Student Spotlight: Elliot Brillant

Why do you write?

As a teenag­er, I adored the rush of coming up with a concept; as I’ve aged, however, writing has become a place of solace. A place where I can explore con­cepts and emo­tions without fear. It wasn’t until I began work on a novel with a trans­gen­der pro­tag­o­nist that I allowed myself to con­sid­er my own rela­tion­ship to gender. I write because it pro­vides me with intro­spec­tion into my life and others, and as I’ve devel­oped as an author, I’ve only fallen more in love with the writing process, from initial concept to revi­sion to final­ized piece.

Is there an author who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work?

I’ve always had what I like to refer to as touch­stone authors, authors I will revisit when I want to be remind­ed of what I would like my work to look like. As of late, those authors have been Made­line Miller and Octavia E. Butler.

Why did you choose Stonecoast?

Getting a degree in writing became inevitable long ago. I applied to several grad­u­ate pro­grams but ended up choos­ing Stonecoast because it appealed most to me with its focus on craft and community.

What is your favorite Stonecoast memory?

My first res­i­den­cy was at the Har­raseeket Inn in the winter of last year, and two mem­o­ries from that res­i­den­cy come to mind when con­sid­er­ing this ques­tion. The first being my meet and greet with my cohort—all of us intro­duc­ing our­selves through a series of ice breaker ques­tions and talking about what led us to the program. The second memory being the read­ings in the evenings, leaving my hotel room, and walking through the halls knowing I would hear some gen­uine­ly astound­ing writing each night and knowing I would have friends to sit with while I listened.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

I’m cur­rent­ly working on a novella that retells the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, in which Icarus sur­vives the fall—an excerpt of this is fea­tured below. I’m also working on several short stories that focus on a variety of LGBT+ rela­tion­ships and iden­ti­ties. Ideally, I would like to publish all of this in the next few years.

I’ve tried to put words to how I’ve devel­oped as an author in the past, and the best descrip­tion I’ve come up with is that I can feel myself waking up as an author. I’m becom­ing more aware of the intri­ca­cies of craft in a way I wasn’t before. I’m striv­ing to better my writing in every way I can, and I intend to apply this through­out my work in the future.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, what would you choose?

This is such an inter­est­ing ques­tion. I feel, however, that any cre­ative work is irrev­o­ca­bly tied to the creator, and I don’t wish to sever that con­nec­tion by claim­ing some­thing as my own. That being said, I’d love to create some­thing akin to the quality of Circe by Made­line Miller or some­thing with half as much heart as The Adven­ture Zone: Balance from the McElroy family.

Featured Work

The fol­low­ing is an excerpt from a novella that retells the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus in which Icarus sur­vives the fall. This passage por­trays Daedalus con­fronting the gods after Icarus nearly dies during their escape from Crete:

            “Who seeks to harm my son?”

            Asking this is per­func­to­ry, so that Daedalus may assure himself that he has done it and set himself to methods of asking that might yield more direct results. He does not expect an answer. Every day mortals ask ques­tions of the gods and receive nothing but silence in response. Yet the sea ahead of him churns as though caught in a storm. Waves rise and break against the shore and a figure rises from the water and heads for him.

            “He will be remem­bered in the minds of mortals for mil­len­nia,” Posei­don says as he nears. His voice does not come from his throat, but from the sounds around him. The shriek of gulls above. The hiss of the waves reced­ing behind him, the slap of them meeting the shore again. All these sounds twist to give the god of the sea his voice. Daedalus had met Athena once. Decades ago. She had come to him in the form of a woman clad in bril­liant armor and though the air around her had shim­mered with light, her visage had been mortal. Human. He cannot say the same of the god now before him, not with what he can see by moon­light. Poseidon’s skin is slate gray, marked with bar­na­cles, and his fea­tures shift as though his face is a reflec­tion upon water.

            “Who seeks to harm my son?” Daedalus asks again.

            “That does not concern you.”

            It takes him a moment to respond, such is the rage that fills him.

            “It does not concern me?” His voice shakes and each word must be forced out through the tight­ness in his throat.

            “No. The boy should not have sur­vived the journey in the first place. There is still time to fix this. If he is dead before dawn, it will be as though none of this has hap­pened. You may even give him a proper burial, which you would have been unable to had he per­ished at sea. You will be able to guar­an­tee him passage to the under­world, where he may live on in the house of the dead.”

            “You,” Daedalus manages, swal­lows, “you expect me to—kill, my son?”

            Posei­don does not answer. He does not need to. As Daedalus’s silence stretch­es, Poseidon’s form shifts and swells and Daedalus’s eyes sting. Each time he blinks, he sees the sil­hou­ette of the god before him, seared into his vision. Poseidon’s divine essence, his truest self, has started to leak into this form in his agi­ta­tion, like blood into water. It is that more than any­thing that con­firms for Daedalus that he will not leave this beach alive if he refuses. He will die where he stands for daring to refuse and the sea will sweep up the beach and flood the cavern in which his son sleeps. Icarus will drown. He will be remem­bered in the minds of mortals for mil­len­nia, and is that not what all mortals long for? To be remem­bered? Who is he to deny Icarus that?

            He is his father. He will not survive this if he refuses.

            It would be a kinder death at his hands.

            “I will do it,” he says.

            “Good,” Posei­don intones. “I will return at dawn.” He draws back, then pauses. “You are wise to accept this offer. Few mortals will ever be known as well as him.”

            Daedalus says nothing and Posei­don turns fully and returns to the sea, recedes back into the waves. Daedalus lingers for only a moment, then turns and heads back up the beach.

            His own place in history’s memory was ensured long ago. Now Icarus’s will be as well. But the rec­ol­lec­tion of himself that will be remem­bered is not the one that walks upon this beach. He hes­i­tates at the cave’s entrance. This ren­di­tion of himself, this moment and the one that is to come, will be entire­ly forgotten.

            “Icarus,” he says, savor­ing the sound of his son’s name spoken aloud for perhaps the last time, “my son, wake.”

            Icarus sleeps on his back, as he has since he was a child, his injured arm cradled against his chest. Daedalus kneels beside him and lays a hand on his unin­jured shoul­der and shakes him gently. His son jerks back against the touch and shakes his head, blinks and gazes up at him, his eyes clouded with sleep and latent pain.

            “Father?” Icarus croaks, swal­lows. “What is it?”

            Posei­don had thought he would take no issue with the slaugh­ter of his own son but then the gods have thought the worst of mortals for count­less mil­len­nia. They would think this a fitting pun­ish­ment, given how he had managed to deny the fates by catch­ing Icarus in the first place. Posei­don would believe him if he said that he would do it, because he could not imagine a world in which a mortal would dare lie to a god. Posei­don would believe him even as he lied.

            Elliot Bril­lant is an author and illus­tra­tor who received their BFA in Illus­tra­tion and Cre­ative Writing from the Mass­a­chu­setts College of Art and Design. They are cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing their MFA in Lit­er­ary Fiction through Stonecoast and are a first reader for the Stonecoast Review. They are also an ambas­sador at The Telling Room, located in Port­land, Maine, and an editor for an upcom­ing anthol­o­gy. Their work pri­or­i­tizes LGBT+ rela­tion­ships and iden­ti­ties, fil­tered through the lens of their expe­ri­ence as a non-binary person.