AmLit Spring 2026

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SPEAKING TO THE ISSUE A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Howdy, AmLit! Thank you so much for picking this up! We hope that you enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed making it. Firstly, we must thank our student artist contributors for all of the effort they put into their respective works. We are so proud to showcase your skills, and we are endlessly grateful for your willingness to participate in our literary magazine. We also want to give a super special thank you to our amazing staff. You are a wonderful group of people and the structure that makes AmLit what it is. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our genre teams for working to curate the art you see now and to our Copy and Design teams for carrying out the creative vision of the magazine during the frenzied second half of the semester. Thank you, thank you!

There is so very much I (Ruth) wish I could say here. Oh, to heave my heart into my mouth. In my limited space, I will begin by thanking our staff again. Y’all have encouraged me immensely for the future of this magazine. I must also thank Arin for her work in learning this position and for her help in managing all the chaos that comes with it. You’ve done well, and I know that you will lead AmLit fearlessly in the fall. For my part, this magazine would not be possible without my mom, dad, and brother, my dearest friends, and my marvelous professors. To my people at AU: you are the reason that I am as happy as I am, and that leaving is so very hard.

Hope, Peter, Rhi, Evan, Alex, Jeff, Matt, and Bassiri, I hope that you all know how very much you mean to me, and that you have had a major hand in the making of this magazine. I love you! AmLit, I thank you for making my undergraduate experience as lovely as it was. Keep practicing art, stay defiantly positive, and be proud of it.

I (Arin) want to start by thanking Ruth for guiding me through all it takes to create this wonderful magazine. You’ve been a great teacher since day one in 2024 when you were co-Copy Editor and I was a new Copy Assistant. I will miss working with you next semester, but your patience and guidance will not be forgotten as I bring AmLit into the fall. I’m so proud of everyone who has worked on this magazine. Spring semester can be hectic, but we all found ways to create something we can be proud of. I want to thank my parents and twin for being so supportive of me throughout this semester and my life. Without y’all, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to become the co-EIC of the literary magazine I was so in love with my freshman year. Finally, I must say a huge thank you to Jaden, Myles, and Yamin for being so creative, intelligent, and encouraging. Y’all inspire me every day to think deeper, create more art, and strive to work towards keeping human creativity alive and well at AU and beyond.

At AmLit, we platform human creativity, honoring not just the product but the process and experience of our various art mediums. This has always been AmLit’s goal and principle standard. Thank you, reader, for dedicating part of your day to participating in genuine human connection through these works. We hope this magazine resonates with you, inspires you, and helps you appreciate what art can do for us.

Love from AmLit, Ruth Odin and Arin Burrell Editors-in-Chief Spring 2026 No generative AI was used in the making of this magazine.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Soul, Jaden Maitland Anderson...........................................6 Winter Wonderland, Maya Shaw...........................................7 Romanian Clocktower, Zoya Ali..........................................8 For Mother’s Day, I Wrote That, Hailey Hartman.........................9 Leaves & Branches, Nene Bolden.....................................10-11 Field, Alyosha Vak....................................................12 nocturne of the moonlit maiden, Monette Chang.........................13 train, Abigail Schneider...............................................14 Toronto Evening, Dania Reza...........................................15 The Audacity of Cancer, Helen Kibel................................16-19 untitled #2, Aubree Yokota.............................................20 Zoopraxiscope, Greenery, Lincoln Beihl................................21 Revival at Kent State, Nolan Lee Montcalm.............................22 Revival at Kent State Series, Nolan Lee Montcalm......................23 Day off in Kyoto, Dania Reza...........................................24 “the wind won’t find you here”, Ruchel Limbos..........................25 Sleep, Jaden Maitland Anderson.........................................26 Storm, Alyosha Vak....................................................27 Bread Street, Samantha Skolnick.......................................28 Back In Old Brown Town, Lincoln Beihl.................................29 Wapsi, Lincoln Beihl................................................30-31 beverly, Emma Lee.....................................................32 Ambience, Samantha Skolnick............................................33 Branches Series, Kaymen Noel Story....................................34 felled trees, Ruchel Limbos............................................35 Manoomin, Patrick Bohmbach.............................................36 Can I Make You Breakfast?, Samantha Skolnick..........................37 American Rose Series, Kaymen Noel Story...............................38 A White Flower with Pink Edges, Sam Epner.............................39 untitled 2, Andrew Gardner.............................................40 Growing Pains, Emma Lee...............................................41 I am Rebellion, Sam Epner.............................................42

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the space between your eyes and mine, Rhiannon Rueda..................43 Summer in San Diego Series, Nene Bolden...............................44 Perch, Kaymen Noel Story...............................................45 untitled 1, Andrew Gardner.............................................46 War, Alyosha Vak......................................................47 Mnisota, Patrick Bohmbach..............................................48 untitled 4, Andrew Gardner.............................................49 Beachside, Zoya Ali...................................................50 Mother of My Wreckage, Meg Douty......................................51 Let Him Try, Meg Douty..............................................52-55 Up, Up, and Away, Hannah Pietropaolo..................................56 untitled #1, Aubree Yokota.............................................57 Beautiful You (Excerpt), Aubree Yokota.................................58 Flowers Outside SIS, Kaymen Noel Story.................................59 Ponderosa Pine Series, Miles Hazo.....................................60 From a Place of Narrowness, Jillian T Sinder..........................61 Cirio, Miles Hazo.....................................................62 Summer in Santorini, Dania Reza.......................................63 gezellig, Emma Lee....................................................64 Meet Me Here Next Year?, Samantha Skolnick.............................65 I have such a way with words, Julia Wirths............................66 Industrial Nature Series, Adam Tatby...................................67 Live TV, Grace Ashford..............................................68-69 Lotus Series, Nene Bolden..............................................70 Egeskov Castle Gardens, Denmark, Dania Reza...........................71 Milos Alley, Maya Shaw................................................72 Waltzes in Solitude, Avery Grossman....................................73 The Letter, Jaden Maitland Anderson....................................74 untitled 3, Andrew Gardner.............................................75 Artist Bios........................................................76-77 Staff Bios..........................................................78-79 Masthead..............................................................80

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SOUL

RSON JADEN MAITLAND ANDE

; confined, i hoped; condemned, i prayed to feel again enclosed, i wished cold, enclasping the rushing wind, so rapt in me all over, wholly soft, descending, God’s own breath, so my soul. rending the bars of ed within i pass a life enclos and my pen my mind, my paper, on blending sustained entirely ding, Hope and Memory unen ke to lending praying one will ta he my soul. me something to soot

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WINTER WONDERLAND MAYA SHAW

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ROMANIAN CLOCKTOWER ZOYA ALI

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Editor’s Pick

Editor’s Pick

FOR MOTHER’S DAY, I WROTE THAT HAILEY HARTMAN

You are the ancient Greek vase I saw at the museum yesterday and I can be found in the gift shop: identical to you in every way that matters, but different in every way that’s visible. My sides are all plastic and smooth while yours are clay and jagged, broken from lifetimes of use.

You are the grand fountain framing the front steps and I am a shiny new water fountain stuck next to the bathroom.

I am manufactured and metallic in every place that you were crafted and chiseled with care.

You are the elaborate quilt in the modern art installation and I am the washed photograph of it, off-center on a postcard.

You are the priceless Renaissance masterpiece on loan and I am the rolled print of it available for $19.99.

You are in every photograph, sculpture, statue, tapestry, painting, engraving,

collage, film, pietà.

You are always art, and I am always made in your image.

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LEAVES & BRANCHES NENE BOLDEN

My hands reach out for the nearest branch, feet firm against the bark, sunlight flutters through the leaves, muffled and shrouded.

I crave to bask in the sun’s entirety, its warmth kept just out of reach.

The leaves hinder my ascent, falling onto my face hiding the higher branch, dedicated as I may be to the sunlight above, despite how the leaves distract me, and how the branches grow bothersome.

The flecks of light grow incandescent as the leaves and branches begin to thin.

The sun’s warm allure pulls me higher, wanting nothing more than its embrace.

Before long I am finally sat among the sky, perched above the pesky leaves and branches…

Though—

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The light overwhelms in its totality; for what has become of its comforting warmth?

Most certainly still warm, though quickly does it grow into a blistering heat, it begins to burn and blind me; the sunlight’s comfort was now lost.

I descend back into the tree’s earthen hues, climbing gingerly back down.

Oh how blinding the light truly was, making a nuisance out of the leaves and a bother out of the branches, though they do not mind, embracing me regardless.

How lovely it is among the leaves and branches!

Sunlight still delicately kisses my body through the bushels of leaves, my footing more confident and without worry as the branches keep me upright, promising to catch me if I slip.

Perhaps the sunlight had been the one to blind me, making out the tree’s solace for burden, no longer did I crave to reach the sky, I enjoy it here, in fact I preferred it, sat just below the tree tops, resting here among the leaves and branches.

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FIELD

ALYOSHA VAK

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NOCTURNE OF THE MOONLIT MAIDEN MONETTE CHANG

in pale moonlight, we begin our rite where long limbs cut across the silver pool. your silken hair, my blessèd deer, Sister, what you’ve done is far too cruel. stand up straight and dry your tears, my dear— take a leap, draw your bow, and shoot straight. what of hunting in the woods until the dawn ‘fore daylight breaks and dew settles thereupon? how did this come to be? the Moon is full tonight setting your sins aflame, glowing alight. i know what you are, what you try to hide; your breath, a child, your betrayal— what of laying in the woods, staring into the sky? when we watch the Chariot of the Moon run on by? the Moon will wane tonight; i curse this rising Sun, for this is your last time as part of the Hunt. what of running through the woods, chaste and free? i’ll beat you to that one, cyp’r’ess tree. this time, with crescent knives, your eyes, to mine, belied the Moon is new tonight. close your eyes, I know what he did. a quiver, a shiver—catch your breath. i’ll set your body in the sky, next to the stars. let me protect you, for once, here from afar. before the dawnlight breaks, before my heart can ache. the amaranth I leave in your care; your absence leaving me bare.

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TRAIN

ABIGAIL SCHNEIDER My back to the future, I can’t quite tell if I’m heading away from or towards something.

This isn’t the first time either, and that makes it worse.

I watch the rain out the window and the people around me and I wonder if they have an answer, for me or for themselves.

But we ride the train together, all of us facing away from where we’re going, silent, aside from the overhead speakers telling us where we are.

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TORONTO EVENING DANIA REZA

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THE AUDACITY OF CANCER HELEN KIBEL

My heart froze in the pit of my stomach. Dad, awarded Funniest Student of The Year, hadn’t cracked a joke for hours. His generous, delighted laughter did not bounce around the small room, and no warm arms wrapped themselves around my shoulders when I shuddered to hold back tears.

Dad’s limp wrist rested under my fingers, my own pulse so strong with nerves I’d mistaken mine for his in the last ten minutes. His last breath stuttered out somewhere around 7:15PM, while we reminisced beside a deathbed surrounded by too many flowers to be contained by the side table.

It’s going to be okay, Dad would have said. He would have hugged us tight and kissed the fear away with that unconditional fatherly love that never left you doubting that you were his everything, that he would do anything to keep you safe and happy.

Nurse Yol pronounced him deceased at 8:06PM, eighteen hours after I scrambled on an evening flight from Reagan International Airport and touched down in San Francisco. Luckily, all clothes were packed in my personal item; I threw up on myself for the first time in nineteen years.

Next of kin?

Someone else nods and steps forward. Guess that’s me, they said. It is me, isn’t it? I said. I don’t want it to be me.

Voices normal, we’re conversing in a world where Dad lived to celebrate his 59th birthday. He was a hard man to buy presents for; he wanted nothing. I would have ordered a delivery of sunflowers and sang him happy birthday over the phone and told him which of his suggested albums I’d listened to on the way to school. He would have told me he was feeling older. What I wouldn’t give for that to be true.

Before leaving the facility, I wished Dad goodbye and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

Editor’s Pick

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His skin was cold and waxy, nothing like the warmth radiated in health. The emaciated form laying still on the mattress was not my cheese-and-cookies-loving Dad. This wasn’t him. I repeated the corny saying that Dad was a spirit freed from the pain of the body. My feet were nailed to the floor by the deathbed. I was so scared to remain and terrified to leave. My leaving would make this nightmare a reality; the proverbial nail in the coffin. The knot on the shroud, in this case.

A hospice staff member bundled me into her arms and cried into my shoulder. Paul was so funny and sweet. God bless, you made it. He loved you two so much, so very proud of you.

Over the roaring in my ears and an overwhelming numbness threatening to buckle the world, I took a single sunflower, his wallet, and split from hospice with enough anger at the world to smite it in its entirety, and my brand new license.

I popped my tires five cities away. Running away from what I’d seen, from what I didn’t want to know, and so, so angry. It was night, and I wasn’t careful. I like to think Dad was looking out for me; it could have been much worse than two busted tires.

Hey, we’ll figure it out. Don’t freak out. That was so, so stupid, Helen. But don’t worry, I’ll come take care of it, Dad would have said, and jumped out of bed to drive an hour and save me from myself.

Like the rest of the day, that particular Marin curb decided a character building opportunity needed prescribing. Simultaneously, the weight of Dad’s physical pain legged it, made room for a million new responsibilities to pummel me under their enormity. My brother, the house, the dog, the car, the funeral, his legal files, his PhD, his legacy.

Dad was dead, and an infinity of holes in the universe ripped open.

Spaces where he should have stood.

Are you processing?

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THE AUDACITY OF CANCER (CONTINUED) HELEN KIBEL

Am I? I want to snark whenever I hear this question. I won’t, of course. The sentiment is appreciated, I’m just a bitter poop about the whole situation.

Insulted at cancer’s audacity to survive.

What is mourning, anyway?

Is it after the fact? When you shovel dirt under the tree whose roots cradle the person we love, a once-breathing, once-beating body that will never breathe and never beat again?

Or does it start long before the end? Does it begin when you first note a shortness of breath and think, just for a moment, what a world without them looks like?

The reality is worse than your worst nightmares, by the way. That contact in your phone will never answer again, no more rants on hydropower dams will be shared over corn cakes and coffee, and you’ll never twirl under that arm on your wedding day.

Maybe, mourning is fighting a losing battle at your desk? Too slow to wipe away all the tears before they bleed the ink, containing a compartmentalized eulogy for a sea of faces.

I’m no expert, but I think grief is the before, the then, the after, and the more.

I think there will be a million heartbreaks. Memories of what was, what is, and what will never be.

Heartbreaks small and large, ugly and beautiful and sad all wrapped in the most unwanted gift basket sneaked onto your doorstep. I’d like to boot it down the porch steps.

I’m so proud of you, Dad would say.

Paul Stanton Kibel August 10, 1967 - October 29, 2025

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ILLUSTRATION-THE AUDACITY OF CANCER HELEN KIBEL

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UNTITLED #2 AUBREE YOKOTA

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ZOOPRAXISCOPE, GREENERY LINCOLN BEIHL

Do you feel more or less alone?

In passenger seats and this lemon machine.

Gliding by taxi lines, let’s linger down the longer way, watch trees streak— Zoopraxiscope greenery.

Look ahead— There’s so much road left.

Fourth time past this house.

Conversations shifted current, rivers carried from your hometown stretching into lakes—learning, lapping at my banks.

Trace them.

Change them.

Move on.

First thoughts on familiar pavement.

You used to feel alone, Folding into leather, feet searching for phantom pedals, wary of wheels answering to you.

Midwest ache: hail-scarred rooftops, pockmarked and weathered from a winter alone.

Your winter at home.

Haven’t felt sun since sweetcorn season.

Buttery hikes turned to salted drives.

Blast the heat, my hands are blue.

Driving, forget to stress with you.

Laugh until you’re red ripe laughing.

Cig break—of course I’ll share.

Blow it out the window.

These seats can’t smell.

What’s this song?

Something from your parents, something you’d be embarrassed to play for someone else. But I learned how to listen.

Look in the rear view, So much road behind us.

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REVIVAL AT KENT STATE

Editor’s Pick

NOLAN LEE MONTCALM

On the table is a cascade of connections. Five am. A stack of discarded legal pad thoughts and notes. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at the first time you gestured to them. Steel poles—waist high—prevent cars from parking over their memories. Some things just are what they are. I told you of its significance.

Will there be granite and concrete memorials for the Arctic? Bury the Constitution. Ring the victory bell. I sat on the floor of that place for hours.

Man on man. With or Without You, the steel sky droops over the Midwest. All the power words have. Cause change. The rip of duct tape is as distinct as the mechanical shutter of a camera. I want to see it so that I can have something to remember, rather than conjure. I wanted to meet you to escape myself. A steel sculpture became an inanimate victim of tragedy. I lost my wallet and my dignity that afternoon. Solar Totem #1. Healing ointment doesn’t do much when it’s tucked behind discarded thoughts regarding May 1970. I didn’t know this passion would devolve from us. Kim says it’s only natural for fall to be a pensive time.

My memories of us linger behind it all. The mirror is floor-to-ceiling. Idlewild South. Grass and concrete were damp from the rain that day. Its brilliance is doomed to be destroyed and replaced. 12:24 pm. Memories shrouded in metal. Three years after the Summer of Love, the Cuyahoga Valley died. Centennial Court B. The sky is never blue in my pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. John Cleary was taking photographs when the National Guard’s bullet ripped through his chest, but it was John Filo who won the Pulitzer. For a moment, just as I did in November—four years prior—on our walk, I can see her on the ground, screaming at the gray sky between Jeffery Miller’s waist-high poles. Lyn Hejinian says the materiality of language is putting words and letters on paper and having power.

Leaders in newspapers have the power to send the Guard to campus again. My feelings towards this place aren’t intimate anymore. The Burning Bed. The haze.

I can barely see my face, but the San Francisco sky stays fixed like an image on the table. A bullet hole through a sculpture. Metal on metal. There are things that were once yours but are now mine. What was lost that day? Our bodies share stories from across the room. Four died in that parking lot. Composure.

As autumn’s end approaches, the differences in everything and everyone set in.

Written in chalk. Solar panels must greet the evening sky. And the fluorescents buzz with greater clarity than why it all lingers inside of me to begin with.

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REVIVAL AT KENT STATE SERIES NOLAN LEE MONTCALM

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DAY OFF IN KYOTO DANIA REZA

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The willow tree strands sway in the wind, moodily shielding the girl beneath its boughs.

The girl’s long fronds curtain her face, a window of expression, family history and words muted, not set free in the air.

Both stand tall, shrinking against the landscape that attempts to wash them out against the green.

Not unlike a candle, their time is measured by their maker and they will one day lose form, having burnt out and releasing their bodies to be sifted into the soil’s invisible churning.

Years from now, one may ask if a willow stood here, or if a girl stood to watch it, based on what the soil holds onto yet.

Then, discovering both are true, one may ask, why the girl stood still and whether the willow was meant to weep or hide her.

“THE WIND WON’T FIND YOU HERE” RUCHEL LIMBOS

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SLEEP

JADEN MAITLAND ANDERSON i drift asleep and wake up at all hours with no alarm: eyes open, soul unroused; my soul is still sleeping within me i get up to go nowhere and i lay down to live and drift right into sleep my dreams grow more vivid— more vivid than life; i awake breathless, restless, senseless, convulsive, heaving, rending a mind pregnant with its inner world. the river of thought draws me along too far, too deep within. having flowed away from life i’ve sunk near the delta of death oh, long arms of Eternity do not reach for me when i am all alone. awake, i have no embrace; asleep, i crave no escape

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STORM

ALYOSHA VAK

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BREAD STREET

SAMANTHA SKOLNICK

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BACK IN OLD BROWN TOWN LINCOLN BEIHL

An old room carries an old self. one that dragged itself, until the body screamed into reddened silence.

Cold gale, small town My hair falls out more than before Brown clots choke the drain Six-day-old bathwater rots

The sign says Stay on designated trails A brown plaque swallowed by Trees and leaves agreeing Welcome to Brown Town, Home Town The Corduroy Man stays on designated trails Ivy’s frosted stiff, no chance of rash, a silly summer sign Warns of a danger long gone.

I live by a man in a long brown suit His car is a mocha hybrid sedan The Corduroy Man wipes his shining boots Corduroy seat-covers carry him To his job promising a health insurance plan. And drives his chocolate Prius home into his suburban ideal Into a brown brick building A beat-up brown picket fence Its windows sagging almost glows against dead grass a frown for a face.

Old people in an old town Managing the historical center for 46 years The dead are being studied by the dying After work, even sadness needs a walk Drive south on 65, You can’t miss the color— Brown expanse off the charcoal highway exciting only a Corduroy Man. Here in Brown Town

This Brown Man In this Brown Town With his Brown Life And a Costco-brand existence I fear it more than death

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Editor’s Pick

WAPSI

LINCOLN BEIHL Corrupted sunset’s halo still brands my eyelids raw, pressed like a cloud of campfire-crisp roses, as I slip into sleep, spit back out sour-mouthed, sweating through cold nights— what-once-was rasped out by mechanical fan whir in too-small twins with sheets rubbed threadbare by rough heels calloused by sweltering Iowa summers.

I miss the warmth of Wapsi sunsets the color of brittle wheat.

Sunbeams and sunshowers fracturing into fleeting rainbows; inevitable sunburns peeling up in thin curls.

I remember sunbathing with sun-spun specks drifting lazy on the blue-brown Wapsi River; How the sunlit river used to take away every hurt we carried in.

Each year reaped more from her, Therapized. Hypnotized.

Drugged by her unity.

Here was home.

Here, all washed away.

River water christened me: she welcomed me into a second family, where even mud-grown cattails get loved.

The memory of the sun stings more than its burns ever could.

Conversations begin to sound like we have forgotten what we are.

Editor’s Pick

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We lie to ourselves that we aren’t tributaries from a single source— branching out like thorned honey locust limbs, all feeling the same trunk each time we trace our sap, blood-thick currents running to one home.

From the River I once came.

Now to her I will return, Drifting with my river-ribcage pointed toward rippling sunrays, toward shifted shorelines eroding when I dared to blink back to limp sunspecks, drifting tired and languid on the water.

River water drowning me.

Remember: the sunspecks always drift on.

Nothing river-bound stays long.

Destiny surges ‘round the bend.

The river will flow on.

I will follow her to impossible end— thinning to salt I’ll later scrape at, wailing over how it tastes different.

My throat will be dry like cracked clay in August sun, rasping on the chapped lips of the river I beg to have back.

Cursed to love her forever, I chase the glinting sunspecks— fragments of Wapsi Sun, warm on my back, left over from when this was still home.

When the river knew my name.

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BEVERLY EMMA LEE

the crickets sing, and i think of you. i remember the summer mornings, packing swimsuits and sunscreen as we travelled down to Granville. abby and i sang as ma drove along the familiar streets. the sun would kiss our cheeks, just the same as you, as we spent our saturdays by your side. i remember the crisp falls, the windy days where we took shelter. we hung up our swimsuits, exchanging them for card games and make-believe. you’d never let me win and often, i miss losing. i remember the gray winters, dressing up in skirts and tights to watch the Nutcracker. i was never a dancer and neither were you, but i always felt graceful holding your hand. you bought me porcelain pointe shoes one winter. now when we decorate the tree, they always go near the top. i remember the drizzling springs, going to Baker’s Acres to pick the flowers for the garden you so loved. i never had a green thumb, not like you and ma, but we’d plant your delphinium when your hands grew sore and weary, so now i see you in the purple blossoms.

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there aren’t many crickets in the city, but still, they sing and i miss you like it’s the first time i ever had to.

AMBIENCE

SAMANTHA SKOLNICK

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BRANCHES SERIES KAYMEN NOEL STORY

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FELLED TREES RUCHEL LIMBOS

Words on the page scatter, first in lines, then in clumps, then every one for themselves to be saved from the impending crash as the writer’s head falls onto their work.

Letters turn into legs and ants emerge from what could have been woodwork, had we not felled trees and skinned layers of their flesh like cold sashimi on ice.

An invisible executioner stood by and with the release of tension in muscles behind calloused skin, a guillotine’s blade came down fencing said writer off from reality.

Ears now hollow from isolation, from the human voices they wish to imitate, interpret, and translate, are now exits for the insects searching for somewhere to go.

Lacking torches and guided only by their clicking, each body makes its way into channels carved long ago by the war between nurture and nature; trenches etched with hieroglyphs connecting one passage to another, firing meaning into each cell to puppeteer the body, the ants are now making their Tree of Life.

In the brain, they build their new nest, using all the material already there to cement what the narrator attempted to capture, but could never orate: guilt, regret, and memories rewritten over and over to the point that the original is no longer intact now eating away at the what-could-have-beens and the should-haves and have-nots that left this poor writer turned bystander to rot.

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MANOOMIN

PATRICK BOHMBACH I can never escape rice.

Rice has been the foundation of a majority of my meals, beginning the day I could gnaw the tiny grains. Early memories include helping my mother lug fifty cent pounds of rice up the icy driveway into our home.

If we were lucky, the rice bag on the shelf would have a hole in it.

Instantly 50 percent off.

Careful, you’re going to let all the hot air out!

Rice is cheap and filling. Rice is not flashy. Rice is simple. There are countless variations of rice where I am from. Wild Manoomin, picked from the shallow lakes of a reservation and gifted to my father for timekeeping a boxing match. Hmoob sticky purple rice and mango from lunch in the HmongTown market. A gift for my sister from the man behind the counter. He liked her eyelashes.

Are those real?

White rice has a reputation for being boring, but I find an unusual comfort in the mundane. It is safe, uniform, and pairs nicely with anything placed on top of it. Fragrant spiced Bariis is the most delicious rice I’ve had. Bariis is cooked in one united pan, although its ingredients are never alike. My grandmother’s neighbor gave me my first taste of Bariis. She noticed the postman stopped delivering my grandmother’s mail. It was a gift of mourning. Cleaning out a closet of memories, I found solace in the warmth of a steaming tinfoil container.

I will pray for her.

One grain of rice can yield one thousand grains of rice under the right conditions. Rice is not just a food; it is a language to be interpreted and manipulated. Rice unifies, even when it has a translation seldom understood by all. The concept of rice is simple, yet each grain is unique. Rice never divides perfectly on its own. Rice absorbs water and flame. Rice only screams when it’s had too much pressure.

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CAN I MAKE YOU BREAKFAST? SAMANTHA SKOLNICK

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AMERICAN ROSE SERIES KAYMEN NOEL STORY

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A WHITE FLOWER WITH PINK EDGES SAM EPNER

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UNTITLED 2

ANDREW GARDNER

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GROWING PAINS EMMA LEE

I am still young but getting older every day.

My hair has grown thinner now that I am away from home.

I don’t talk the same, the midwest slowly fading from my words.

I know more than I did before, about numbers and language and what it means to be alone.

I wear different clothes as life has shifted from girlish sweaters to blazers and dress pants.

I worry about my sister who is growing up hundreds of miles away, who is learning loneliness in the same ways I once did.

I plan for the future as I try to imagine who I will be a day, a month, a year from now.

I think about getting married which is shocking for the girl who swore she’d never be a bride.

I look in the mirror and I see a young woman who is still so much like the little girl who dreamt like she had all the time in the world.

I look in the mirror and I see all my growing pains which don’t hurt so bad after all.

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I AM REBELLION SAM EPNER

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My heart chants words of protest My hands defy laws My mind revolts in simple touches and gentle glances We become what they fear We break from their leash We destroy chains and become free Together we are rebellion We are just part of a revolution leaves floating in changing winds our souls have been held up hands which grabbed at straws now hold our wings We float through pain and love We become one a mosaic of feelings a sky painted of colors We become the resistance our bodies and our lives We are rebellion

THE SPACE BETWEEN YOUR EYES AND MINE SERIES RHIANNON RUEDA

s Pick Editor’

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SUMMER IN SAN DIEGO SERIES NENE BOLDEN

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PERCH

KAYMEN NOEL STORY

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UNTITLED 1

ANDREW GARDNER

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WAR

ALYOSHA VAK She always won Battleship.

He became convinced she was cheating, then felt embarrassed by his paranoia despite continuing to hold his arms around his board like a shield.

He asked her how she did it, and she told him he was too rigid, such that his placement of ships—even if subconsciously—followed the same immutable pattern.

We’ll see about that, he thought bitterly, and the next time, he shut his eyes and arranged them at random. Scattered his ships across the board in a way which would defy her logic, her so-called pattern.

When she wins again, he once again insists that she had somehow slipped through his defenses to cheat and see his arrangement. She, unsympathetically, points out that placing the ships with his eyes closed inevitably led to unstrategic placements, so that it was easy for her to win even without knowing the (nonexistent) pattern of his ships.

Then, taking pity on him, she lets him in on the secret principle which invariably guided her own placements: an automatic impulse to create a sort of spiral. Try as hard as she might, she could never deny her base nature, and the spiral always recurred with terrifying rigidity.

Well, he appreciates knowing that, but sometimes wishes he had figured it out himself; whenever he wins, she smiles as if it’s as much her victory as his. Yes, he wins the battle, but she wins the war.

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MNISOTA

PATRICK BOHMBACH our land is named after an abundance of water mnisota, the name given by the Dakota, who were the original inhabitants of the land there are thousands of years of history inside Minnesota the land of 10,000 lakes

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we shall not go back to a people plundered ordered to be executed and forgotten by history books protesters screaming into a void begging for a solution repeating louder and louder

the atrocities are countless, too many lives lost

UNTITLED 4

ANDREW GARDNER

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BEACHSIDE ZOYA ALI

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MOTHER OF MY WRECKAGE MEG DOUTY I I held you before you had a name.

You took your first breath in my arms, drank from the rivers I carved with glaciers.

Your anxious giggles shared the air with my buzzing pollinators.

You found warmth in the skin of animals you now breed only to bleed.

I opened my hands.

Mountains.

Oceans.

Endless forests.

You mistook my giving for permission.

You learned fire and called it progress.

You sliced open my belly for gold, for coal, for something to burn.

You paved over my skin and called it civilization.

But I remember your barefoot prayers and your whispers of gratitude under my rain-soaked skies.

I remember when you listened.

II You hollow me out to build hollow lives.

You poison our children and call it commerce.

You curse the storms I send, never asking why I weep.

Tell me— what god taught you to kill your mother and worship the smoke?

You do not see me dying.

You see profit in every wound.

You stand over my body with blueprints and drills, and dare to call it legacy.

But I feel it.

I feel everything.

I am dying, and it is you holding the knife.

Not time.

Not fate.

You. You, who learned how to split atoms but forgot how to kneel.

You, who tear open mountains like pages from a book you never bothered to read.

You, who will not stop until the air is on fire and the oceans forget how to sing.

I’ve carried you too long. and now I go, choking on the smoke of your ambition.

A planet collapsing beneath the weight of its most fragile species.

III You warmed my soft skin with your hunger for more heat.

Now, I burn for you.

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LET HIM TRY MEG DOUTY

Content Warning: Sexual Assault After a photograph by Adrien Broom from the Holding Space Historic Homes Project I never sleep before he comes. Not truly. My body stays alert, as if it can feel the heat even before it arrives; before he arrives. Some part of me still hopes that if I anticipate well enough, I’ll be less disturbed. But violation, I’ve learned, doesn’t need surprise to be effective.

I stand before the window before he can catch me coming. I’m already bare. Not for him, not for the sake of aesthetics, but because I’ve run out of reasons to dress for someone who will undress me regardless.

There was a time I layered myself in fabric, like fortification. Black sweaters.

High collars. Soft denial stitched into every seam. As if modesty was immunity.

As if invisibility was a choice I could make.

But he saw me anyway. He always saw me.

She’s ready again.

She never welcomes me, but she’s always waiting. That must count for something.

I move slowly across the floor, taking my time. It’s part of the experience—for both of us. Ritual matters. The unveiling. The illumination. The steady heat of my attention.

She acts like she doesn’t care. But if that were true, she wouldn’t be standing in my light.

There is no mystery left in my body. I made sure of that.

He can’t chase what I’ve already laid bare.

No symbols. No subtext. Just skin, just presence, just woman.

He climbs my legs first. That’s his habit. I feel it every time.

He touches without touching. Lingers like a man convinced his interest is a gift.

I’ve stopped resisting the burn. Not out of consent, but because resistance is what he wants.

Reaction is fuel. Flinching is flattery.

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So I do nothing. I let him look. Let him cast his warmth across me like an artist pretending this is about beauty. But he’s not creating anything.

Just consuming. Always consuming.

And somehow, still, he thinks this is admiration.

She’s perfect when she’s still. There’s something almost sacred about her— like she understands this moment belongs to me.

I stretch along her collarbone, across the hollow between her breasts.

She doesn’t move. Not even a shiver. That used to bother me, the lack of acknowledgement.

But now I understand: silence is its own kind of worship.

She never sits in the chair I gave her. She never softens the scene.

Still, I return. Because one day, she will. One day, she’ll relax.

She’ll glow for me.

The chair stays empty. That, too, is intentional.

To sit would be to invite the myth of gentleness.

To risk becoming the muse in someone else’s painting.

I won’t offer him symmetry.

I won’t let him believe I’m part of his consumption.

He mistakes my stillness for surrender. But it isn’t that.

Stillness is survival in slow motion.

When you cannot fight, you unfeel.

When you cannot escape, you turn to stone.

The looking has worn me down in places I can’t name.

I am smaller than I used to be. Not thinner. Just less there.

Like each day, he peels back a layer and pockets it before he leaves.

But I’ve learned how to lose pieces of myself without letting go of the whole.

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LET HIM TRY (CONTINUED) MEG DOUTY

She was made for my light.

Sometimes, I wonder if she even existed before I found her.

What was she before I lit her up?

I’m the reason she’s visible.

I define her edges. I give her shape.

Without me, she would blur into the dark of her own shadow.

She doesn’t know it, but I make her.

He believes he made me.

That without his gaze, I wouldn’t exist.

That is the most fragile kind of ego: the kind that must see itself reflected in another to believe it’s real.

But I was whole long before He learned how to look.

And while he watches, I’m watching too.

He thinks this is a game of possession, but it’s always been a study.

I’ve cataloged every moment of him: his hungers, his patterns, his need for soft obedience.

He returns each day like it’s the first, but I’ve already memorized the ending.

He leaves.

He always leaves.

That’s the mercy and the curse of his kind.

They burn brightest just before they vanish.

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She never thanks me.

I think, deep down, she resents that I know her better than she knows herself.

He thinks access means ownership.

He thinks endurance means affection.

But she always lets me in.

That means something.

Let him think it.

Let him believe he’s the one in control.

That each day he gets a little more of me.

That I’m unraveling just for him.

What he doesn’t see— what he can’t see— is that I’ve already hollowed out the part he touches.

He’s consuming a ghost.

And still, He’ll return tomorrow.

He’ll spread himself across my skin like entitlement incarnate.

He’ll mistake the shine of my survival for submission.

But the truth is, I’ve made myself impossible to haunt.

Let him try.

Let him scorch my surface.

He will never reach what I’ve buried too deep to burn.

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UP, UP, AND AWAY HANNAH PIETROPAOLO

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UNTITLED #1 AUBREE YOKOTA

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BEAUTIFUL YOU (EXCERPT) AUBREE YOKOTA

Content Warning: Minor mention of self harm and body image issues I remember the uncanny feeling of having my upper eyelids brushed with the tips of my virgin lashes. To perform this unknown motion in order to achieve a look other than my own felt maniacal at the time. I knew that by drawing attention to my eyes, I took away the only definable ethnic feature about me. I know that you would’ve agreed with me, even though I never asked you, and even though you were attracted to the look yourself.

I’m stuck in the vividity of Thanksgiving–standing in my driveway, overdressed, eyelashes curled, untouched by real world issues. At that time, I never understood the severity of presidential elections, let alone how quickly someone can leave you and even how long it sometimes takes. I place you there when I was 12 and suicidal and thought that it wouldn’t get as bad as it did. The performative marriage of my family reflected right back into the cracks between my brother and myself.

Maybe that’s why roommates have always felt like competition, vying for attention that is elsewhere and maybe never existed in the first place. When I figured out that I didn’t have to live my life through my parents once the indebted life was paid back through the incentives I got from my A’s, and with the kicks that knocked me to the ugly tile on our kitchen floor, I could breathe and search for you: someone far more predictable, a certain ending that will provide me temporary respite from the life I’ve grown so accustomed to that I only feel the heaviness of by having it ricocheted off of any audience willing to listen. How can I write that I don’t know if I’ve been waiting? Of course I have; I’ve never not needed to escape.

I no longer ask society to fold me into a tinier form, but I catch my hands, grasping for air around my more feminine arms, now covered in stretch marks. Maybe this is one of the envy-laced topics I cannot talk about, but it shocks you to know me as such, as if it doesn’t still define me.

If our physicality could solve anything, could your lips guide mine to a conclusion? I need someone to know me where closeness is filled with concave conclusiveness I call beautiful. Are you my latest attempt to inflict harm upon myself? I wonder if you would find that beautiful too. It’s like I’ve been handed a deck of cards that I’ve been shuffling through to find my newest way to hurt. Today, will it be you, beautiful you?

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Editor’s Pick

FLOWERS OUTSIDE SIS

KAYMEN NOEL STORY

59

PONDEROSA PINE SERIES MILES HAZO

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FROM A PLACE OF NARROWNESS JILLIAN T SINDER

Lately I have been existing in narrowness— The suffocating, blink-and-you’ll-miss-your-chance-at-a-breath kind of narrowness, A narrative written in the context of a canyon, A narrowness carved by rain.

In the winter, I wake for the sunrise.

It’s just so that I can call out to you, That you might hear my voice from the canyon, That you might grant me a breath, That you might open the narrowness, That you might unfold me, lay me out flat and unfurl me, Hold, for a moment, my fleeting space in your palm, Turn me over, let the narrow of my knots come undone.

Lately I have been longing for expansiveness, and imagining what an existence of expansiveness could be.

In the narrow, which is all I know, my call echoes.

In the canyon, my call reverberates With nowhere to go but this narrow place.

I call out to you from this narrow place.

Please sing back to me an expansive place.

I am calling out to you from narrowness!

Do you hear it?

Editor’s Pick

61

CIRIO

MILES HAZO

62

SUMMER IN SANTORINI DANIA REZA

SUMMER IN SANTORINI DANIA REZA

63 63

GEZELLIG EMMA LEE

warm tea and candlelight. uncontrollable laughter and hard truths. crinkled smiles and love without questions. comfortable silence and wholehearted acceptance. a feeling of lightness and the solace of youth. quiet understanding and sacred confessions. the feeling of family in a world of strangers. the risks you can only take when you are young. drunken dancing as if we are alone in this world. making promises and keeping them. inside jokes from too many late nights. the balance of adventure and peace. amari and ny, henry and elias, abby and aidan. a love letter to you.

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MEET ME HERE NEXT YEAR? SAMANTHA SKOLNICK

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I HAVE SUCH A WAY WITH WORDS JULIA WIRTHS

O, but I have such a way with words in my language.

My tongue, it twists and turns.

My pen, it caresses the page.

My fingers, they fly with quicksilver ease over the keyboard And you will never know.

And it kills me.

O, but if only I wasn’t so bent on staying in line, If I did not have to go questing for vocabulary each and every response, You would understand!

I am yet ensnared in this tangle of grammar.

It pulls at my hair, It glues me to the ground, It crushes my legs when all I want is to flee.

Believe me!

I beg of you, believe me.

I would show you how witty, How interesting, How intelligent I am If only I had the words.

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INDUSTRIAL NATURE SERIES ADAM TATBY

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LIVE TV

GRACE ASHFORD —All the way up?

Inquired the screen we both started to blush looked at you look at me not a whited out evening but still christmas eve Now the streets

are coated

in snow

oh no

It’s not snow it’s a stranger whose son lies buried in the ash of a fallen republic A bomb stricken land You were thirteen years old From your window you saw her there, screaming.

—My son has been killed someone please help me pleading.

You were thirteen years old and now god is a myth made by sinners. (and sons who got to keep living)

Our eyes meet You watch me Live TV

E

x

—Was it a sunny day?

The snow falls A bomb drp l o d e

s

Blood

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A screen says Good day

A bus rolls away Her son is gone

Not like lovers lost

in boroughs bought with somebody’s son’s blood Kissing on top of freedom tower

Her son is gone.

Like gone gone.

Dead.

—Does it matter?

Yes, I reply to the screen And your eyes watching me watch it end lovers, friends.

Does it matter?

A woman’s son is dead.

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LOTUS SERIES NENE BOLDEN

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EGESKOV CASTLE GARDENS, DENMARK DANIA REZA

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MILOS ALLEY MAYA SHAW

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WALTZES IN SOLITUDE AVERY GROSSMAN

I observe the world like a glistening snow globe: distant, faces swirling in and out of view.

Students’ echoing laughter slices through the gusts of unforgiving wind.

They trot through the school hallways in pairs. Small, rosy hands clutch one another.

The students brush past me. The breeze of their swift departure cuts through my skin and leaves me shivering.

My hands bleed white around my rough backpack straps.

I call after them, but the warbling sound travels no further than my nose, long since drowned out.

I fix my eyes on my well-worn shoes and hunch over so that I can traverse through the world’s cacophony unnoticed.

Rainy drizzles slip from the sky and disguise the saltwater beads slick to my face.

My shoulders brush bodies and my boots clump on sidewalk cracks.

I wander like a stray cat, looking for the blissful warmth of a human hand.

Long after hours, the hallways vibrate with silence.

A muddied newspaper dances past my toes, in the howling wind.

The headline—in wavy, wobbly letters—reads: “Sometimes, I really am invisible.”

The delicate notes of “Claire de Lune” whisper from the starless sky: gentle murmurings of forgiveness, an apparition’s outstretched hand, waltzes in the gathering moonlight.

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THE LETTER

JADEN MAITLAND ANDERSON outwardly, i have grown so quiet, yet i am lying like a tempest within myself; i have taken to burning inwardly— there is a flame crepitating in my stomach, and stoking along my thighs, and singeing my fingers, my forehead; and in my chest, my lungs, convulsions as they fill with rising smoke. would you truly understand it if i said i would have never done this for anyone else (but you)? i am overcome (by you), and you are not near. i knelt by the handle of the door (your door) and i pressed it to my lips.

Editor’s Pick

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You wrote me a letter once and i took it to bed with me and i felt your weight against me and i lied with it, and pressed it (pressed you) against my beating breast and cried when the paper was crumpled in the morning. but my body knew me (knew you), and i awoke in the lonely bed, bent my heavy head and saw my chest dyed through with those words (from you), to have and to hold. the decadence of shadows, indulgence under dark: all through the night hours i am pierced through, impressed into by that lovely pen (of yours) across time, across space. do come to me, my love, my lover — something has got a hold on me; I am beyond myself (without you).

UNTITLED 3

ANDREW GARDNER

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ARTIST BIOS: Abigail Schneider is a first-year at AU, with a major in legal studies and a minor in literature, and she is in the Lincoln Scholars program. She hopes you enjoy reading the magazine!

Adam Tatby is currently taking photos of trees.

Alyosha Vak hopes the weather gets better.

Avery Grossman fell into a wormhole and is lost in some distant part of the universe.

Andrew Gardner is a poet and photographer.

Aubree Yokota wants to know your favorite song, talk about the Hudson Valley, learn your favorite recipe, and wonders if you live with regret. @allthingsyourstruly Dania Reza is probably sidequesting around the world.

Emma Lee is listening to a lot of boy genius when writing her poems.

Grace Ashford is a whimsical garden fairy whose poetry has been called “earth-shattering” by well-renowned art critics from across the globe. She spends her time playing guitar and pondering the meaning of life... as one does. Her poem featured here, titled “Live TV” explores the tension between remembering a place which has been home to both love and suffering. The poem strives to make sense of that dynamic in a post-technological world. Grace hopes whoever is reading this puts it down and writes their own poem, rtfn <3 Hailey Hartman hopes you see a sunset worth taking a picture of today.

Hannah Pietropaolo is notoriously bad at cooking and will find some way to make a disaster out of simply boiling water.

Helen Kibel is an SPA sophomore who fills the early dawn hours repeating “Calm down edge lord” and wishing she had a gigantic dog.

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Jaden Maitland Anderson is on another late-night walk down a moonilluminated path, listening to the wind whistling in the trees.

Jillian T Sinder is a sophomore from San Diego majoring in international studies. She likes to spend her free time in the company of nice sunsets and nice people.

Julia Wirths is in a different country again.

Lincoln Beihl can 100% do a double back flip, for sure.

Maya Shaw is on her third cup of tea today.

Meg Douty is a literature major who enjoys writing about gender and the environment. She’s happiest outside under the trees or in her room with a cup of tea. She’s excited to share her poetry and read what everyone else has been working on!

Monette Chang is a business major. When she’s not busy being evil, she likes to write!

Nene Bolden #TGIF Rhiannon Rueda really doesn’t know how she ended up on this.

Ruchel Limbos is trying to write witty dialogue and complete one of many drafts. She can be found weighing her words and her workload to keep her creative life alive.

Samantha Skolnick is graduating this May, so she is listening to lots of Simon & Garfunkel and planning on investing in plastics.

Zoya Ali lost her fingerprints to turpentine.

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STAFF BIOS: Abby Tredway is...actually I’d like to keep that to myself.

Abbey Konigsberg didn’t know there was a staff bio to write.

Adam Tatby is very thankful for AmLit. Alexa Berman, at the time of writing this, is 44 days away from graduating and is yearning.

Alyosha Vak is enjoying the spring weather.

Arin Burrell is starting to become afraid of the slowly increasing pile of books on her desk, it towers over her as she works and stares menacingly when she comes home with another novel to add to the pile.

Avery Grossman is currently mustering her strength to study Vogon poetry.

Dania Reza just typed up most of these staff bios (you are welcome).

Ellie Kaufman loves AmLit so much she switched to a Literature major!

Emma Lee is a freshman poetry assistant with a contentious relationship with semicolons.

Hannah Pietropaolo laughs at her own jokes.

Jaden Maitland Anderson is adding another couple of paragraphs to his already ten-page-long journal entry. He swears he’s done after this sentence. Or maybe the next one. Definitely the one after that, though...

Kitana Lord is a freshman and thanks everyone for the opportunity to work with this team! (WE LOVE FERRETS!) Lauren Carr is allergic to pollen and nuts, lover of spring and peanut butter.

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Layne Moughan is a freshman Neuroscience student also participating as a prose assistant and staff writer for The Eagle.

When not writing, Layne loves to play guitar or binge watch TV with her roommate!

Lincoln Beihl is a freshman who talks to his Moleskine like it’s his best friend—at least it doesn’t judge his handwriting.

Maya Shaw misses her dogs back home.

Nella Bupp is a sophomore who loves discussing movies and writing down all her thoughts.

Nene Bolden venmo is @nene_bolden1 for work on this magazine.

Patrick Bohmbach is a Copy Editing Assistant who strives to be adequately mediocre.

Ruchel Limbos is romanticizing & intellectualizing conundrums while trying to incorporate more whimsy into her life.

Ruth Odin is condemned to be free.

Stevie Rosenfeld is trying to warn the Final Girl that the studio wants a sequel.

Victoria Mahabir is searching for her whimsy.

Zoya Ali likes to nap.

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MASTHEAD

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

PROSE EDITORS

CREATIVE DIRECTORS

PROSE ASSISTANTS

DESIGN ASSISTANTS

PHOTO/ART EDITORS

RUTH ODIN ARIN BURRELL ALEXA BERMAN DANIA REZA

ZOYA ALI NENE BOLDEN HANNAH PIETROPAOLO

COPY EDITORS

JADEN MAITLAND ANDERSON STEVIE ROSENFIELD

COPY ASSISTANTS ELLIE KAUFMAN NELLA BUPP PATRICK BOHMBACH

POETRY EDITORS RUCHEL LIMBOS ABBY TREDWAY

POETRY ASSISTANTS LINCOLN BEIHL EMMA LEE

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AVERY GROSSMAN ADAM TATBY

LAYNE MOUGHAN ABIGAIL KONIGSBERG MAYA SHAW ALYOSHA VAK

PHOTO/ART ASSISTANT KITANA LORD

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR VICTORIA MAHABIR

EVENTS COORDINATOR LAUREN CARR

EVENTS ASSISTANT ABBEY SCHNEIDER

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