother suffering the absence and eccentricities of her son, but she also clearly is a woman in denial. When Brett shares his new identity and that he’d embarked on a dangerous spiritual mission in the wilderness, Lola can only think of the dog he’d had as a child—a dog that was run over by a truck, no less! This is the kind of dark humor that makes “Keep a Light On” both endearing and bleak in all the best ways.
 
Bonnie’s persistence, her willingness to get to know her characters more deeply and to let them interact more freely, and her strong narrative instincts helped this story come together in its current form. Furthermore, throughout the mentorship process, Bonnie shared many thoughtful comments about her editing and revision philosophies with me via email—a correspondence that marks one of my highlights of working on this issue.

Laura Maylene Walter

Laura Maylene Walter is the editor in chief of Gordon Square Review. Her debut novel, Body of Stars, was published in 2021 by Dutton in the US and Hodder Studio in the UK. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review, Poets & Writers, The Sun, Slate, F(r)iction, The Masters Review, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She was a Yaddo Fellow, a Tin House Writers’ Workshop Scholar, and the recipient of the Ohioana Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant.  Laura teaches workshops for Literary Cleveland, blogs for the Kenyon Review, and works for Cleveland Public Library.