Literary Journal
Written by Kylie Warkentin There are few things as universal to the human experience as the pleasure of sharing a meal with a loved one. The kinetic affair of its creation, the care in overseeing its bake time, the pleasure in seeing it mix, sizzle, rise—and then tumble down into the sweet mouth of someone…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Kylie: plus i think it’s so funny we’re discussing the message of communication in IJ….over chat
Alyssa: honestly? Dave would love this
Kylie: ladies n gentlemen….we got em
This spooky season, we asked our website staff members to come up with their own Gothic styles! Like Southern Gothic before us, each staff member took a place or experience that seems harmless—that is, until you look a little closer.
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Written by Kylie Warkentin As any young, voracious reader can attest, I used the worlds novels offered as benchmarks in which to measure the unruliness of the world around me. As a teenage girl trying her hardest to scrape together any sort of sense of self, books seemed like they held-if not the answers, then…
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Written by Kylie Warkentin In a conversation with Axel Vervoordt—actually who he is (a curator, designer, and antiquaire named to Architectural Digest‘s inaugural 2018 AD100 Hall of Fame) doesn’t really matter, because Kanye West interviewed him, and it was revealed that Kanye West is writing a philosophy book! Plato is shaking!
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Written by Kylie Warkentin While I stood in line on the night of February 28th waiting to be let into Hogg Auditorium for the American Shakespeare Center’s performance of Macbeth, Dr. Cullingford, a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and the Chair of the English Department, luxuriously slinked down the line asking after her Oxford Program students.…
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Written by Kylie Warkentin I read Lynn Steger Strong’s piece, “Why I Wanted to Write About Anger,” on my phone in the small, suffocating apartment my grandmother owns. It feels less like a piece about anger, and more like what would result from a swell of resentment bitten off at the start once you’ve reminded…
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Written by Kylie Warkentin The Grownup The Grownup only had me reaching for the nearest bottle of hand sanitizer after I finished reading, which is a big step up from most of Gillian Flynn’s works. The Grownup tells the tale of a sex-working palm reader and mousy divorced mother with a slightly-off child. There was…
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