MENTORSHIP RECIPIENT 

Mentorship Recipient
"Eid Mubarak"

Recipient Reflection: 
Yasmine Rukia

On "Eid Mubarak" by Yasmine Rukia

by ​​Laura Maylene Walter

If you’re a writer who submits to literary journals, you’ve probably come across editors who admit they can’t describe what they’re looking for in submissions, exactly—they just want to fall in love with a piece, to find it so irresistible they have to say “yes.” It’s the sort of “you’ll know it when you see it” phenomenon that can seem frustrating sometimes, but it’s also honest. This is art, after all, and not a checklist or a roadmap.
 
I’m here to say that from the moment I opened Yasmine’s story, “Eid Mubarak,” I experienced that undeniable flash of wanting to say “yes” to the submission. From the image of a terrace overflowing with plants to the mention of an estranged sister and “the watchful minarets of the mosque,” this story of desire, grief, belonging, and betrayal gripped me from the start. It’s there in the energy of the language, the liveliness of the narrator’s voice, the rich descriptions, and the heart that beats throughout it all.
 
It’s a magical thing, to come across a piece of writing that feels so visceral and vivid. I did have some suggestions for Yasmine, mostly concerning a scene I thought might come across even more powerfully if its drama could be toned down just a touch, and I also had several queries meant to help clarify elements of the plot. Part of the challenge in editing fiction is not hampering the writer’s authentic voice and vision, and I tried my best not to do that with Yasmine’s work. She was receptive to my comments and seemed to address them in ways that worked for her, and I applaud her for her excellent work.
 
Most of all, I have to thank Yasmine for refining such a beautiful story during a pandemic, a period of time that has been disorienting, stressful, and frightening for many of us. She has created a meaningful, moving piece of writing, and I am lucky to have worked with her. So please, be sure to read and savor “Eid Mubarak.”

Laura Maylene Walter

Laura Maylene Walter is a writer and editor in Cleveland. Her debut novel, BODY OF STARS, is forthcoming from Dutton. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Sun, Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She was a Yaddo Fellow, a Tin House Writers’ Workshop Scholar, the recipient of the Ohioana Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, and a past Fiction Editor of Mid-American Review. Her debut story collection, Living Arrangements (BkMk Press), won the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize. Laura holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University, teaches workshops for Literary Cleveland, blogs for the Kenyon Review, and works for Cleveland Public Library.