“God willing and the crick don’t rise”

This charming colloquialism is a conditional statement of intent; the speaker means that they will go somewhere or do something provided that no obstacle bars their way. In a time or a place where dirt roads could become hard to navigate in heavy rains, a flooding creek guaranteed that you’d be staying home. The word “crick,” Southeast dialect or mock-dialect for “creek,” raises the threat of Appalachian downpours or shallow Texas riverbeds in a flash flood. Now, as the climate crisis sweeps us around the bend, flooding has increased and is increasingly less predictable. What do we do when the crick rises?

In the broadest sense, this issue is about how streams of water, information, and time flow. It’s about the inexorable natural forces that move us forward, and the traces of the past that are left behind. It’s about warning noises, hauntings, and literal pains in the neck. 

For our Fall 2019 issue, Dilettante Army welcomes scholarly essay submissions on creaking cricks and creaks. Possible topics include: skeletons, creaking bones, warning noises, failing infrastructure, dry creek beds, the Creek Wars, the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, floods, watersheds, river systems, the Mní Wičóni (Water is Life) movement, flowcharts, streaming media, and DNA discoverer Dr. Francis Crick.

Submission proposals should be emailed to editor Sara Clugage (sara@dilettantearmy.com) by Wednesday, August 28. 

Image:  John William Hill, Landscape: View on Catskill Creek, 1867. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum.