My Walk

Bartosz Mrugacz

I remember that sunny May evening in Warsaw. I was walking down the Krakowskie Przedmiescie towards the gates of the Old Town, where I was supposed to meet my friend. I felt this refreshing wind mixed with warm sunbeams on my face. The sun was still up above roofs of Warsaw’s tenement houses from the 19th century. I was not thinking about anything in particular. I was walking alone, enjoying the cloudless sky.

Mi Nidito

Allison Laroche

People tend to disappoint me. They are weak and dependent on one another. For as long as I can remember, I have been alone. I have been on my own emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and physically. I look around at my closest surroundings, the college I attend, the establishment that I work at, the inconsiderate and polluted streets filled with inconsiderate and polluted people, and my nest. I live alone. I am incapable of living with another person.

One Penny

Sarah Rogowski

My eyes are round and wide like apples as the bundle of buildings grow bigger. My parents are in the front seat and my older brother is beside me, picking through the latest Mad Magazine. I roll my forehead against the window as I stare at the cardboard cut-out buildings in the distance. My favorites are the twin towers.

Canyon

William John Bert

Just as Leah opens her mouth to tell him she’s pregnant, Russell says, “There’s something blue down there.” The canyon rises to Leah’s left and falls on her right. Without her glasses, it offers only immediate, myopic pleasures—scrappy scrub brush,…

Hometown Memory Series

Fred Bouchard

This series of personal sketches was drawn from the ‘hometown memories’ of students in response to watching Lowell Blues, a short film by Henry Ferrini based on readings from Jack Kerouac’s written recollections of growing up in Lowell, MA.

Advice for Writers

Daphne Kalotay

I’ve always loved reading and writing, but it wasn’t until my final semester of college that I realized creative writing was something one could study in a class, with other people. Though I had secretly been writing would-be novels into…

Thrill of the Chase

Nicholas Cabrera

Select: jetpack. Start matchmaking in 3… 2… 1… *boop* Deep, ominous male voice declares, “Slayer.” Jetpack over first wall. Vision impaired. I am taking heavy fire. Aim at head, four shot kill. Land. Pick up a gravity hammer, larger than…

How to Become a Musician

Peter Maltzan

Be sure to get a guitar for one of your birthdays, the earlier the better. (Hopefully it’s not too late for you already.) Think it will make you cooler. It will not. Yet. Practice. Play along with your Pink…

Euterpe’s Lament

Changing the Way We View the World through Sound | Katherine Schimmel Baki

“I think the tools available to Beethoven to write his music were insufficient for him. He very often composed by pushing the boundary beyond the instrument available to him at the time and even beyond the reality of the music and matter. When faced with such energy, there is something irrepressible and yet, you have to deal with something tangible, something with limits of its own.” -Pianist, Helene Grimaud

The Despair of Tomatoes

Annie Sklar

My tomatoes are not cooperating. All summer, they have been weedy, leggy, spiraling in long, single stalks along the twine frames that I so thoughtfully set up for them. For hours I carefully laced lines from the porch railing to…