Five years ago, Literary Cleveland used writing to help our city understand and process the pandemic lockdown.
First, we invited everyone in Cleveland to take part in a collective writing experiment to document May 12, 2020—an ordinary day during an extraordinary time. We could have never anticipated that 140 of you would submit 532 entries for a combined 95,880 words and 346 photos. The result was a collaboratively written anthology, an interactive map of what happened that day, and a citywide artifact of that time: Documenting Cleveland: May 12, 2020.
Second, we paid essential workers to participate in creative writing workshops to process their experiences, connect with other frontline workers, and express their creativity. In 2021 we published Voices from the Edge, an online anthology of selected stories and poems which transformed our understanding of the challenges essential workers faced during the height of the pandemic.
Now, in 2025, we invited participants from both programs to reflect on 2020. What moments from the pandemic lockdown have stayed with them? How do they view their time as an essential worker during the pandemic looking back now? How have they changed? What have we as a city learned (or not) since? What would they say to their 2020 self now?
This anthology contains writing by 13 writers who shared their thoughts and experiences looking back five years after Ohio's stay-at-home order began. We encourage you to read their reflections and revisit the Voices from the Edge and Documenting Cleveland projects.
[Sunset photo by Vince Robinson]