Dear Readers,

Welcome to the Creative Nonfiction section of Mason’s Road.

We are so glad you’re here because, here, we have gathered a number of complex voices that deserve — and perhaps need — to be heard.

In considering the submissions we received, it was our charge and our goal to find those pieces possessed of that most elusive of qualities — a singular “voice,” the ineffable characteristic that is nearly impossible to define but which one recognizes immediately when one “hears” it.

Given the elusiveness of the element itself, our consideration of why these voices are so effective demanded that we think about and discuss the tools used to construct a writer’s voice — word choice, structure, rhythm, tone, perspective — and the skill with which the writer wields those tools.

It was our pleasure to discover five such pieces, which we are honored to share with you in this, our inaugural issue. While their sources, intentions, and intonations vary widely, to our minds the voices we’ve chosen to publish have at least one commonality — each of them speaks clearly, honestly, purposefully, and authentically.

We also want to point out that we could not have assembled such a dynamic collection without our readers; their insights and enthusiasms compelled us to take a second (and occasional third) look at a piece that didn’t match up with our own taste, or didn’t “speak” to us right away.

We hope that you find these five pieces as compelling as we did.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Hilts & Ioanna Opidee
Creative Non-Fiction Co-Editors