I was a voice

Dear Reader,

“Consider rivers./ They are always en route to/ Their own nothingness. From the first moment/ They are going home.” — Eavan Boland, Anna Liffey

“I was a voice,” Eavan Boland says at the end of the beautiful "Anna Liffey", as if to say that in this singular act of speaking, we are enough. We are already home.

At the end of 2017, I joined Ethos Books as an editorial assistant and it’s safe to say that from then on, I felt like I had become, as Justin always says, part of a great river of literature. For three swift months, I felt part of a community anchored in the philosophy of giving voice to stories that matter.

After my internship, I would spend the next two years working on my master's thesis of short stories at NTU’s Creative Writing program, where, as the waters of fate would have it, I would continue colluding with Ethos to edit a collection of poems, To Gather Your Leaving: Asian diaspora poetry from America, Australia, UK & Europe.

Today, I find myself pulled by the currents again (are we bored of this analogy yet?), back (or forward?) to Ethos where I will be working on editorial matters, in other words, continuing the work of amplifying stories that matter, of holding space, of being a voice.

It is with immense gratitude and love that I write this letter. To say, hello, nice to meet you again. It’s great to be home. I hope we speak soon.

Love & light,
Arin

(From March 21, 2020)