Hope Is the Thing: Wisconsinites on Perseverance in a Pandemic

"In March of 2020, shortly after Wisconsin began receiving positive cases of COVID-19, writer and professor B. J. Hollars struck out to create a collaborative writing project to bridge the emotional distance created by way of our physical social distancing. Drawing upon Emily Dickinson's famous poem, "Hope Is The Thing with Feathers," Hollars put out a call for Wisconsinites to reflect on their own glimpses of hope in the COVID-19 era. The guidelines were simple: five hundred words or less, and a title that borrowed from Dickinson's format: "Hope is the Thing [Fill in the Blank]." The call resulted in an avalanche of submissions, each of which reflects on hope's ability to persist and flourish, even in the darkest times. The one hundred contributors represent a variety of backgrounds, from truck driver to poet laureate, from middle school student to octogenarian. They are racially diverse, geographically diverse, and culturally diverse, representing a rough cross section of Wisconsin voices. Some are seasoned writers, while others have never been published. The result is a book-length exploration of the depth and range of hope as its currently being experienced by Wisconsinites in the midst of this crisis, as well as an important record of what Wisconsinites are facing and feeling through these historic times"--