preface

Each of us has experienced a particular moment in our lives from which we could never turn back. At that blink of an eye, we found ourselves confused as we grappled with the realization that everything that we once found comforting could never again be the same. As students and writers, we are constantly confronted with challenges to our beliefs. In facing these moments we found ourselves in a place we, the editors, call "The Edge," and the only dependable tool that we have to muddle through our conflicting, and often changing beliefs, is our writing.

The editors of Intertext strongly believe in Communication Professor Walter Fisher's assertion that humans should be renamed homo narrans,as we have a definite link to the narrative form of writing. According to David Schaarsma, a prominent literacy educator, narrative texts communicate self-exposure through "the composing self . . . by establishing dialectic between an impersonal and threatening world and the writer's sense of alienation from it."

Narrative texts have value as loci of knowledge and voice construction. They inform with passion and are often representations of transformative moments or leaps of faith. According to rhetorician James Boyd White, "One response to the world is to make a text about it," and the writers included in this issue accomplish this from a position of liminality, that is, from the threshold of their personal discoveries. Such a leap requires stepping over a previously untouched boundary; hence, Reflections From the Edge.

What separates the following works from others is that they all meet Fisher's standard of "narrative fidelity." They all ring true with experiences that we have had in our own lives. The authors of this issue have each been to their own personal edges and have come back stronger people and stronger writers for their journey.

The Writing Program

announces the first annual

Louise Wetherbee Phelps Writing Awards

to recognize excellence in the Writing Studios

Submissions must

demonstrate depth and complexity of thought, as well as technical control,
fully engage the reader, intellectually and/or emotionally,
exemplify the Writing Program's goals for writers at different studio levels, as discussed in the Studio Sourcebook: A Student's Guide,
have been originally written for a Writing Program Studio and have been accepted for publication by the editors of Intertext.]

There will be two awards - one for lower division and one for upper division--of $50 each.