Category: Collaborations

  • Hothouse 2022 Yearbook

    As our final article of the semester, we at Hothouse are thinking of endings and the oh-so-lovely tradition of yearbook quotes. While they can be tacky, they also can really plumb the depths of the literary-leaning undergrad’s heart. Read on for the “yearbook” quotes of the 2021-2022 Hothouse staff and be sure to imagine us…

  • Hothouse Writers Talk Banned Books

    With Freedom of Information day next week, and some recent Texas-school book banning, we asked the Hothouse Website writers to recall books that they had been banned from reading—and everything they did to eventually read those books. Megan Snopik In middle school, in typical future-English-major fashion, I was obsessed with reading “the classics” (you know,…

  • Hothouse Writers’ Wintertime Literary Escapes

    We asked our website writers what their favorite way to curl up with a book is and for any titles that sparked that cozy-warm-holiday-feeling we all know and love. Read below for some ideal wintery-reading-respites and have a very merry holiday season! Stephanie Pickrell My grandmother’s house no longer exists as I remember it, but…

  • November Munchies: Delicious Depictions from the Hothouse Staff

    With Thanksgiving on the horizon, the hothouse staff is thinking about food. We asked our staff to send us their favorite literary (or otherwise) depictions of food. Read below for some of the most mouthwateringly salient meals to grace our pages and screens.  Redwall by Brian Jacques Stephanie Pickrell, Managing & Website Co-Editor When I…

  • Does It Spark Joy?

    Has anyone mentioned that it’s been a hard year? Unprecedented times? They have? Oh well, we’ll skip that part then and instead talk about the positives that shone through this last year. While we dealt with these… never-before-seen times, most of us found comfort in art. So, we present to you not a meditation on…

  • Editorial Board Recommends Spring Reads

    We asked our editorial board to recommend their favorite spring reads – novels, poem collections, and short stories that embody feelings of spring for one reason or another. Some are filled with themes of growth and birth, others are filled with personal nostalgia, and yet others are filled with darker themes that carry us through…

  • Living By The Words of Black Creators: Hothouse Staff Quotes Their Favorite Lines

    “Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear.” from Notebook of a Return to the Native Land by…

  • Stories of Love and Loss from Literary History

    This Valentine’s Day, we asked our website writers to contribute the real-life love stories of those who write literature. Whether it’s a tale of happily ever after or heartbreaking rejection, read on to discover some of the romantic adventures of the authors we still read today. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Scotty Villhard In the novel The Great…

  • Holiday Cheer From Hothouse Writers

    We asked our website staff to contribute writing inspired by the holiday season and the things they celebrate this time of year. Using different forms of art, music, and literature as inspiration, they have created short works of fiction to spark your holiday imagination. From our staff to you, happy holidays! Christie Basson: Here. This…

  • Curl Up with This and Break Free: How the Hothouse Staff Escapes Stress

    As you know from the many opening lines in the many emails  you’ve received, the world is a confusing and often-frightening place to live in right now. In the long tradition of turning towards stories to temporarily escape the chaos around us, the Hothouse staff has compiled some of our favorite works that provide us…

  • Black Creative Greatness: Hothouse Staff Picks to Celebrate Black History Month

    Julia Schoos, Editor-in-Chief  “Voice of Freedom” by Phillis Wheatley I was first introduced to Phillis Wheatley in our very own Dr. Woodard’s class on African American Literature Through the Harlem Renaissance. While certainly not a contemporary black author, Wheatley more than deserves recognition during Black History Month. A young girl enslaved in Boston, she utilized…

  • The Four Letter Word: Unspoken Ways the Website Staff of Hothouse Shows Love

    This Valentine’s Day,  Hothouse’s website staff decided to rebel against cynicism and scorn commodification—they wrote about the different ways they experience love. From a wedding to a quinceañera, read on to discover how love appears (in all its forms!) to each website writer. Christie Basson, Website Editor: This photo is from my parents’ wedding day…