by Ann Marie Bausch When news of sexual assault allegations against author Junot Díaz broke in the spring of 2018, my first reaction was grief: Not him! Díaz was one of my favorite writers, an advocate for immigrants and the causes of the dispossessed worldwide, someone I felt I had learned from. But his alleged* … Continue reading What We Read
by Meghan Foulk Now, more than ever, do we need to hear from the greater community within America. Polarization and pointed fingers widen division and crumble our foundations; we see each other as enemies rather than members of the same community. Being a Women and Gender Studies minor, intersectionality of identities is crucial to understanding who … Continue reading Vox II: Intersectionality
by Caitlin Wheeler A few years ago, a few colleagues and I hosted lunch for a well-to-do visiting author. The author invited a local friend to join and they gabbed about nearby orchards and her friend’s meadery. When a colleague tried to join the conversation by sharing an experience she’d had working in a bicycle … Continue reading Vox II: Engage
by Emily Hanson American Identities is the exploration of the fluidity and the multiplicity of the different identities that have created the world we live in. As assistant poetry editor for this issue, I will be screening poems that share unique identities, exploring the idea of what being an American means. In this special issue … Continue reading Vox II: American Identities
by Sara Whitestone This piece was originally published by GFT Press. Of all my States of Mind, Virginia is the hardest to unmix—to cipher down thousands of memories and moments into just a few words, to distill from so many impurities just a few potent truths. What do I write about Virginia, where I have … Continue reading Thankfulness
by Karen Bjork Kubin I wish you could have seen the look on his face, walking home from school. I wish you could carry it with you, etched under your ribs, the way I do. My son’s face was luminous, open, free. It was early in the school year, late August or maybe early September. … Continue reading Rainbow Boy
“If the trend toward bureaucratization and mechanization continues, I predict a revolution, not by librarians, but by readers—townspeople, students, and teachers—those who use the library in their need for knowledge and delight, who think of the library as a kind of temple, and who sicken of social scientists and personal psychologists of documentalists and gadgeteers, in places of power."
We wandered from telescope to telescope, each one offering us a brief window into another world. I saw nebulae, galaxies, star clusters, double stars — my dad would explain to me what I was seeing as I stood on tiptoes to peer through a telescope’s eyepiece.
For years after that summer, I used reading mysteries to signal the end of the semester, the beginning of a break, where I could indulge myself. But it was not just the mysteries themselves, but the structure that relieved my stress.
Are the arts valued in this culture, in this day and age? Sadly, no—not the way they should be, not in a way that sustains working artists. I’ve always known this. Are the arts valuable? Yes—immensely.
