Estuaries 2023-2024

2023-2024

Visual Arts & Literary Review

Joshua Himmelstein: Sediment - The Currency of Our Coasts (2)

Francesca Marie: Nine Eyeballs

Rhonda Bates: Untitled

Patrick Berran, Visual Arts

Dr. Jill Lettieri, Literature

Editorial Board

Kathryn Bryson

Isabella Lettieri

Dr. Jill Lettieri

Dr. Gena Southall

Patrick Berran

Fay Edwards

Ashley Paskov

Christina Weisner

Brittany Forbes

Julia Gabitova: Inner Child

Visual Arts

Front Cover Francesca Marie: Nine Eyeballs

Inside Joshua Himmelstein: Sediment - The Currency of Our Coasts (2)

1 Rhonda Bates: Untitled

2 Julia Gabitova: Inner Child

4 Francesca Marie: Textures

5 Sarah Parsell: Breaking Dawn

6 Francesca Marie: Spiral

7 Dawn Van Ness: Intrusive Thoughts

Thomas Gwin: Cloudy Sunset

8 Abigail Turner: Foolish Mortal

9 Jessica Canning: Not Today

10 Isabella Sanford: Dappled Sky

11 Rhonda Bates: Untitled

12 Savannah Moore: Bufflehead Duck

13 Sarah Parsell: Marsh Treasures

14 Dawn Van Ness: Reflections

Isabella Sanford: Fall Festival

15 Seville Gulmammadova: Eternity

16 McKinley Watson: PeaIslandFishing

Dawn Van Ness: Lines

17 Eric Godbout: Ramp43

18 Eliana Burns: The Queen

20 Isabella Sanford: Glass Sunset

21 Ekaterina Petrova: Kaa

Jocelyn Jennings: Midnight’sSong

22 Julia Gabitova: Self Portrait

23-24 Kitty Dough: Catastrophe Rippin’Snortin’RocketMorton

25 Zeliana Delong: Untitled

Hannah Simpson: Donuts on a Wall

26 Jessica Canning: I wonder

27 Thomas Gwin: Red Sky

28 Julia Gabitova: Improvisation

29 Seville Gulmammadova: Pieces of Me

Jessica Canning: Velvet Heartbreak

30 Tiffany Lindsey: Untitled

32 Carolyn Mize: Untitled Untitled

34 Tiffany Lindsey: Business Card Drive by Painting

35 Carolyn Mize: Untitled

36 Abigail Turner: Scarlet Macaw

Seville Gulmammadova: Sound of Water

38 Abigail Turner: Banana Dog

39 Rhonda Bates: Untitled

Zeliana Delong: Untitled

40 Felicity Lipchak: TheShrinkingofPeaIsland

41 Riley Anderson: Coastal Erosion

Myrla Estrada: ExplainingClimateChange

42 Laney Cartwright: PlasticRefuge

43 Jacob Gray: Slow-Destruction

Isabella Sanford: StandingAlone

44 Joshua Himmelstein: Sediment - The Currency of Our Coasts (1)

45 Dawn Van Ness: Bared Roots

Nita Coleman: Smells Like Climate Change

Poetry and Literary Works

4 Jamie Holcomb: Indestructible Roots

5 Kendra Graham: Celestial Harmonies

6-8 Aaron Bass: Summer is a Fever

The Witness

Living with Grief

9 Dawson Barnett: Parallel Hearts

10 Hannah Devlin: Debts Owed; Payments Promised

11-12

Michael Parrish: The Southern Live Oak

The Toiling Goose

14 Steven Heritage: Macy’s Birthday

15 Kaitlyn Sykes: Poem

16 Ashley Hurst: Embers of Renewal

17 Austin Calvert: Why do we Achieve?

19 Sudeepa Pathak: “Maa” - My Mother

20 Michael Parrish: Ever Wondering Again

21-22 Kendra Graham: Death&Purpose GardenofMyMind

23 Erin Kelley: RottinginBed

24 Alice Turney: Like a Flood Flies the Pen

27 Michael Phelps: Press Rewind

28 Ryleigh Gould: The Love We Gained

30-33 Michele Young-Stone: The Pocketbook

34-38 Brian Edwards: W.O.Saunders:ReligiousSkeptic or Cautious Believer?

Indestructible Roots

Jamie Halcomb

As she walked through the forest, the darkness and vastness of the trees didn’t seem to faze her. The crackling of the creek croaked in her ears, and the chirp of chicks chimed through the spring atmosphere, her pure skin swiftly sweeping the air. But becoming too confident in her step, she tripped. Her image of innocence fell.

A bramble covered root began to intertwine its fingers in her hair, growing around her and entrapping her like a dove in a wooden cage. Its thorns swirled around her skin, with every twist her pure blood watering the fertile soil below. She kicked and screamed trying to free herself from their grasp. She begged the roots to stop hurting her, hoping they would humor her pleas.

As she watched the roots overtake her dignity, she couldn’t help but see the beauty in their thorns. Their strength which could hold her down, their admirable determination in hurting her.

For seeing the beauty in every aspect of nature was her greatest weakness. But after that day, she has never seen the forest the same. Instead, she stays in her home, protecting herself from its thorns and roots, fearing what lurks in the unknown of the forest, and longing for the days of naivety, innocence, and confidence she once lived.

And the world decided to call her crazy, saying that roots couldn’t have broken her trust, for they were simply wood, and it was her fault for tripping in the first place. Trees are sheltered by laws, making them unable to be cut down.

So she had to accept that the world will always protect roots. They’re indestructible.

Francesca Marie: Textures

Celestial Harmonies

Kendra Graham

Being in love with the moon, is different from falling for the sun.

The ethereal moon is ever-changing, but constant in her beauty. Glowing on a canvas of nebulas, always in flux.

But the moon doesn’t stop the cold from seeping into your bones. She watches from afar, never reaching out, never kind. Her love is reserved for the stars.

But loving the sunyou can feel her love in the sunshine, in the flowers she feeds, in her rays filtering through the trees.

Sometimes she burns you, because she loves too much. But even when you can’t see her, behind the clouds, you know she’s there. At night, she’s there, in the moon’s own reflection.

I tend to fall for moons, but just once, I’d wish for someone to love me like the sun.

Sarah Parsell: Breaking Dawn

Summer Is a Fever

Aaron Bass

Summer is a fever

Of the earth’s true colder nature

A disturbance Of its essence

On the path To its senescence.

Francesca Marie: Spiral

The Witness

Aaron Bass

As blue met green met orange met red, I stalked the street’s steady oil stains. Sweet sparrow calls cresting evening air combined in chorus with cricket chirps in a slivered-glass song.

“How sad such a thing could slip away,” I said to the derelict tree on the corner, wise and estranged, it simply pointed skyward, where the moon, veiled between airy curtains, thought the same of me.

Thomas Gwin: Cloudy Sunset

Dawn Van Ness: Intrusive Thoughts

Living with Grief

Aaron Bass

Grief is an unexpected roommate who moves in on the worst day of your life.

Grief is busy moving in and moving furniture, too busy to talk to you, but far too loud for you to ignore. You may not feel like your house is yours at the time, while Grief settles in, borrows your dishes, cleans your oven, asks you why the bills aren’t paid. (Grief is quite fastidious, unlike you may tend to be) But you must learn to live with Grief, as the saying goes, not unwisely.

Grief is a good roommate, believe it or not. Grief goes on quietly, constantly in the background, making meals you don’t feel like eating, moving pictures into boxes, packing away unneeded things that don’t have a place anymore. And it may seem like Grief is passive-aggressive sometimes politely coughing when you enter a room and forget they’re there (Grief can be so quiet more quiet than a mouse.) But Grief can keep you company without asking awkward questions or sending you ignorant, trite sayings. Grief doesn’t even need to sit with you–just its presence can be enough–hearing its tiny rasps through the walls when the absence left by your loved one makes living too painful by yourself.

Grief may take up more space than it should inside your house when it moves in. It may make you feel awkward when you have guests over because they insist on coming to see how you two are getting along (they’re so worried the arrangement won’t work.) And Grief might rap against the walls when you get too comfortable and make a joke too loudly for their taste. You might have to make a deal with Grief to keep its things in its part of the house so you aren’t reminded of it as often, but I promise you learning to live with Grief is worth it all, because it keeps you living.

Abigail Turner: Foolish Mortal

Parallel Hearts

Dawson Barnett

“We’re like parallel lines,” he whispers near in shared moments, friendship is clear.

Through laughter and moonlit skies paths parallel where our connection lies. Whispers of emotions, a dance sublime hearts parallel, intertwined in time.

As seasons change, a subtle shift lines parallel, emotions lift. He, a silent admirer, love’s decree she, a friend, yet love could be.

In the symphony of feelings unspoken hearts parallel, a bond unbroken. But shadows lengthen, as time unwinds lines parallel, where a new connection finds.

Her hand in another’s, a silent sign hearts parallel now misaligned. Shadows of a distant dream in silence, love’s forgotten gleam.

Across the chapters, a novel unfolds parallel tales, where emotion molds. In the dance of a friendship’s art parallel lines, an unfinished heart.

Yet in the silence, a truth begins a bittersweet revelation spins. Stories parallel, a poignant line “we’re like parallel lines,” he whispers, resigned.

Jessica Canning: Not Today

Debts Owed; Payments Promised

Hannah Devlin

I treasure the way you listen; I admire the ways you show me

To a brighter side; that there’s hope; I could thank you 1,000 times over; But not even that, could pay the debts I owe.

I see the way you sit, sit there and let me vent ; I watch you think, thinking of how to be content;

You seem to be on eggshells, but you seem to care;

I see the ways you show me, that peace can be everywhere;

That there’s warmth in this burning world;

I could thank you 2,000 times over;

But not even that, could pay the debts I owe.

You’ve seen the way I’ve healed, from what I see as my past lives; I tried to tuck them away, almost like archives; See them when I want, but for no one else;

I admire the ways you show me;

That there’s never shame in the fall;

Or the purity of caring, doesn’t spiral into a downfall;

I could thank you 3,000 times over;

But not even that, could pay the debts I owe.

Isabella Sanford: Dappled Sky

The Southern Live Oak

Michael Parrish

It’s rooted deep in the sand —

An abundance of life, towering the land. Planted by the sound of Roanoke, not an evergreen, the southern live oak.

A century of hurricanes have contested its fate —

Yet the live oak still stands straight. Its crown, measuring two hundred round — Stabilizing its might, its greatness profound.

Its canopy provides a natural shroud — A gift from nature, cooling the ground.

Crafting a safeguard where wildlife is found — Nesting birds tweeting in unison, their peaceful sounds.

Songs gifted from above, a chorus compounded with love — Orchestrated by blue swallows, harmoniously in sync with brown-chested mourning doves. Blue jays with colorful chests, mockingbirds mimicking sounds of distress.

Purple Martins soar in flight —

Carolina Wrens hide in plain sight —

An orange breasted Robin, colorful and bright —

The Northern Cardinal, almost scarlet; transforms in the sun’s light.

It’s timely old branches are dotted with leaves —

Shiny and dark green, they dance in the breeze.

Dark, thick, bark paints the tree, blending together this picturesque scene.

Gleaming toward the rays, never diminished —

The giant oak in sway, Oxygen once used, again replenished, breathing life into the air. Over a century old, the live oak remains unblemished.

In the breezy summer air, under the shroud that’s cooled the ground, the life of the leaf fades dark brown —

Peppering the grass on which it has passed; An omnipresent cycle, where life can be found.

By the sound of Roanoke, its weight skirts the sand, long skinny limbs craft a natural hand, inviting all avian friends a perch to stand. A natural lookout to its coastal land.

The southern live oak, majestic as it is grand.

Rhonda Bates: Untitled

The Toiling Goose

Michael Parrish

The Canadian Goose is no longer in roost,

It stands on the ground where its name is found, the clay upon which it lay, with nothing but fields in the hen’s way –its current habitat proves predatory dismay.

Ever weary, the Goose begins its day.

The soil that sprouts the day’s spoil, the water that lay by the hay gives way, to fish held prey.

The Goose feeds with certain toil.

Wheat and grass that forever span — herbivorous in nature, it searches the land. Seeds, berries, grass, shoots, and stems –boundless opportunities afford this hen.

Aquatic vegetation it spots in the sand — Every meal a gift delivered from nature’s hand. Cattails, sedges, and sea grass –the Goose she wallows, extatically fed, sagacious is she, knowing what is ahead.

Its chinstrap all white — its pink, pointy tongue, jagged yet slight –its narrow eyes adept to sight— head, neck, bill, stocking, as black as night — its long neck, often distorted, but abruptly upright — dark plumage wraps its body tight — a five-foot wingspan, it measures in height — aerodynamically built, eight pounds whole, soaring with might— the Canadian Goose, ready for flight.

Shaped in a V –– it joins its flock –– for all to see. Honks and hisses bellow from its mouth — vocalizing to others — its destination South.

On the sound of Roanoke, near the grounds of the Southern Live Oak. Between the ever-constant sea, it finds a spot to never flee, it honks with satisfaction and glee — where the avian great forever will be.

The Goose has planted its roots, by the sound they can be found. Straw and grass craft their nest, oval in shape –tight and pressed, neatly formed, adoringly dressed. Once again, met by her Gander. A testament to love, synonymous with candor. A pair is what they share, together for life, less full of strife.

Life begins to hatch on the grass-sprouted sand. Goslings’ group, four-at-hand ––six they walk, insects and minnows they stalk — hundreds they dot, thousands they flock ––gaggles of geese, their numbers increase ––carolina flora, forever to eat.

The Canadian Goose is back in roost. No longer on the ground in which its name is found. No longer on the clay, does it start its day. No longer does dismay lay in its way.

The warm coastal air leaves no despair. The rising sun shimmering the sound — on the glass-like water, it can be found. Crafted into nature’s grand design –a feathered constant, forever divine.

The Canadian Goose, historically profound. An iconic presence, on the Carolina sounds.

Savannah Moore: Bufflehead Duck

Sarah Parsell: Marsh Treasures

Macy’s Birthday

Steven Heritage

It’s two-thirty in the morning

And the air has finally cooled. I thought summer was over, but the crickets are still calling From the long grass along the fence row. All summer, every night, they have done this.

I read somewhere they make This song by rubbing their Front legs together, one across the other.

I read that maybe they are Calling to one another. But I’m not sure.

I think because they start at sundown, and sing till sunrise they are calling to the sun to make sure that it doesn’t get lost somewhere in the night, they stop when they see it rising again.

But the mind does that. it will crawl down every rathole And name every star, turning old bones and starlight into something more. Like tonight, it just can’t be crickets Singing in the backyard, they have to be calling the sun back home, to North Carolina, from the bottom of the world.

Dawn Van Ness: Reflections

Isabella Sanford: Fall Festival

Poem

Kaitlyn Sykes

I didn’t believe it would be this blissful

I envisioned pain and sorrow.

I expected to see my life before me, I expected to plead for more time.

I thought I would challenge the brightness, daring it to touch me, daring it to take me.

But this morning, before the sun awakes, the door creaks open.

As I lay in bed, I can’t help but shiver as a chill moves through me.

My fingers and toes tingle, my eyelids heavy,

I can hear it moving through my house, quietly like a mouse, but its presence is suffocating.

I know I shouldn’t want it here,

I know this is an intruder.

Yet I stay still, I don’t tell it to leave.

A brightness peaks under my door, it squeezes through the cracks, Its brilliance sparkles a welcoming glow,

It envelops my room.

I should fear this light.

Yet I stay still,

I allow it to caress my face, it embraces me, whispers to me.

Like a mother holding onto her child, she doesn’t let go.

I don’t shy from mother’s embrace; I don’t fight mother.

Seville Gulmammadova: Eternity

Embers of Renewal

Ashley Hurst

In the caverns of despair, shadows dance, A symphony of turmoil, a haunting trance. PTSD’s tempest, a relentless roar, Echoes of agony that pierce the core.

Whispers of anguish through the mind persist, A relentless storm, a clenched fist. Yet, within the chaos, a soul unfolds, A narrative of suffering, untold.

Within the verses, pain’s raw decree, A poet’s pen unearths the misery.

Each line a battlefield, a fierce terrain, Where torment reigns and leaves its stain.

Ink spills, an ocean of tumultuous waves, A journey through desolate, shadowed caves. A stanza, a tempest, emotions collide, In the vortex of chaos, where tears subside.

Through the seasons of internal strife, A metamorphosis, a transcendent life. Dancing with shadows, a silent ballet, A soul emerges, finding its way.

Yet, amid the anguish, a flicker glows, A beacon in the night as the river flows.

In the refuge of verses, a healing stream, A cathartic release, a redemptive dream.

From the winter’s grip to the spring’s embrace, A phoenix rising, finding its space.

In the aftermath of the storm’s fierce spell, A calm descends, a peace to dwell.

So, within these verses, pain unfurls, A tapestry of agony that whirls. Yet, in the chaos, a renewal births, Embers of peace, as the heart asserts.

McKinley Watson: Pea Island Fishing

Dawn Van Ness: Lines

Why do we Achieve?

Austin Calvert

As I go to school and learn, I ask, why do we achieve?

Why am I here? Is it to make myself or others happy?

Is it to seek higher learning, or a better paycheck to make my wallet fuller?

The halls are so dimly gray, no intelligent life here, that’s what the teachers say

Trapped in a box of making right and wrong choices, hoping the right will stick someday.

I get ready every day, to seek something so far away.

There must be a purpose to it, I ask myself,

why do I do this to myself if it’s simply not achievable today?

My family never did it, so why should I?

In our living room, with colors, so different from the gray, so why should I go if it’s drowning my brain with the knowledge it seems I’ll never use anyway?

We don’t have much, but we always seem content.

Why do I need education, if all it seems to do is drain me in a thousand different ways?

Is doing what I do even worth it? Mother doesn’t seem to say.

I ask other students and my teachers why we go to school

To get a job, they say.

Why do I need a job if it’s going to drain my soul in that 9-5 sway?

As I reach graduation, I finally see colors.

The gray goes away, fireworks burn them away.

It is not the same color as before, not the same bright color as the living room

A color of pride as I finally reached the goal I wanted to give up on every day.

I finally realize I’m not doing it for others.

I’m not doing it for my mother.

I’m not doing it for higher pay, or to seek higher education every single day. I’m doing it cause I want to, make a better future for myself in my own way.

Eric Godbout: Ramp 43

Eliana Burns: The Queen

“Maa”- My Mother

Sudeepa Pathak

People often meet people, and people often talk, From chats as varied as the recent hot weather to who all goes for a morning walk, Though age of a person may often vary, and each has a different query, Frequently “my mom said this” or “my mom does that” rhymes with their story.

I shake my memory to picture which words or sentences of my mother I remember,

All the innumerable life events where she was present as my mentor and protector, I instantly get drowned by flood of thoughts, so many moments, so many stories, so much history to ponder,

The way I think, the way I conduct, my patience, my strengths did it come from her I wonder,

For someone who always stood strong, she also managed to be amazingly beautiful and tender,

Life exists because of mothers they say, mine is the reason why I live life in full every day,

The many times she persistently mixed example, courage, honor, and love to mold my clay,

That hand which firmly held me through ups and downs, That hand which did not let go through millions of storms, That hand has now gone frail,

it makes my eyes weep when she holds me tight from fear of falls, That hand now has endless tremors,

it makes my heart beg God, “please don’t make me disappear in her recalls,”

Life is a circle they say, everything and everyone must go around and how, The woman who told me never ever to lose hope is losing hope now, The woman who filled me with strength and faith is seeking strength now, The woman who had a persistent smile and charm is losing the will now.

There comes a time to renew promises to your mother, There comes a time when there is so much to say but you rather, Words are few and so incomplete when I say them to thee….

“Maa” know that the clay you molded will have your mark for everyone to see… Do forever know that when God showered his blessing, you came just for me….

Ever Wondering Again

Michael Parrish

Ever wondering again is he…

Looking up, spotting what’s seen.

Thoughts begin to arise as his eyes adrift the sky.

A palette of blue he sees —

So majestic in hue, so colorful, so subjective, only seen by you.

It stretches vast and far to an immeasurable distance –Gracing the heavens, impeding the stars.

A color so bold, so preciously blue —

A spectrum it is, so inconceivably true.

Angels they paint, they form, they shape —

They layer and brush, they compound the two ––

A canvas so large, so regal, so harmoniously just.

The sky they gift to us, to me, to you —

A divine beauty gifted for man to view.

Clouds they evolve, they break the blue. They hinder our thoughts; they discern the truth. White or gray, they seem not matter.

They move and they stay, they progress with the day.

They’re unpredictable yet always present ––

Puffy in the sky, ominous they can be, bleak and unpleasant.

Independent are they, so little, so few.

Constantly they form, they birth anew ––

Clouds they grow, grow, and grow, they do. Incalculable in measure, irregular are they ––Horizontal they go, blue converted to mute gray. Their looming appearance fuels his displeasure.

Darken they do, harrowing his thoughts ––ill-lit are they, ruinous of hue.

Shadows they form, they blanket the ground ––

Sable it has now become, light no more.

They cover his hopes, they question his worth ––The woeful clouds, they quilt his mirth.

Ever wondering again is he…

Looking up, to spot what’s seen.

The one only seen by you.

The palette of blue ––

The one so majestic in hue, so colorful, so subjective, so beautifully true.

A divine beauty gifted for man to view.

Isabella Sanford: Glass Sunset

Death & Purpose

Kendra Graham

Death as a beautiful thing…

I wish to decay into flowers after my final day.

Death defines life, but we give life purpose. My purpose is to love. That’s what I believe. Perhaps not to always be loved, but to love nonetheless.

Even when I depart, I wish to leave behind love amongst the garden. Through memories holding love. Love for the flowers, and the bees, and the butterflies.

Drinking in the sunfor eternity.

Jocelyn Jennings: Midnight’s Song

Ekaterina Petrova: Kaa

Garden of My Mind

Kendra Graham

So much I wish to forget. To reach inside, pick out the thorns, and throw them to the ground.

To rip the vines that strangle wildly across the bones. They suffocate the roses and rip apart the pansies. The vines and flowers come from the same dirt, same water, same sun.

Travelers stop on their journeys, to smell the roses.

But vines wrap around their ankles, taking advantage. Ensnared, trapped, the daylight fading from view.

I never asked for this. But then, I suppose no one ever does. It happens anywaythe weeds grow anyway, the rain pours anyway.

The blood covered thorns stab anyway.

I only wish To reach into the garden of my mind, of my body, and tear them from the soil.

With one final strength, To let the flowers bloomTo let sunlight in.

Julia Gabitova: Self Portrait

Rotting in Bed

Erin Kelley

The feeling of rotting in bed, sometimes you do it to hide from the world, sometimes to reset your brain, but sometimes you do it just to feel freedom. Freedom is the reason I find comfort in my mattress, the fact that I have unlimited knowledge and experiences on my phone is overwhelming. The feeling I could be anywhere right now but I find my comfort in the silence in my brain, is beautiful. The warmth of my room is truly what makes it my home, one day I hope to make an entire house that makes me feel this way, but for now, I just have my 12 by 12 foot room. It may not be a lot, but it’s mine. These walls hold all of my memories. Each decoration or trash holds a part of me and every one holds a memory where I was happy or learning something new about myself. I struggle remembering things, it’s part of who I am but having this physical room can remind me of every mistake or perfect outcome. The wrong qualities are what makes it human.

And rotting is!

Kitty Dough: Catastrophe

Like A Flood Flies The Pen

Alice Turney

I always wanted to write.

I’m in love with language and prose.

Give me allegories and rhyming words that should not rhyme. I start, then stop! Crippled by a mind gone blank.

And then it comes to me.

A word, then the waters rise.

I write like a soaring bird searching for the sun.

The ink flows and floods. The pen flying across the page.

Caution is cast to the wind. There feels to be no end.

My pen struggles to keep up.

I love the pen and the script.

The ink gliding as if in time to my beating heart.

The pen making puddles as my hand hesitates. Trying desperately to catch a phrase, a word, a rhythm. Just in time.

I’m greedy to compose a piece, like the music, a love song.

Lovely to hear, lovely to read out loud.

Almost a whisper, as soft as a baby’s coo.

Oh, to write a poem for someone to feel my need.

My heart’s desire to write draws me away from reality.

Oh, come sweet words, like a flood and release my pen to fly.

In realms high and low.

Come sweet words. Leave me not like this. Abandoned. Alone.

I will wait. The night will come.

Dreams will bring the words, I pray.

I rest and sleep the sweet sleep of a child.

Carried on wings of a dove, I know the words will come.

I know the words will come.

Kitty Dough: Rippin’ Snortin’ Rocket Morton

Hannah Simpson: Donuts on a Wall

Zeliana Delong: Untitled

Jessica Canning: I wonder

Press Rewind

Michael Phelps

I hope you remember the stories

The playful times

Life and party

You had in your youth

I hope you remember the stories

Of sad sites

And long nights

Sitting in the hospital

Waiting for things to pass by

For the ones you love to die

I hope you remember

When your life starts to fade

You feel the pain of age

And you hear the Angels coming

For feelings

And past lies

Your heart desires a rewind

Rewind to the best times

The sad long nights

Holding on to your loved ones

So you could just say goodbye

If I could rewind

I would wanna see the world a little bit longer

To just cry and hurt

So I could have a single more moment

Before my life flashes before my eyes

Any feeling that hurts

Would be better than letting this all go

I wouldn’t walk away

I would turn around every single moment I would fight that last fight

Push longer faster harder stronger I would hold back those demons

I would bring back my feelings I could change my decisions

Just a single second

Would be better than dying here I would press Rewind

And start a new life

From this regretful design

I’d make Paradise

Thomas Gwin: Red Sky

The Love We Gained

Ryleigh Gould

My love for love is so great, my heart melts for him ‘til the dusk of day. The night express when he’s away, hold, care ‘til day’s dawn.

His beauty is great, Wondering mind ‘til he sees, loving is all I do, While waiting for the moment, he must say, “I do.”

Julia Gabitova: Improvisation

Jessica Canning: Velvet Heartbreak

Seville Gulmammadova: Pieces of Me

Tiffany Lindsey: Untitled

The Pocketbook

Michele Young-Stone

Mildred feels a knot like a rock in her back, between her shoulder blades to be precise, a dull ache, and occasionally she has a soundless burp. She buys her ticket to the play. It’s a Lauren Gunderson, and she loves those, and there are only three people in the show. It should be fun. She’s buzzed, thank god, and nervous: why? Because there are people here in this small space in this smaller town who know that her son is gone.

His room sits empty. She cleaned it, but it didn’t make her feel better. Her husband falls asleep early most nights, snoring on the couch. Her son is off at college (the gone-ness of it), and she’s that strange thing, an empty-nester. Her son, her one-and-only, was her raison d’être and everyone knows it. She didn’t have a profession. Her job was to raise him. Now, she’s dabbling here and there, volunteering at the library and reading more. She might join the women’s club. To feel pretty, she got a gel-nail manicure, but now her nails are like crepe paper. Dead. Her neck is ringed with middle-age. She had George late in life, and now she has jowls. She used to get carded when she bought wine, but now she holds out her I.D. and the cashier scoffs. She’s pathetic.

Before the play tonight, she bought a bottle of pinot noir (she wasn’t carded even though it was one of those stores where they claim to card everyone.) She got the bottle of wine home, planning to have one glass to settle her nerves

before the play, but nearly killed the bottle. Pregaming is a sign of alcoholism, she read in a magazine, but she’s been a nervous wreck since she became an empty-nester. She pre-games a lot.

Who came up with that shit-ass phrase anyway? Empty-nester? Calm down, Mildred, she tells herself, reaching for her husband’s arm, but he’s gone to buy a beverage. No arm to be found. He’s left her alone.

Holly Wentworth, all smiles with pink lips, approaches. Botox, Mildred bets. Maybe lip filler. Holly asks, “How’s George doing? Is he liking school? Better still, how are you? It’s hard, isn’t it? So hard. Oh my god, but I understand.” Holly has yellow hair that swoops up at her shoulders. She is petite but hard-bodied, a tennis player and yardwork enthusiast, and a smile that slips into a sneer. “Our Betsy is having the time of her life. Graduated and moved to the Big Apple. Can you believe it? I got my real estate license. It keeps me busy. It’s good to keep busy.”

Mildred wonders if her face reveals how she feels—the knotty tree root growing from the center of her back, and a tickle like a spider crawling up her leg. She visualizes the spider about to bite. “I’m fine,” she manages. “George is good.”

“What’s his major?” Holly asks.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Has he been home? Have you been to see him?”

She can’t tell the truth: that he’s asked her not to come because he needs space to acclimate and he wants to do this on his own. This one thing. He is ten hours away and free of her micromanaging. He can be his own person. She exhales. “We’re going soon.”

“Well, the semester is over pretty soon. Is he coming home? Of course, he’s coming home. I’m being silly.”

Mildred looks for Paul. He’s talking to a neighbor, Chris, holding two plastic cups containing red wine. She needs that drink. “Paul needs me,” she says.

Holly is looking around on Mildred’s behalf. “Oh girl, he’s fine. He’s talking to Chris.”

Did Holly just say that Paul is talking to Christ? No, she had to have said Chris. “He’s got my wine,” she says. “So, he does.”

“We miss George.” She can admit it. Why not? He’s her son.

Mildred thinks about the time when George was ten and the hummingbird built a nest right outside the kitchen window. It was the size of a ping pong ball, and every day, Mildred and George watched the eggs and then the dime-sized hatchlings. They watched the mother teach the babies how to fend for themselves. Eventually, they watched the babies fly away.

The mother hummingbird hovered at the window waiting for their return. On the day George said, “I haven’t seen the hummingbirds in a long time. Have you seen them?” Mildred stole away to the laundry room and wept.

“Paul,” she calls to her husband now, wishing she could somehow telepathically communicate with George and say, Come home. I miss you. I miss the fledgling, and make him understand how much she needs him. Someone is flicking the lights. The play is about to start. She takes her wine. She and Paul find their seats, and she checks her ankles for spiders. She wonders if they might not leave early. She can almost taste the anxiety like bile in her mouth. She quaffs her wine and searches her purse for a mint. The play hasn’t quite started. The director is talking. She squeezes Paul’s arm. “I’m going to get another drink.”

He looks alarmed at her empty cup because it was just full. She needs to refill her Xanax prescription. She can’t live on-edge all the time, nervous that everyone is going to recognize that she is nothing without her son. “Okay,” Paul whispers, a concerned smile on his face. She knows he’s thinking that she needs to calm down—pull herself together. They’re having a night out just the two of them. He could be home watching the game. They have the house to themselves. They don’t have to be worried about making too much noise when they make love, only they haven’t made love because the house is too quiet, her head hurts, and he falls asleep on the couch. But they will, of course they will. They just have to get to know one another again. This is apparently part of the empty-nesting. “Excuse me,” Mildred says, making her way back to the concession.

She buys another wine. They fill her plastic cup to the brim because she’s that woman, and this is cheap screw-cap wine. She takes a few sips before returning to her seat, careful not to spill any.

The wine is good, really good; she makes it last the entirety of the one-act play, during which she laughs aloud twice, feeling optimistic by the end. The playwright Lauren Gunderson is a genius. When it’s over, she gets to her feet, the only one in the audience giving a standing ovation, the cup between her feet. Maybe tonight will be the night she and

Paul make love. Maybe she’ll feel romantic. Maybe they can have a fire in the hearth, but she doesn’t really like the smell. It makes her eyes burn, and there’s laundry to do, and she’s supposed to make a casserole for Sherry, who’s been sick with the flu. But maybe. The lights are on and the people around them are reaching for purses and jackets. Paul says, “Honey, have you been taking your antidepressant?”

“Don’t ask me that,” she says. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

“I shouldn’t have asked you that. I’m sorry.” Paul kisses her cheek. “I’ll be right here.” She knows he’s going to check the score on the game he missed. She’s impressed he wasn’t looking at his phone during the play.

“It was good, don’t you think?” she asks.

“I really liked it. We should do more things like this.”

“Yes.” She’s in agreement, optimistic. Keep it. She goes to the right of the stage where there are two bathrooms, and they are gender-labeled. She likes it better when they aren’t gender-labeled because, for whatever reason, the women’s line is typically longer, and she doesn’t care which bathroom she uses. She has to pee. There is already a young woman waiting, twenty-something, and an older man, scruffy in a flannel shirt, seventy-something, she guesses. He says, “Are they full?”

She says, “They are. We’re waiting,” and nods at the young twenty-something woman, who glances up, a polite smile on her face.

The man says, “Well, I have to go.”

Mildred nods and smiles. She has to go too. She supposes the twenty-something woman feels the same. Mildred thinks about her dad, dead five years now. This man is gruff how her dad used to be.

The old man clears his throat and looks at Mildred. “Maybe I’ll just piss in your pocketbook. Open it wide, and I’ll take a piss.”

“Excuse me?” Did he just say what she thinks he said?

“I’ll piss in your pocketbook.”

She doesn’t know what to say, but the twenty-something girl says, “I don’t need to go bad enough to put up with this,” and she walks away while Mildred laughs softly and smiles and thinks why am I laughing? Nothing is funny. Why can’t I stand up for myself? What is wrong with me? I’m old. I’ve been programmed from a young age to put up with this crap from men. The door to the men’s bathroom opens, and a young man exits. The old man enters. Before he closes the door, he leans in Mildred’s direction, his hand on the nob, and says, “You’re welcome to come in here with me. Bring the pocketbook.” He winks. She is speechless. Furious. Disgusted with her own inability to say, “No! No! No!”

She feels the rock between her shoulder blades and the spiders on her calves. There are dozens of arachnids now, and her stomach hurts. She’s going to vomit. She doesn’t care about going to the bathroom anymore. She is too disgusted with herself and the old man.

Carolyn Mize: Untitled

Carolyn Mize: Untitled

She goes to find Paul. “You won’t believe what happened.” She relays the story and shakes her head as they head into the cold darkness.

“Are you sure you don’t want to use the bathroom before we head home?”

“I can hold it,” she says. “I just want to get out of here.” Two women she knows, empty-nesters like herself, approach like they are all the closest friends, but they aren’t and never were. They were on the Parent-Teacher Association together. They squabbled over stupid things like how many pizzas to buy for the after-school carnival.

The woman who’s let her hair go gray, and it actually looks good, says, “How’s George? Where is he again?” Before Mildred can answer, the woman says, “You know that Lila got a full-ride to UVA? You must’ve heard. We are so proud.”

The other woman says, “Jack’s been home every other weekend. He says it’s to do laundry, but he can do laundry in his dorm. I think he misses us.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Paul says, squeezing Mildred’s hand, a reassurance. Of course, he knows about her anxiety. She can’t sleep at night. She is uncomfortable all the time. Nervous in her own home in her own kitchen on her own couch like she doesn’t belong anywhere.

Then, Mildred sees the old man from the bathroom. He is talking and laughing with an old woman, presumably his wife, and then he’s hugging a young woman, presumably his daughter, and Mildred wishes she had had the chutzpah to tell him off or walk away when he said he would piss in her pocketbook, and again when he asked if she wanted to join him in the bathroom. Why can’t she speak up for herself? Why can’t she tell a man that this type of behavior is not acceptable? Why is she so afraid all the time? Why couldn’t she be like the young woman who simply said, “I don’t have to go this bad.”

She looks at Paul and the two other empty-nesters bragging on their children and says, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” The rock swells and throbs in her back and her stomach hurts, but she interrupts the old man and his wife and daughter and says, “I just want you to know that it is not okay to tell someone you’re going to urinate in her purse; nor is it okay to invite her into the bathroom with you. Your behavior is disgusting and made me feel sick and victimized.”

The old man looks wide-eyed at Mildred and frowns, his gruffness dissipating like she’s read him all wrong. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

Mildred says, “It’s not nice. It wasn’t nice.”

“Again, I’m really sorry.”

“Okay,” she says, not knowing what she expected, but feeling good for speaking up, for being brave, for not just taking his abuse. Maybe she didn’t speak up right when it happened, but she spoke up for herself, better late than never. Her heart races. She’s going to get her shit together. She’s going to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Something meaningful. She’s going to be okay. It won’t be easy. Nothing ever is. She can’t keep hovering over that nest. Waiting. She can’t.

The old woman says, “I’m so sorry about John.” She shakes her head before whispering, “He has Alzheimer’s. I shouldn’t have let him go off by himself. He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time.”

Mildred deflates. She can’t get anything right. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not easy.” The old woman says. The presumed daughter would clutch pearls if she’d worn any. Instead, she looks ghastly and forlorn under the streetlamp, the ground underfoot shiny and black. “My dad has Alzheimer’s. He’s not a bad guy.”

“I’m sorry.” She is so sorry. The rock has grown in size, and the spiders have returned. She doesn’t understand people, not men, not women, not anyone. The spiders are running up the back of her neck. They’re not real, but just the same, they’re there, their sticky legs tickling the backs of her knees. Her stomach aches. She turns and walks toward her car. Somewhere Paul has unlocked it. The orange lights flicker and the car beep-beeps.

She buckles her seatbelt and Paul starts the engine. “Maybe George will call later.”

“Maybe.” She closes her eyes as he pulls onto Main Street and the headlights shine in her eyes. She remembers a song she liked as a teenage girl. It was about crashing into a double-decker bus. It was romantic like James Dean. Die young and leave a good-looking corpse. That sort of thing. She used to write poetry.

“Are you okay?” Paul asks.

“Was I crying?” She’s been doing that a lot lately. She stares at the headlights.

“No, honey. You were laughing.”

W. O. Saunders: Religious Skeptic or Cautious Believer?

Brian Edwards

We all discover our heroes in different ways. For some of us, it is a beloved family member or friend, for others a community member whose acts are inspiring, and some find heroes in the past. I came across my hero, W. O. Saunders, in the late 1990s while researching an article on the liquor trade in the region. Saunders’ newspaper, The Independent, was a great source of information, but what really attracted me was his writing and, especially humor. The obituary column, for instance, was occasionally listed as “The Weekly Harvest of the Grim Reaper.” I had never read a newspaper like it. Who was this guy?

From that point on, I began to study “Will,” as his friends called him—both personally and academically. I felt a connection to him through our love of the Albemarle region and for the way he questioned and re-questioned everything. His principled stances on a wide variety of issues created a deep admiration in me for him which has set me on this path, this quest, to know this man who died decades ago yet seems so current.

As an editor, reformer, gadfly, humorist, visionary, and even state representative, Saunders made his mark on Elizabeth City and northeastern North Carolina. I have written several papers about him for literary and historical journals, including the North Carolina Literary Review and the North Carolina Historical Review. Since many people have not seen those articles or heard of this local legend, I would like to share some of my recent research, made possible in part through the generosity of the College of The Albemarle Foundation. The following are a few stories from my upcoming paper entitled “W. O. Saunders: Religious Skeptic or Cautious Believer.”

Although born into a religious family in Perquimans County, North Carolina in 1884, Saunders rejected his staunch Baptist upbringing at a young age, declaring himself an agnostic. He would continue to embrace this position for most of his life, but his relationship with faith was far more complex than the label might suggest. Even as he condemned in his writing the problems he believed were associated with religion, throughout his life he continued to seek a church that, in his words, “acted like one.”

Tiffany Lindsey: Business Card

Tiffany Lindsey: Drive by Painting

According to Saunders, his tumultuous relationship with religion began with an innocent question. During a Sunday school lesson on Noah and the Biblical Flood, Saunders asked his teacher whether the rainbow in the story might have been a natural phenomenon rather than the sign of God’s “covenant.” (The teacher was also Saunders’ instructor at the local public school, where he had just covered light refraction from a scientific viewpoint.)

The teacher did not appreciate his inquisitiveness, and, Saunders claimed, branded him an “infidel.” The humiliating public condemnation motivated Saunders to seek out the writings of other so-called infidels, including the Revolutionaryera pamphleteer Thomas Paine and Robert G. Ingersoll, the leading American freethinker of the late nineteenth century.

These influences led young Saunders even farther from organized religion. Additionally, he was swayed by the Progressive Era’s muckraking journalism and felt called to be a writer to “expose shams, hypocrisies and lies, exalt truth, defy the enemies of right and reason.” Consequently, only one occupation would do. Saunders decided to become a newspaperman.

At just seventeen, Saunders was already a journalist of sorts, having covered the sensational trial of Jim Wilcox, an accused murderer, for the Norfolk (Virginia) Dispatch in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Nell Cropsey’s body was found in the Pasquotank River in 1901 after she had been missing for some time. Her boyfriend, Wilcox was arrested, tried, and convicted twice of her murder. He was sentenced to be hanged and then a second time to thirty years in prison. Eventually, the governor pardoned him. The dramatic trial and retrial remain local legend, even prompting a ghost story of a young woman whose spirit cannot rest following her murder.

Years later, Saunders interviewed Wilcox for a follow-up story, revisiting the mystery some three decades after the original reporting that he had done as a young man. Reports say that he planned to write that he believed Wilcox to have been innocent of the crime. Unfortunately, Wilcox committed suicide in 1932 and the story was never published.

After that sensational trial, Saunders wandered from Norfolk to New Orleans, but eventually he found himself back in his wife’s hometown of Elizabeth City in 1908 as the twenty-four-year-old owner of his own small press and newspaper. He named it The Independent. The press gave Saunders license to publish on topics he would grapple with throughout his life, including faith and religion.

Carolyn Mize: Untitled

Abigail Turner: Scarlet Macaw

Seville Gulmammadova: Sound of Water

The same year he launched his newspaper, for instance, Saunders published a booklet titled, The Newer Testament Being A Modern Attempt To Bring Down To Date All That Is Actually Known About Creation, God, the Devil and a Future Life As Revealed to W. O. Saunders Now at Elizabeth City and First Published by him in the year of their lord 1908. From the name, one might expect a lengthy treatise. Inside the red-bound booklet’s cover, however, was a single, blank page.

Predictably, with antics like this, Saunders soon drew the ire of Elizabeth City’s churches. More scandalous still, the attacks alleged by the churches were being made by a self-described skeptic. For his part, Saunders claimed that he had nothing against a particular church (even Blackwell Memorial Baptist, which launched a mob against him in the early 1910s), but instead blamed them all for denying him his right to be different. Despite this animosity, and even the occasional ambush, he and his wife continued to attend local revivals and church services, she as a devout Methodist and Saunders to hear a hopefully entertaining, and maybe even edifying, sermon.

While Saunders did not ascribe to any overt religious beliefs, he did hold high ethical standards for himself and others, particularly if they pronounced themselves devout. This was especially true when Reverend Mordecai F. Ham, a professional Baptist evangelist from Bowling Green, Kentucky came to town in October 1924.

Ham arrived in Elizabeth City with a reputation for rough and tumble, weeks-long revivals. As a leading proponent of “old-time” religion, he emphasized individual salvation over social welfare. “Show me one word in the New Testament that exhorts Christians to make the world a better place to live in,” he had proclaimed in Raleigh, North Carolina a few months earlier, “and you may hang me to a telephone pole.”

Ham was known for his hostility toward science and the theory of evolution in particular. These, combined with his propensity for racial and sectarian baiting, could only lead to confrontation in the Independent’s hometown. Firm in the conviction that fact should prevail over mendacity, threats, and intolerance, Saunders began to scrap with Ham not long after the arrival of the preacher and his entourage.

Following attendance at several revival services, Saunders warned that the evangelist could “do the town a lot of harm.” The topics he felt should be discussed were ignored for traditional Baptist condemnations of dancing and drinking. Ham said nothing, to Saunders’ increasing frustration, of Jesus’ benevolent teachings, such as the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount.

Ham did not even censure the local fair with its horse racing and wagering. Worse, he declared all scientists and Jews subversive. As evidence, Ham declared that Julius Rosenwald, the chairman of Sears, Roebuck, & Co., was the “vice lord” of Chicago. Saunders would have none of it. In response, he published numerous testimonials showing the altruism and moral character of Rosenwald.

This battle of Elizabeth City was a costly one for Saunders, both personally and financially. Life was difficult during the following winter for Saunders and the Independent, and Ham gloated over the paper’s struggles. Many in town shared Ham’s view that Saunders’ provocations were, in fact, attacks on God Himself. Although shunned by the community, Saunders carried on as best he could. He knew, he said, they would get over it—and they did.

By the mid-1920s, Saunders had gained a nationwide platform thanks to his friendship with Joseph P. Knapp, owner of numerous national publishing concerns and part-time resident of Currituck County. As an editor at the Knappowned periodical, Collier’s Weekly, Saunders moved briefly to New York City, where he continued to seek religious services, ever hopeful of finding that elusive house of worship that “acted like one.”

The July 24, 1925, edition of the Independent featured a noteworthy announcement for its longtime readers: Saunders had joined a church. The Community Church of New York was an experimental institution led by John Haynes Holmes. A former Unitarian, Holmes preached, in his words, “a universal, humanistic religion which knows no bounds of any kind,” and welcomed anyone, “who is a part of the great American community . . . whether he be rich or poor, black or white, Christian, Jew, Hindu, or Parsee . . . .”

Saunders may have joined a church, however, he continued to follow his own compass on religious matters. In a 1928 American Magazine article titled, “Why I Don’t Go to Church,” he outlined his reasons for opting out of regularly attending religious services. After working six days a week, he wrote, he was tired, explaining that, “if I haven’t lived to suit God on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I have no idea how I can make up to Him by forced behavior on Sunday.”

Saunders was more content to relax on his front porch or go for a drive—preferably in a suit of crisp pajamas. “You can have faith,” as he then professed, “and not attend.” He simply wanted his decision to be respected—and, in the end, to be left alone in his beliefs.

Saunders’ life was cut short at fifty-five years old. In April 1940, Saunders was driving to Norfolk on a business trip when his car plunged off Highway 17 into the Dismal Swamp Canal and he drowned. The Albemarle had lost one of its greatest champions. Even Saunders’ rival paper in town, the Daily Advance, acknowledged in a memorial the positive role he had in developing the region and bringing economic diversity.

As a historian, Saunders remains a fascinating subject to me. Like a proverbial onion, layer after layer can be peeled and there is always something underneath to discover. The more I learn about him, his era, and his historical context, the more admiration I have for him, too. He is, truly, a hero to me.

Other interesting facts about Saunders’ local accomplishments:

• He successfully campaigned to erect a monument at Kill Devil Hills commemorating the Wright Brothers’ first flight

• He was the founding president of Kill Devil Hills Memorial Association and the Roanoke Island Historical Association

• One of the KDH Memorial Association’s goals was to see the Currituck mainland connected to the Outer Banks via a bridge for increased tourism

• He tried to convince Orville Wright to donate an original airplane to North Carolina

• He originated the idea for a play about English settlement on Roanoke Island, which became The Lost Colony pageant first performed in 1937

• He invited Margaret Sanger to speak on women’s issues in Elizabeth City in 1919

Abigail Turner: Banana Dog

Rhonda Bates: Untitled

Zeliana Delong: Untitled

Snapshot: Climate Exhibition

Snapshot: Climate Exhibition invited artists, activists, scientists and students to craft photos and brief reflections capturing a “snapshot” look at climate impacts across the South. On March 13, 2024, an awards ceremony was held celebrating the contributions of nine students and community members for their submissions.

MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL CATEGORY

First Place - Felicity Lipchak: The Shrinking of Pea Island

Second Place - Riley Anderson: Coastal Erosion

Third Place - Myrla Estrada: Explaining Climate Change

The Outer Banks of North Carolina are experiencing heightened effects of erosion due to climate change. Global warming contributes to warming ocean temperatures. This temperature change causes raised sea-levels and increased severity of storms, both contributing to greater rates of erosion of beach sediment.

Pea Island, like the rest of the Outer Banks, is home not just to humans, but countless animal and plant species, which are all losing habitat space and other resources each year due to erosion. While some preservation efforts are being made, such as planting dune grass to hold dunes in place, the cycle has to be stopped at the source of greenhouse gas emissions in order to protect the wildlife living in our coastal ecosystems.

Felicity Lipchak: The Shrinking of Pea Island

Climate change has significant effects on Currituck, and it’s important to understand how it impacts our community. Rising sea levels pose a major threat to our coastal region. Currituck has a strong agricultural sector, and changes in temperature and precipitation patterns can impact crop yields and productivity. Warmer temperatures may also lead to an increase in pests and diseases that can harm our crops. Similarly, our fishing industry may face challenges as marine ecosystems shift due to changing temperatures and ocean acidification.

Climate change has some serious impacts on our environment. Some of the impacts include melting ice and rising temperatures. Broken trees are caused by extreme weather events like strong winds, heavy participation, and hurricanes. This causes breaks in branches and uprooted trees. Uprooted trees create gaps in the forest canopy that affect the forest’s structure and their capacity to absorb carbon.

Riley Anderson: Coastal Erosion

Myrla Estrada: Explaining Climate Change

Snapshot: Climate Exhibition

COA STUDENT CATEGORY

First Place - Laney Cartwright: Plastic Refuge

Second Place - Jacob Gray: Slow-Destruction

Third Place - Isabella Sanford: Standing Alone

In the eastern region of North Carolina, Camden County specifically, sits this unexpected and saddening sight of a bird’s nest that is woven predominantly from discarded plastic. This visual metaphor encapsulates the profound impact of climate change on the state’s diverse ecosystems, serving as a stark commentary on the consequences of human activities. The United States as a whole is one of the world’s top contributors to plastic waste, and each year, North Carolinians discard enough waste to circle the globe twice, throwing away more than 41.4 million dollars worth of plastic.

Our state has a rich and diverse ecosystem, and there are more than 475 wild bird species in the state of North Carolina that are reliant on natural materials. Now, due to shifts in weather patterns and habitat degradation, they must adapt and make due with the scarcity of natural resources.

Laney Cartwright: Plastic Refuge

The Outer Banks is a beautiful strip of barrier islands that separates the Atlantic Ocean from eastern North Carolina, containing various ecosystems ranging from ocean waters and sandy beaches to maritime forests and salty marshes. There are a myriad of ecological issues that stem from the tourism industry, and these issues carry a difficult air of complexity due to our economy’s reliance on such business practices. The number of residences being squeezed into our community has hurt the helpless original inhabitants. These species have to compete with us for the little amount of land that they have left.

A tree stands alone in the middle of the sound. All the other trees that may have once stood there are gone and even this tree is slowly withering away. This story that is exhibited here is the growing threat of rising waters. Across the coast of the United States, rising waters threaten the lives of those who live there. Sea level rise is happening whether we like it or not. If you refuse to see it, it could be your kids being pulled into a flood.

Jacob Gray: Slow-Destruction

Isabella Sanford: Standing Alone

Snapshot: Climate Exhibition

GENERAL PUBLIC CATEGORY

First Place - Joshua Himmelstein: The Currency of Our Coasts (1)

Second Place - Dawn Van Ness: Bared Roots

Third Place - Nita Coleman: Smells Like Climate Change

Marshes act as metronomes of sea-level rise, recording changes in inundation within their soils. When flooded for too long, marshes drown – yet without water delivering sediment and nutrients they cannot thrive. The ecosystem services they provide, such as nutrient-load filtering, nursery fish habitat, and storm surge attenuation, hinge on their ability to keep pace with rising sea levels. Approximately 65% of North Carolina’s estuarine shoreline is composed of such marshes, and recent accelerations in sea-level rise are challenging their capacity to grow. Perhaps our built world is just as natural as a tree sprouting from the nutrients and water contained in the soils beneath it.

Joshua Himmelstein: The Currency of Our Coasts (1)

Behind the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on the North End of Roanoke Island, there is a marker in the water of the Roanoke Sound where possibly the Lost Colony first settled. Storms have carved away the side of the island year after year. While it seems as though 427 years is a long time for the erosion to occur, this island is a fading snapshot in time. The evidence of sudden, catastrophic change can be seen on walks behind the Roanoke Island’s populated areas. Trees that took decades to grow tall safely from the brackish water are fallen and bone white, lapped by the creeping higher tides and higher salt content. Some ghost trees seem to defy gravity and logic, standing atop strands or webs of unearthed roots. Our future teeters on the edge, much like the lines of trees that once protected the edges of our island, but are succumbing, unable to adapt to harsher conditions.

As our summers get hotter and hotter, algae blooms are happening more and more frequently all over the Albemarle Region. An algae bloom doesn’t just look and smell bad, it can be hazardous to your health. Some algae species secrete dangerous neurotoxins, toxins that can linger in the water for weeks. Pets have died after swimming in algae-infested waters, and algae toxin is a suspected cause of neurological disease in humans. In a dense bloom, algae toxin can aerosolize, affecting the air we breathe as well as the waterways all around us. Our children grew up swimming, boating, and fishing in the Little River. Now, we are afraid to let our grandchildren go in the water. Today’s children deserve to inherit a liveable world. It’s time to get serious about climate change.

Dawn Van Ness: Bared Roots

Nita Coleman: Smells Like Climate Change

Biographies - Visual Arts

Rhonda Bates

Rhonda Bates has a BFA from The Corcoran School of Art. The last three years she has been taking jewelry classes at College of The Albemarle. She combines her metal work with her love of painting the local Hatteras Island Landscape to create these Copper Enamel pieces.

Eliana Burns

Eliana Burns is a digital illustrator currently residing in Moyock. She has moved in many places across the country and beacuse of that, has experienced the diversity of landscapes, cultures, and people. Her biggest interest and passion is art and using that art as a form of storytelling. She hopes that one day she can make a series out of the story she is currently writing and design its world.

Jessica Canning

Jessica Canning is a sophomore at College of The Albemarle pursuing her Associate in General Education degree. She does art as a therapy. She has been doing art ever since she was a little girl. It is more of a release for Canning than a task. She has always had a creative mind and loved to make art.

Zeliana Delong

Zeliana Delong is fond of all things nature (insects included) and wants to study botany. She is currently a College of The Albemarle student.

Kitty Dough

Kitty Dough is a studio artist, illustrator, graphic and exhibit designer, and metalsmith. Although her 2- and 3-D work incorporates a wide range of subject, media, and formats, she draws inspiration from her native Outer Banks and always begins with a sketch.

Julia Gabitova

Julia Gabitova is a young artist born in Russia. She dedicated the majority of her life to learning about art. Gabitova relocated to the Outer Banks in 2021 and began her journey to become an artist. She is fascinated with portraits and illustrations, and believes that art expresses what words cannot.

Eric Godbout

Eric Godbout is a resident of Yorktown, Virginia and regularly visits Hatteras Island with his family. He participates in the annual Red Drum Tournament with his father and brother-in-law.

Seville Gulmammadova

Seville Gulmammadova is an Azerbaijani visual artist based in Norfolk, Virginia specializing in painting and drawing. Her main themes in art are abstract portraits and figures. She is currently pursuing her Associate in Fine Arts in Visual Arts at College of The Albemarle.

Thomas Gwin

Thomas Gwin is an amateur photographer and a Junior at Cape Hatteras Secondary School. He is earning dual credit through College of The Albemarle.

Jocelyn Jennings

Jocelyn Jennings is currently a student participating in College of The Albemarle’s dual enrollment program at Perquimans County High School. She has been making art with her grandmother and family since a young age. She enjoys experimenting with different media though she prefers collages and mixed media.

Tiffany Lindsey

Tiffany Lindsey is an interdisciplinary artist living and working on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her primary art form is abstract painting, although she also plays with photography and sculpture. Her professional career as Art Gallery Manager at Dare Arts in Manteo, NC, and as a freelance art consultant and advisor helps educate her eye and expand her aesthetic judgments. Growing up, Lindsey immersed herself in the arts. In school she experimented with multiple mediums, from clay, found objects, and a variety of two-dimensional techniques.

Francesca Marie

Francesca Beatrice Marie is a photographer and filmmaker. After graduating from College of The Albemarle in 2018, she continued her education at Mount Holyoke College. She graduated with a degree in Film, Media, Theater Studies in 2022. Currently, she works as a freelance photographer, videographer, and video editor on the Outer Banks.

Carolyn Mize

Carolyn Mize is a previous student in the College of The Albemarle Professional Jewelry program. Mize has spent decades in the corporate world, using her creativity to solve complex business problems. Now she is focusing her creativity on making beautiful art jewelry. She loves using seaglass in its natural form. She has particular interests in coloring on metal and making shawl pins to compliment hand-knitted shawls.

Savannah Moore

Savannah Moore is an artist and currently a junior at Cape Hatteras Secondary School in North Carolina. She specializes in digital art and her works are typically inspired by animals and nature. She enjoys observing nature and showcasing its beauty through her work.

Sarah Parsell

Sarah Parsell is an advisor on the Dare campus and loves living on the Outer Banks. Originally from Wyoming, Sarah and her small family of four called Manteo her home in 2021. Her favorite thing about the Outer Banks are the quiet marshes that surround the sound.

Ekaterina Petrova

Ekaterina Petrova is an international Student from Russia at College of The Albemarle pursuing her Associate in Arts degree.

Isabella Sanford

Isabella Sanford is a homeschooled high school junior who is working towards an Associate in Fine Arts in Visual Arts degree. She currently lives at home with her parents, sister, cat, and three Siberian Huskies.

Hannah Simpson

Hannah Simpson is an alumnus of College of The Albemarle. She is the eldest of four children. She is a hobbyist, artist, writer, and theme park and cultural enthusiast.

Abigail Turner

Abigail Turner, an artist from Chesapeake, Virginia, attends J.P. Knapp Early College High School and College of The Albemarle. Her artistic journey is fueled by a passion for selfexpression. Art is her way of life, a lens through which she sees the world. Through self-teaching and online resources, she has developed skills and a unique artistic voice. Turner approaches each artwork with determination, using colored pencils, chalk, and other materials to create intricate and vibrant pieces.

Dawn Van Ness

Born at Portsmouth Naval Hospital to older-than-normal parents, Dawn Van Ness grew up half the time living on a marshy waterway at the back of a Virginia suburban neighborhood and half the time on a homestead in the woods. Art, like nature, has always been her refuge.

McKinley Watson

McKinley Watson is a student at College of The Albemarle. He has lived on the Outer Banks his whole life and has always had a passion for the ocean and exploring the outdoors. He frequently photographs wildlife and nature in the Outer Banks and surrounding areas.

Visual Arts Jurors

Patrick Berran

Patrick Berran is an artist and educator that lives and works in Kill Devil Hills, NC. He received his BFA at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and his MFA from Hunter College, New York, NY. Berran has exhibited his work both nationally and internationally, recent solo exhibitions include Chapter NY, NY, Dare Arts Vault Gallery, Manteo, NC, White Columns, NY, COA Arts Gallery, Manteo, NC, Hunter Whitfield, London UK, and Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, VA. Recent group exhibitions include The American Academy of Arts and Letters New York, NY, Southampton Art Center, the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, VT, Rod Bianco, Oslo; M+B Gallery, Los Angeles; Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis; and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York. Berran has been a visiting artist and guest lecturer at Alfred University, Kent State University and Virginia Commonwealth University. He has completed artist residencies at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, NY, Dial House in Essex, UK, Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, VA.

Fay Davis Edwards

As a native of the barrier islands on the coast of North Carolina, Fay Davis Edwards centers her work primarily on environmental concerns and climate change. Specifically, she works with coastal residents to collect narratives and share stories of sea level rise. Citing influence from artists such as Mel Chin, Laurie Anderson, and Sonya Clark, Edwards works across disciplines employing painting, photography, installation, projection, and community engagement projects to chronicle these personal narratives. She teaches workshops nationally, exhibits her work regionally, and is a regular artistic contributor to MilePost Magazine. Edwards earned her BFA from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and her MFA from Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. Her home and studio are located on Roanoke Island, which she shares with a variety of critters including her husband, a lively flock of chickens, and five very opinionated cats.

Ashley Paskov

Ashley Paskov is a Ceramics Artist and Educator living and working in Elizabeth City, NC. Paskov began taking ceramic classes at Central Connecticut State University where she received her BA in Ceramics in 2015. She later went on to receive her MFA from Edinboro University in 2022. Currently, Ashley is a Visual Arts Professor at the College of The Albemarle and Elizabeth City State University, where she gets to share her love of art and making with her students and the community. Using nature and progression as inspiration. Paskov’s work focuses on defense mechanisms in botanical organisms. Emphasizing the physical and inchmeal process of growth and healing using large-scale proportion, stamped and carved textures, and waxy matte surfaces. Her functional work brings the softness of her botanical sculptures but avoids the deadly mechanisms. Creating intimate beautiful objects to have and use everyday in a home.

Christina Weisner

Christina Lorena Weisner is a visual artist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Fine Arts at College of The Albemarle. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Sculpture and Bachelor of Arts (BA) in World Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University (2006) and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Sculpture and Ceramics from University of Texas at Austin (2010). In 2013 – 2014, Weisner was awarded a Fulbright Grant for Sculpture and Installation Art to Germany, where she worked on a series of site-specific sculptures based on the Ries Meteorite Impact Crater. Weisner explores complex relationships between objects, humans, and the natural environment, from the organic to the technological, drawing parallels between the vast and the microscopic, the subjective and the objective. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, most recently at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in Raleigh, NC and South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC.

Biographies - Poetry and Literary Arts

Dawson Barnett

As a sophomore at J.P. Knapp Early College High School, Dawson Barnett serves as Vice President of the Bee and Environmental Club. Recognized as a published author in SOS Sagas: Hunted Contest, Barnett holds a deep affection for writing—an expressive sanctuary where thoughts and emotions find eloquent expression beyond the confines of spoken words.

Aaron Bass

Aaron Bass is Writing Center Coordinator for College of The Albemarle. He enjoys sweets and sleeping in too much for his own good. When he isn’t working, he tinkers with video games, or writes music and poetry.

Austin Calvert

Austin Calvert in a college student seeking an Assiociate in Arts degree and a Business Administration degree. His favorite hobbies include gaming, listening to music, and writing poetry.

Hannah Devlin

Hannah Devlin was born in Nags Head, NC, and graduated from Manteo High School in 2021. Devlin has continued to further her education at the College of The Albemarle pursuing an Associate in Arts, and will further her education at East Carolina University studying Marketing.

Brian Edwards

Brian Edwards teaches History at College of The Albemarle. He has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the North Carolina Association of Historians, the North Carolina Maritime History Council, and Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, among others. He and his wife live on Roanoke Island where he collects cats and fountain pens.

Ryleigh Gould

Ryleigh Gould is a student at First Flight High School. She is currently 15 years old and is planning on graduating two years early from high school.

Kendra Graham

Kendra Graham is a dual enrolled student at the College of The Albemarle and Perquimans County High School. She enjoys reading, writing, painting, drawing, and music.

Steven Heritage

Steven Heritage is a lifelong visitor to the Outer Banks. Although he lives in Charlottesville, he visits 3 or 4 times a year. Heritage has lived all over America, and thinks the Outer Banks is the most special place he has ever been.

Jamie Holcomb

Jamie Holcomb is a Senior at Manteo High School. She loves all forms of art, especially theater. She wrote the poem published here for her English class, but it is one of her favorite poems she has ever written.

Ashley Hurst

Ashley Hurst, a Certified Nursing Assistant, is a devoted wife and mother of two young daughters. Juggling the roles of a full-time student and homeschooling mom, she is currently pursuing her Associate in General Education degree with a focus on becoming a paramedic. Hurst is committed to both family and academic excellence.

Erin Kelley

Erin Kelley is a current College of The Albemarle student working for her Associate in Fine Arts in Theatre. Kelley believes that writing is a great path to emotional health.

Michael Parrish

Michael Parrish has been an avid outdoorsman his entire life. Growing up fishing, hunting, and observing is what makes him so passionate. Parrish graduated from high school and followed his father’s footsteps in their family owned company.

Sudeepa Pathak

Sudeepa Pathak teaches math and engineering at College of The Albemarle. Passion for writing remains a joy in her life.

Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps Is a student at College of The Albemarle. He is pursuing an Associate in Arts degree.

Kaitlyn Sykes

Kaitlyn Sykes is a sophomore at J.P. Knapp Early College and an aspiring author. She has been writing for many years and loves to write with emotion. Sykes wishes to make her readers have strong feelings when they read her writing.

Alice Turney

Alice Turney is 72 years old and in her first year at College of The Albemarle. She has never been to college. Turney loves to write but has never tried her hand at poetry. She has lived in Manteo for 10 years and has been married for 53 years with three children and four grandchildren.

Michele Young-Stone

Michele Young-Stone is the author of three novels: Lost in the Beehive, Above Us Only Sky, and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors. She has an MFA in fiction writing and teaches for the Muse Writers Center in Norfolk.

Literary Arts Jurors

Kathryn Bryson

Kathryn Bryson is a dual-enrollment student with College of The Albemarle while attending her high school, First Flight High School. Bryson has been dancing for 15 years and has learned throughout life how to communicate a storyline through movement. She loves seeing communication of emotion through words.

Isabella Lettieri

Isabella Lettieri is a 2022 graduate of both College of The Albemarle and Cape Hatteras Secondary School. She received a full scholarship to Salem College in WinsonSalem, NC, where she will graduate this May with a Bachelor of Arts degree.in Communication and a minor in Professional Writing.

Dr. Jill Lettieri

Dr. Jill Lettieri is an English and Communications Professor at College of The Albemarle where she has been teaching full-time since 2016. Lettieri graduated from The Ohio State University with her Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Public Relations. She continued on to receive her Masters in Creative writing, and her doctorate in Communication. She has lived on the Outer Banks for 20 years where she also serves on the Board of Directors of the Outer Banks SPCA.

Dr. Gena Southall

Dr. Gena Southall has over 25 years experience as an educator, in both k12 and higher education instructional and administrative roles. She served as Professor of English Education and Executive Director of Teacher Preparation at Longwood University in VIrginia. She has taught a variety of English courses at the College of the Albemarle since 2022, and she currently serves as a Faculty Mentor for Magellan Learning Services. Southall and her husband Scott have been married for 17 years and living happily on the Outer Banks since 2021.

COA - Currituck

107 College Way

Barco, NC 27917 252-453-3035

COA - Dare

205 Highway 64 S

Manteo, NC 27954 252-473-2264

COA - Edenton-Chowan

118 Blades Street

Edenton, NC 27932 252-482-7900

COA - Elizabeth City

1208 North Road Street

Elizabeth City, NC 27909 252-335-0821