My criteria for buy-worthy books has changed a lot over the years. Spending money on books I didn’t already know I liked used to feel wasteful, especially with my limited bookshelf space. I have a pretty large collection now, but I consider all additions carefully. Deciding which works I find memorable enough to want to have on hand is an investment to me. Not every book on my shelves is necessarily a favorite, but if I have it, it’s probably for the creativity of its contents and the context it was published in.
Mainly, unless I wish to support a living author and buy directly from a mainstream bookstore, I rely on thrifting, secondhand websites, book fairs, etc. to slowly build my collection. I make it a point to buy obscure works that are relevant to my interests as soon as I have the chance to ensure I’ll eventually be able to read them. After a lifetime of immersion in the classics of America and England, and growing boredom with the oversaturation of specific narratives for POC in English fiction, I’ve made it my mission to explore translated literature, especially from South Asia and MENA countries.
The ongoing incompleteness of this collection is what I love most about it. I am not one to despair over the impossibility of reading every book in the world. I enjoy always having something more to discover. I’m saving yet-to-be-read titles pictured above like The Mirror of My Heart, The Water Urn, and Satyajit Ray’s Detective Feluda stories for rainy days, to read when I have more time, and relish the anticipation that comes with their presence on my shelf. Similarly, I have a list of books that I would ideally already own, but know will be worth the wait to acquire when I finally locate them, like The Oxford Book of Urdu Short Stories and Umrao Jan Ada.
I also treasure older favorites, like Elantris, Phantom, and The Inheritance Cycle (not pictured) from when I used to mostly read fantasy and retellings, and still had the stamina for long sagas. My poetry collections and nonfiction are the works I like to take the most time with to ensure I absorb them, hence the bookmarks. If I had to choose any three titles from this particular shelf as my favorites, they would be Sonora Jha’s The Laughter, Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac, and Louise Glück’s Averno.
Hiba Syed is a Pakistani-American writer and reviewer with an appreciation for all genres. Having recently graduated with a BA in English, she fills her time traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and reading anything she can get her hands on. Currently she resides in St. Louis, Missouri.
I have always loved stories. As a child, weekends were spent at the library amassing impossibly large stacks of books. I had a tendency for sneaking off from the children’s section to the literature aisles, tucking works like Frankenstein and To Kill a Mockingbird into the middle of my pile to try to make my selections a little less suspicious. Usually, I got away with it.
My love for reading translated into a love for writing as well. Poetry came first, as I attended readings and workshops throughout high school, and longer-form fiction followed, leading me to where I am now, finishing the final edits of my first novel manuscript while also getting ready to begin work on a second project.
I entered college fully intent on pursuing a major in creative writing. A voracious reader and writer, I began my coursework with a great deal of excitement and urgency to learn. However, I found myself questioning if this was the right path for me as I also began taking classes in psychology and falling in love with the field. At the same time, I was hired as an editor for my college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and was finding great purpose and passion in working with writers and other editors to bring pieces to full realization. I was excited about and impassioned by my work as an editor, while also wrestling with the question of whether I was going to continue pursuing writing or delve further into psychology. Now, in my senior year of college, I’ve decided to do both.
For me, working as an editor is a direct extension of my writing practice. This work has given me the space to consider writing from a different angle, and to work with other writers in a holistic and generative process, something I am excited to continue in my work with Sundress Publications.
While it may seem like a strange combination, working as a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter while also pursuing editorial work, I believe that my work in the field of psychology is a different translation of what I do as an editor and writer. As I move further along the path to becoming a therapist, it’s clear to me that much of this clinical work is listening to and assisting in realizing individuals’ stories in order to help them process what has happened to them.
On the other side of that coin, I see my work in editing as another way of bringing stories to the surface through supporting writers in the development and propulsion of their stories. I deeply believe in the inherent healing that is available in telling stories, and in those stories being heard and understood. As such, I believe that the development and distribution of published works is crucial to our societal well-being. It is a great privilege for me to work with people and their stories in these two separate, but inextricable modalities.
Addie Dodge is a student at Colorado College pursuing a BA in Psychology with a Minor in English. She is a writer currently working as an editor for her college’s literary magazine, Cipher, and is also a clinical intern at a domestic violence shelter in Colorado. She fills her free time with hiking in the mountains and lots of reading.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Ashley Hajimirsadeghi. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, February 18 from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.
Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian American multimedia artist, writer, and journalist currently pursuing an M.A. in Global Humanities at Towson University. Her creative writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Passages North, The Cortland Review, Salamander, RHINO, Salt Hill, and The Journal, among others. She is the Co-Editor-in-Chief at Mud Season Review, a former Brooklyn Poets Fellow, an assistant editor at Sundress Publications, and a contributing writer and film critic at MovieWeb. She can be found at www.ashleyhajimirsadeghi.com // Instagram: @nassarine
While this is a free event, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here.
Each month we split donations with our community partner. Our community partner for February is Bryant’s Bridge. Bryant’s Bridge intends to provide affordable housing and a safe space to prevent homelessness and promote the successful transition from youth to adulthood.This organization was created to be a safe place and a long-term option with the goal of making linkages to supportive services that can help people heal and grow through the gap until they can become fully functioning, stable adults with a promising life ahead of them. Find more about the important work they do here.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce the guests for the February installment of our reading series, poets Minadora Macheret and Topaz Winter. Join us on Thursday, February 15th at Pretentious Beer Co. from 7:00-9:00 PM for a reading followed by an open mic hosted by Shlagha Borah. Sign up for the open mic begins at 7 PM sharp and is limited to 10-12 readers.
Minadora Macheret is a Herbert Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Texas. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Salamander, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. She is the author of, Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018).
Topaz Winters is the Singaporean American author of So, Stranger (Button Poetry 2022), Portrait of My Body as a Crime I’m Still Committing (Button Poetry 2019), & poems for the sound of the sky before thunder (Math Paper Press 2017). She serves as editor-in-chief of Half Mystic Press, an independent, international, & interdisciplinary publishing project, & as co-editor of Kopi Break, a journal of new Singapore poetry. Her work has been published in & featured by Poets.org, The Drift, Passages North, Hobart, The Boiler, The Straits Times, American Banker, The Business Times, the National University of Singapore, & the Center for Fiction. She lives between New York & Singapore
Each month we split donations with our community partner. Our community partner for February is Bryant’s Bridge. Bryant’s Bridge intends to provide affordable housing and a safe space to prevent homelessness and promote the successful transition from youth to adulthood.
This organization was created to be a safe place and a long-term option with the goal of making linkages to supportive services that can help people heal and grow through the gap until they can become fully functioning, stable adults with a promising life ahead of them. Find more about the important work they do here.
Throughout my childhood, my mother (darling Virgo she is) put a herculean effort to help keep my space organized, including my bookshelf. Now that I’m an adult, my partner has stepped up and taken that responsibility. She has pulled our books from boxes and lovingly shelved them through many moves. “Organized” is nowhere near the top of my list of self-descriptors. If it were up to me (and, thankfully, it is not), our books would be piled up on furniture and desks, if not stuffed in a forsaken box somewhere. We are still in need of an additional bookshelf, but we are very pleased with the little cherry wood shelf that stands in our living room today.
My partner’s shelving is an art, and I notice it especially on the second shelf. Most of these books were purchased or gifted back in my high school and early undergraduate days. As I entered high school, I felt ready to move on from the Harry Potter and Warriors series, but I had no idea where to start. After stumbling through Wuthering Heights and devouring Jane Eyre, I began to believe that classics were the height of literature, leading to this charming row of Barnes & Noble classics.
My preference for literary fiction remains, but I’ve branched out significantly over the years, especially as I’ve also come to fall in love with poetry. Engaging with literature by Black writers has become essential to me. While my personal book collection continues to fall short of where I would like it, my local library has been a help: it was there I discovered Native Son which, like much of Richard’s Wright’s work, is as gorgeous and essential as it is devastating. I was also introduced to Octavia Butler’s Kindred, which taught me that science fiction and literary merit are by no means mutually exclusive.
We still have a box of books stowed away, and I still get overwhelmed by all the books I have to finish. (I only get one lifetime? Unfair!) I feel I have changed so much over the years, I feel the need to reread books I have read. My battered copy of Wuthering Heights deserves such a reread. Even with all these taxing demands, 2024 gave birth to my New Year’s resolution to read more books. Now that I have this commitment, along with photographic evidence of books I have owned for years but have yet to open, it appears I have no choice but to follow through.
I could read a book every week for the rest of my life and not make a dent in what poets and authors have given us over the centuries. The thought simultaneously exhausts and energizes me. I’ve recently started A Wizard of Earthsea, the first of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. The deeper I get into this magical adventure, the more inspired I get to see how much I can discover within the confines of my one life and our little cherry bookshelf.
Whitney Cooper holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Kentucky University, where they served as editor-in-chief of Jelly Bucket, the graduate literary journal run by the university. They also work as a reader for Atlanta Review. A clerical error was made while earning their bachelor’s degree, and they have been passionate about poetry ever since. Their poetry appears in Glassworks Magazine, Stillpoint Literary Magazine, Calliope, Right Hand Pointing, and SHARK REEF. They live in Metro Atlanta with their partner, cat, and miniature schnauzer mix.
Attracta Fahy’s Dinner in the Fields (Fly on the Wall Press, 2020) captures the essence of small moments, memories, and observations, revealing that a busy world can offer quiet moments of significance if you pause to notice. Fahy guides readers to places where time slows or freezes altogether, creating a space to reflect on the extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary.
Dinner in the Fields delves into intricately silent lives in the smallest town, laying bare their essence. In “Woman in the Waterside House,” Fahy writes, “I have no reason to trust sympathy, / when I tell you I hid for thirteen / days, waiting for marks to disappear” (8). Her storytelling ability demands attention for every word. Finishing the woman’s story, she writes, “Easier to pretend my life / is full, than to face the shame / in your eyes, mine, / and the shame of the world, / when you are a woman with a fist over your face” (Fahy 8). In a few short lines, Fahy produces incredible characters with rich pasts and emotions.
Between heart-wrenching stories, Fahy’s doleful images and moments prove literature’s potential as a cathartic tool for realization. In “Etchings,” Fahy writes, “There will be no miracles in a graveyard / amongst the dead, little happens / in the quiet presence / of departed souls” (10). Here Fahy creates profound stillness; her words convey the woeful narrative of the poem and also invite the reader to ponder existence. She reminds readers, in the setting of a still and silent graveyard, that life is momentary.
In “Hy Brasil,”Fahy captures a narrator’s profound and all encompassing affection for a specific person by portraying it as a connection distinct from anything else. She writes:
“Here on the mainland we are unforgiving, overindulged, ignoring the beauty. I’m anchored, in love, tied like a boat to your image.” (Fahy 9)
Fahy contrasts the mainland’s overindulgent nature by highlighting the tendency to overlook its beauty. The metaphor of being anchored in love and tied to the image of a beloved underscores the narrator’s deep commitment. Her ability to explain extraordinarily complex feelings through nature metaphors is one of the most notable aspects of the collection.
Fahy also weaves themes of love, loss, and connects it to the relentless force of nature. In “How Did I Love You,” Fahy writes of the secret tragedies nature reveals about humanity:“Love took me to the last foot, / leaving shore, / my love deeper than that first step / into the depth, / the ocean, another land, / sweeping me off my feet, floating / to music, / your smile, / my death” (31). The imagery of moving to the last foot, leaving the shore, and the depth of love symbolized by stepping into the ocean creates a deepened idea of what it means to love.
Dinner in the Fields beckons you to go outside, even on less-than-gorgeous days—revealing beauty in all the places the wind has touched, where water has eroded, and in the spaces nature has reclaimed. Fahy reminds you how remarkable nature is in every word:
“When the stars dance they arrive at night in a sheet of sparkling pleasure, into our heart. My heart also moves, raw and bright.” (Fahy 24).
Dinner in the Fields offers another way to look at the world: appreciatively, wistfully, kindly, and expectantly. Fahy paints vivid pictures of the powerful, beautiful forces present in a tree, a bird, a lightning strike.
The combining, overpowering themes of nature and time’s relentlessness come to a peak in “It is 3am.”Withthe narrative of walking back from a bar with someone, Fahy turns a seemingly meaningless moment into a slow, beautiful experience. She writes,
“We slip into morning, walking Merchants Road, our feet pace the moon, its timeless light, cloaks, just enough to dull this truth: I was young once, no need for fragile kiss, eyes that search for depth. … I would go anywhere tonight … Still here, I slow to the beat of your steps, tall grey buildings shadow our frames. We smile to each other, glance at empty cars, parked like soldiers into little squares. I’ve moved in circles, tasting paths to love never found the one, now there’s you.” (Fahy 25).
Her words remind you to be appreciative of every part of life, the beauty in every time of day. What is usually an hour of anxiety, hecticness, and unplanned disorder, Fahy’s version is slowed down, allowing your mind the opportunity to wander.
Ultimately, Attracta Fahy’s Dinner in the Fields is a truly powerful collection. One statement that well-represents the collection is from “Picking Potatoes:” “With tasks well done, / we believe in a greater life. / Longing connects us to fields / beyond our world. / We will grow into what we leave” (Fahy 27). With rich images and profound words, these poems force introspection and make for a highly engaging read.
Caitlin Mulqueen is a senior at the University of Tennessee majoring in English and Journalism. She loves reading, playing piano, watching sports, and the Oxford comma. She has worked as an Editorial Graphics Production intern at ESPN, is a copy editor at The Daily Beacon, a student writer for Tennessee Athletics, a graphics and video operator for the SEC Network, and a marketing/social media intern for the Knoxville Ice Bears. With the majority of her undergraduate work being in sports media, literary media has remained her sincerest passion, finding stories that come out of sports to be as moving as those from literature.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Decolonizing the Diagram: An Experimental Poetry Workshop,” a workshop led by Felix Lecocq on February 21st, 2024, from 6-7:30 PM. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
If diagrams are visual representations of knowledge, this class asks: Whose knowledge and for whom? In academia, medicine, and law, the diagram has been used to categorize, racialize, and essentialize bodies of color, as well as queer/trans/disabled bodies. In this class, we will write poems that decolonize the diagram.
Inspired by poets such as Kiki Nicole, Jenifer Sang Eun Park, and Anthony Cody, we will explore how diagrams can be used in poetry to draw out tension, relationship, symmetry, and movement between ideas and images. We will use these discoveries to guide our own poem/diagram creations that subvert traditional logics and knowledge.
Participants of all levels of experience are welcome.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Felix Lecocq via Venmo @felix-lecocq.
Felix Lecocq is a writer, game designer, former SAFTA resident, and current Tin House Workshop Reading Fellow. He has taught experimental poetry workshops with the Chicago Asian Writers Workshop, and in May 2023, he independently organized a digital poetry workshop entitled “game design for poets” to raise money for the Chicago Abortion Fund. You can find his work in ANMLY, Black Warrior Review,and Joyland, and on his website at www.felixlecocq.com.
I used to bring my books with me to primary school and then keep them underneath the textbooks we worked from, so that even in five-minute breaks I could switch reading material and get a few pages in of whatever story was consuming me that day. On one afternoon, I had switched to Harry Potter and then never switched back. The bell rang, and everybody got up from their desks and left, and I did not. My teacher, Mrs. Pearson, was unfazed. “Third time this week, Isabelle,” she said. “You’re going to have to leave at some point.” While reading, I was capable of being completely unaware of life happening around me.
So yes, I did have that stuck-in-a-book element as a child. I was also vivacious, athletic, imaginative, and talked all the time. I remember having a running dialogue in my head which was framed as a narrative, as if I was going through life writing my own story. Lines would surface amid my thoughts, sometimes funny quips about baking calamities or beach days, sometimes deeper reflections about siblinghood or coveted friendships. When I was younger and hadn’t quite learned about social norms and appropriate settings, a lot of these words were out loud— to my brother, sister, mom, dad, neighbor, classmate, and often my chickens. (I grew up with a lot of pets, and I chatted to all of them. I was convinced they were listening and responding as they clucked or meowed back).
Amidst this background as a natural storyteller, I also developed a love for words themselves. I liked to try them out in my mouth, considering syllables and sounds, wondering about different ways people pronounced letters. My father helped with this interest in a frustrating way. When I went to him as a child with a “what does ____ mean?” question, he never responded with a definition. He would approach it by asking me questions. What does the prefix mean? Have you seen a prefix like that in other words? What is the root of the word? And once I had figured out what a root was: can you remember other words that sound like that? Does it sound like a word you know in French? His method could be fatiguing. But I learned etymology this way, slowly and surely. Eventually I didn’t need to ask nearly as much, because instead of giving me an answer, my father had given me a toolkit.
Recognizing the history involved in words was huge for me. All my life, I have had a deep interest in the humans that came before me. How they talked, wrote, thought, cared, dreamed, supposed, interacted. Words offer a portal to a past world, both in antiquated stories and in literal structure. As I have grown, my love of discovery has been spouting a new leaf, a love of creation. Words can be written to capture memories, spin art, decree importance. Words can be spoken to ask questions, share responses, form bonds. I suppose, then, that my commitment to humanity has always been apexed by our ability that sets us apart from other species: our speaking and writing. Our communication. And there is another side, of course, which is listening. A balance of input and output, of sharing and creating space, is where communication becomes power. I am thrilled to be helping Sundress contribute beautiful and important voices to our age’s ongoing conversation.
Isabelle Whittall (she/her) is from Oakland, California and Montréal, Québec. She is currently pursuing an undergraduate Philosophy degree with a Minor in Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. A believer in the importance of conversation, Isabelle is bubbly and curious, and co-hosts the radio show Hail! Discordia! on CITR 101.9fm.
I’ve read many poetry books written by Southern and Appalachian authors, and I can confidently say that Ben Kline’s chapbook, Dead Uncles (Driftwood Press, 2021), is fifty-one pages of some of the most painfully beautiful, goosebump-raising writing sourced straight from the hollers of Appalachia. In these pages, readers will walk across the land of not just the dead, but those walking beautiful, often painful lives. Through Kline’s sharp words, anyone can learn about the magic of blood ties, family origins, and the special connection such ideas share.
Set against the backdrop of a community in the throes of addiction and loss, many of the poems in the collection ruminate on death and identity. In “Dead at 46,” Kline writes about the inevitability of the end:
If I die that Wednesday afternoon– another distant uncle gone– I hope it doesn’t hurt, hope I hover embryonic, a meteoric ghost burning up no closer to heaven. (21)
Like shears, Kline’s harshly vivid descriptions tear through the fibers of what it means to truly live while also trying to survive and prepare for the end. Every uncle, including the “distant uncle” in “Dead at 46,” is a mirror for the speaker to look into, a reflection of true familial experience, be it 100% factual or slightly exaggerated for the sake of its poetic purpose. In these poems, readers will find unedited people reduced to their very core, and a speaker who dares to tell their stories.
The theme of queerness is another axis on which these poems spin; the poem “Will / Inherit,” is a prime example of how Kline explores this: “Suddenly / late summer / shirtless in the loft / he watches me / surmount the top rug / Soft timothy exhaling June / The twine breaks / spreading blue / purple florets on which we lie” (9). The use of colors in this poem spark images in the reader’s mind, pulling us into the speaker’s own world of sexual desire and companionship. The poem ends with the speaker pondering the “silver rings my nephews will inherit / as we leave / behind nothing.” I would argue that the title’s reference to inheritance, which is revisited at the end of the poem, could also be read as an inheritance of struggle for LGBTQ+ people. What we leave behind as individuals are not just physical things like rings, but also the intangible, the fight for our rights, for safety, to be seen and heard. We leave behind the wondering, hoping that two men holding hands in public will one day be safe.
Although this collection exists as its own little regional ecosystem, universal ideas are relayed in nearly every poem. Take “Be Prepared,” for example, a poem that uses a hungered robin and an earthworm to describe the desperation of survival. Kline writes, “In the bluegrass an earthworm thrashes / toward God,” and “Home, I splash cold water on my face / and check the packed bag / under the bed” (16). The natural cycle of the food chain echoes the speaker’s preparedness throughout the entirety of the collection, which takes form in literal acts of preparation for death and in preparing other things, like a concoction of ingredients to conjure past lovers. These lines from “Giving Up the Dew” stand out as an example: “Once home repeat those lovers’ names / three times as you drool / your weed cup into the second / and fifth cups. Wash your hands” (12). With every poem, there is something to be said about how Kline uses simplistic poetic forms to explore the complicated intersectionality of fatalism, queerness, and rural life alongside connective thematic threads, such as identity exploration and love.
The final poem in the collection, “Corpse Reviver,” is a summation of the pain and love that this collection embodies as it pulls us back to uncles:
uncle Rick counting pills, placing them in neat rows. No amount of knowing changes the outcome: dead uncles blue in the face, red leaving their lips. (Kline 29)
Kline’s colorful, tragic words here are an ode to the uncles that have come and gone, those too soon and others not soon enough. What the reader sees here is not just a tragic ending, but a reminder that no matter what is experienced throughout one’s life, there is only one way in which things truly end. Much like its last poem, Dead Uncles is a reunion—a place where the dead, the living, memory, folklore, and daydreams collide. If there’s one place where all of these family members, and especially these uncles, will live forever, it is in these poems. Anyone from anywhere can read this collection and walk away having felt it in their bones.
Leo Coffey is a trans fiction writer born and raised in Southern Appalachia. His stories engage with class distinctions, rural life, gender identity and sexuality, and the tension between memory and reality. He earned his BA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Asheville. His work has appeared in Still: The Journal, Appalachian Review, and Dead Mule. He is the fiction co-editor for Reckon Review.
My first passion was reading. I did all the things keen readers do, though “keen” would not even begin to describe my addiction. Visits to the library became a weekly ritual. I grew hard muscles in my small arms from the heavy bags of books I carried home with me. I read when I wasn’t allowed to; late-night reading earned me more than one scolding and my teachers complained that I kept my nose to my books instead of paying attention. I read myself into deep headaches, completely blocking out the world around me before lifting myself to do something trivial like eat. I outgrew my supposed reading level and was moved to an advanced reading group at school before I outgrew that as well. None of my classmates could believe me when I announced that I had finished reading the Harry Potter series after starting it just two or three weeks earlier. The smartest girl in class was still on the fourth book after laboring through the series for two months which, according to grade-schooler logic, made me the new smartest girl.
I was officially a child prodigy. The kind of child prodigy that excels at one thing more that most people do at a young age but isn’t encouraged enough or given the opportunities or just lacks the verve necessary to carry that genius into adulthood. The older I got, the less impressed people were by my reading compulsion. The class prodigy label was slipping as I began to stray into teacher’s pet and know-it-all territory. I was no longer special. Not only that, but I was insignificantly average. In a desperate attempt to be praised and included, I slowly turned my eyes to illustration. It wasn’t easy to stray away from my books. In fact, I might have read more than ever during the transition period, though most of what I consumed became about painting or drawing. Being artistic or creative, in any form, is a universally likable trait and is apparently more impressive than being well-read. Any artist can tell you that hearing “I can’t even draw a stick figure” is an inevitable and endlessly repetitive phrase thrown around by the ungifted, unartistic peasants that crowd the human population. Not one single person thought I would pursue anything but illustration.
As it turns out, most things that are born with the intention of serving others stay headed down that route. When the time came for college applications, I very boldly applied to one art school. There was no back up plan for me, which I would come to sorely regret. The summer before I was due to start, I panicked. I had been accepted with a full scholarship and had really enjoyed the tours and orientations. One hot summer day, I opened my bedroom window to take a break from the stale air conditioning. Suddenly, sitting there with my chin on the sill, I felt the weight of my future float down and settle on my shoulders like a leaf drifts off a dry, red tree in autumn. I felt it blanket me and grow exponentially heavier. I was suffocating very quickly. To make a long story short, I do not have what it takes to be an artist and lack the wealthy background to be an artist regardless of the former fact. I had planned to study art at university for almost a decade, and that plan crashed before I could understand that it was crumbling. It was the only plan I made, which led me directly to a nervous breakdown. I begged my mother to let me take a gap year (she refused). I switched my major three times before school started and ended up suffering through a semester of film, which taught me many lessons and the importance of being around your own people. Whatever “my own people” may be, they are undoubtedly not film students.
The decision to switch to an English major was made purely by the fact that I had recently become reinterested in reading, this time with a focus on Palestinian literature. It was easy to begin reading again when the stories I read were sincerely important to me. I discovered that I enjoyed and had some talent in writing in a required course. In another course, I discovered that I enjoyed editing even more. It was almost like déjà vu, the way my Cinderella foot fell perfectly into the glass slipper of editing like it belonged to me. I’m more than grateful to have this opportunity as an Editorial Intern at Sundress Publications. Reading has created the parts of me that I love most, and I’m honored to be a part of uplifting more stories that shape people into their own slippers.
Hedaya Hasan is a Palestinian writer and designer based in Chicago.
