Literary Journal
by Lana Haffar The Megabus is always freezing. The frigid air conditioning strikes you as soon as you climb the top step. You shuffle sideways toward the back, and if you’re my height, you smack your head on the overhead bin before settling into your seat. A stranger makes their way down the narrow aisle,…
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By Kara Hildebrand A literary trope is something repeated so often it borders on cliché: the mad scientist, the forbidden romance, the antihero, the tragic backstory. Perhaps it’s just natural for certain repetitions to become cemented in our literary canon, or perhaps there’s something more to why we identify with tropes enough to reuse them.…
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By Medha Anoo I have been taught Shakespeare’s work by instructors both in the United States and across the globe in India. He is a central figure in the Anglophone literature education of anybody, but the first time I remember getting excited about his work—really excited, like the way I felt when I pre-ordered Rick…
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by Gerardo Garcia I was on the phone one night with someone I knew I wouldn’t marry, and as she hastily came up with a reason to hang up, I realized I had lost myself. I had been suppressing the urge to throw myself at her feet; every third thought was her. I was also…
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Harmony Moura Burk Every Sunday, three old women gather in the kitchen, chattering about the latest church scandal. They’ve turned it into a ritual over the years, laying out secrets like they layout tea sets and cakes. Their mothers did the same thing, and their grandmothers, and their great grandmothers. The table is set, the…
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By Lana Haffar Odin’s ears never stood up like a German Shepherd’s should. His cartilage was weak, so they sprawled from either side of his head, like wings. The force of every heartbeat made them flutter. He bounded everywhere, tongue lolling, paws spread to cushion the impact. On a November Wednesday, I turned twenty years…
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By Medha Anoo Are you watching shows that glorify unhealthy relationships? Good. For girls, close relationships with our best friends are a nearly universal experience, and often begin at young ages. We are all familiar with the depiction of the girlhood sleepover, which included hair braiding, scary movies, telling secrets, and then pinky-swearing never to…
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By: Jack Gross “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” Che Guevara When you hear the term “revolution”, what images come to mind? Maybe it’s French guillotines staining the cobblestone streets with bourgeoise blood, or hastily assembled signs with bold black writing announcing a…
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By Gerardo Garcia One of the first times I traveled out of state, I visited North Carolina during my high school’s fall break. I had just seen Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox and the expectation of a quirky, golden-brown dreamscape (from what I technically counted as the east coast) was especially fueling my excitement. I…
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By Celeste Hoover Runaway cattle-rustlers, saloon shoot-outs, and frontier posses—these tropes and countless others of the American Wild West have achieved immortality through the dime western novel. Originally written as one-off serials or pamphlets in the late 19th century, the plots of dime westerns center on easily recognizable clichés: the ranger new in town, the…
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By Harmony Moura Burk The portrayal of womanhood in literature situates the reader to always look, but never touch the characters before them. As untouchable beauties, chaste maids, and distressed virgins, women appeal to their male counterparts by remaining desirable, but they can never actualize this desire lest they become their own foils—the prostitute, the…
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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…
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HOTHOUSE 