MENTOR COMMENTARY

Mentorship recipient:
​ Despite
Recipient reflection:
Nan Wigington

ON "DESPITE" BY NAN WIGINGTON

by Laura Maylene Walter

When I began reading Nan Wigington’s “Despite,” I could tell right away it was penned by a writer with solid instincts. I loved the vivid language, the beetles, the unexpected progression, and how the author held back at key moments to allow the reader to fill in some of the blanks. I let the story linger in Gordon Square Review’s submission queue for a little while, but I never forgot it—always a good sign, and I ultimately selected “Despite” as my editorial mentorship piece.

My comments for “Despite” focused on developing the homeless woman (the woman with the “carapace of hair”—love that description) to give her a voice and a touch more agency. I also thought Stella’s dream of going to India might need more context and attention, as did the story’s ending. A few minor issues, like a handful of overexplanatory lines or abrupt transitions, rounded out my comments.

When I shared these suggestions with Nan, I was delighted to learn that my initial perception was right on—she has strong writerly instincts. She approached my suggestions seriously and with an open mind, and she managed to address nearly all of them in her first revision pass. She didn’t even balk when I offered a long, nitpicky comment about a tiny transition that threw me off—an issue she easily managed to fix in about three words, by the way. If only I could be so concise!

It was the ending that perhaps required the most consideration. Endings are never easy, are they? Nan’s first revision still didn’t feel quite right to me, so I encouraged her to keep trying. When I read her latest effort—those empty moving boxes!—I was beyond thrilled at how she managed to connect the story’s unifying theme of beetles to Stella’s internal struggle and grief, but in a fresh way. I was so excited about the new ending and how gracefully Nan managed to craft it, I called her a rock star in the shared Google doc we were using for revisions.

And she is a rock star. So please, enjoy “Despite” and all the work Nan graciously put into it for Gordon Square Review.

Laura Maylene Walter 

Laura Maylene Walter is a writer and editor in Cleveland. Her work has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Sun,  Kenyon Review, Ninth Letter, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She was 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, a national gold IPPY, and a Foreword Book of the Year Award. Laura holds an MFA from Bowling Green State University, is a contributing editor for Neutrons/Protons and Cherry Tree, teaches workshops for Literary Cleveland, blogs for the Kenyon Review, and works for Cleveland Public Library. She is no stranger to rejection.