Fine Lines

A Delicious Warmth

Jazmond Goss

“Our Fine Lines mission is to provide a beacon of hope for the misunderstood, share a global vision of improved literacy, embrace the passion of human diversity, understand the need for clarity in all communication, and create the lives we desire through the written word.

Fine Lines is a national, literary, quarterly journal dedicated to publishing writers of all ages and interests. Led by dedicated volunteers who provide creative oversight, it is an inclusive, nurturing, nonprofit, educational, creative writing community engaged in the thoughtful pursuit of beauty and truth.” 
Our Motto: “Write On”

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A delicious warmth engulfs me as I walk into Julio’s Restaurant from the biting cold outside. The smells of tempting, unidentifiable foods tickle my nose and tantalize my taste buds. A small murmur permeates the room; a burst of laughter breaks out in the back, and I know where my party is sitting. Making my way to the longest table, compiled of several shorter tables strung together, the Fine Lines Special Editors sit close to a window, and several people are reading, eating, or chatting.

Looking up from his papers, David Martin smiles a welcome to me. A few of the ladies at the table look up and smile also, as he extends his hand; I take it in greeting, and he asks me how I’ve been, how I like UNL, and brags to a companion across the table, “She went to Amherst last year,” as I take my seat. I smile, meekly, a little uncomfortable in this new environment. I had never been to one of the Fine Lines Special Editors’ meetings before, despite being an Online Editor for a year.

I first heard about Fine Lines through my creative writing teacher in high school, Kim Bultsma, who was an editor herself. The summer after I graduated from high school, I assisted in instructing a Fine Lines Creative Writers’ Camp held at Bellevue West High School. After this week of intensive writing, I had my first piece published in Fine Lines. That fall, I moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, to attend college at the University of Massachusetts. I was offered the opportunity to work with the journal as an editor when I met David at the camp and became a Special Online Editor. I would get articles e-mailed to me to edit and have printed in the journal. After my year in Massachusetts, I moved back to Nebraska, where I grew up, and attended the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where tuition is cheaper and home is closer. Lincoln’s close proximity to Omaha allowed me to finally attend one of the meetings and meet some other editors who worked with Fine Lines for a long time.

David Martin is an English teacher and has taught high school and college students for decades before moving on to teach college students. This is his story of how Fine Lines began in a high school English class, as shown in his piece “Fine Lines: The Beginning”: “In 1990, one of my English classes was filled with downtown, street-wise, tough high school teenagers who were one step from expulsion. All of them failed English class before, at least once, some of them several times. They did not want to be in school, and they couldn’t wait to leave those classroom walls . . . but the meanest looking and most physical was a white boy named Jack . . . . This group of “at-risk” juvenile delinquents was quiet, like the silence before a storm. If they misbehaved, they knew their days as students in that urban high school were over, and the street was the only thing they had waiting for them. Most of them knew what that meant: gangs, hard work, prison, and an early death from drugs. They all had friends or family in one of those places.”
According to David, Jack never talked to anyone, not even David himself. Struggling to discover the best way to reach these students, he knew he needed to try an approach different from the techniques that other teachers used in the past.

“I decided we would write every day and keep a journal of our own work. Our writing notebooks became our textbooks, and I graded their work by the pound. In this class, the sweat that appeared from pushing a pen across the lines on the paper would earn credit. Three days a week, I would bring ideas for us to write about, and two days a week, different students would bring ideas from their personal lives for the class to write about. In effect, they would share in teaching the class. We sat in a circle, and everyone was equal.”

David was surprised to discover the philosophical and intellectual person hiding behind Jack’s mass. At 6 foot 4 inches and 225 pounds, he was rather intimidating to both David and the rest of the students in his class.

“When [Jack] turned in his notebook to me, as the others did, every Friday, I made sure to write something about his thoughts on every page. All my comments were positive. I believe in the power of positive reinforcement, and he had so much rejection in his life that I did not want to add to that long, negative list of ‘downers.’ I was surprised to find out that he was a deep thinker. No one could see what he wrote but me. I was amazed. His words were philosophical and intellectual. The sentences and paragraphs were not filled with the anger he generated with his body language and glacial stares in class.”

I feel that this interaction David had with his student is a very important piece of Fine Lines’ history. Without David’s interactions with Jack, I’m not sure Fine Lines would exist today: “[Jack] was the primary inspiration who sparked that anemic, classroom pamphlet to grow into Fine Lines, now a quarterly magazine for new writers of all ages. What started as a classroom motivator to encourage marginal students to write more . . . became a publication . . . .”

Because of his interaction with Jack primarily, but the other students as well, David began to believe, that writing has healing affects on the soul, and the opportunity to release emotions lost inside a person can have wondrous effects. The opportunity to express something in writing may give one the feeling of being heard, rather than feeling ignored, and printing one’s writing particularly offers this, because it becomes far more likely that the writing will be read by others.

David said to Jack about writing: “Hold onto that notebook, and tonight, write into it like you are writing to your best friend. Tell it what you are thinking. Hold onto your pen, like it was your life-line. Don’t let go of it, until you are so tired of writing that you have no energy left. Whatever you do, tell the truth with your words. Make every word ring with honesty. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just write. Tell the truth. When you are done, let your ‘new friend’ talk back to you, and all you have to do is listen. Write everything down. You don’t have to show it to anyone, unless you choose to do so.

Through Fine Lines, David offers that opportunity to do so. He offers people the chance to share their words. Hurt, forgiveness, anger, joy, tears and laughter – anything that someone needs to express can be written, printed and in turn, read by another. Fine Lines offers creative writers an outlet and encourages those who are too afraid to share their writing with the world, to do so. By offering an inside look to the interactions of literary communities, one may be encouraged to join others, rather than tip-toeing around on the outskirts, desperately looking in

Fine Lines offers this outlet to people of any age; a piece of poetry written by an eight-year old third grader was printed, as well as several pieces by a ninety-year old great, great grandmother. Because the journal wishes to reach all authors and readers, there are no specific age groups printed; everyone can submit and have something printed. Because of this, there is a content restriction. The subject matter must remain clean (no profanity or overt sexuality).

Although Fine Lines is based in Omaha, Nebraska, the journal reaches much farther than the borders of this central state. Articles have been printed from every state in the US, and Fine Lines is breaching international borders, too. Writing from people in Australia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Dubai, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, and Thailand have also been printed in this ever-expanding publication.

Almost every student must write a paper for a class, whether in elementary, middle, high school, or college, and some must even write for their careers. Most do not identify themselves as writers, despite this heavy involvement in composition. What people do not see is how their writing may be considered a piece of art, especially if it was something thrown together at the last minute for a class. But anything that conveys a thought or feeling, right down to a sticky note with a poorly drawn heart or a grocery list may become a work of art, if the creator allows it. This is something that most literary artists recognize and wish to further in the minds of others. It is not necessary to write elegantly to write a book; it is not necessary to write wispy rhymes to write poetry. In order for one to write, a person simply puts pen to paper, fingers to a key board, and one’s thoughts and emotions pour forth. As editors, it is our duty to collaborate with writers and encourage them to do their best when they choose to share their thoughts, hearts, and feelings with our readers.