Contributors’ Notes

Miya Alsip

Miya is a senior English Studies major who will be graduating this May and will be the first person in her family to graduate from college. She also is the first in the family to dabble in writing. Alsip's hope is that everyone has a wonderful experience at Miami University and in their future endeavors.

Geneva Combs

Geneva Combs has been writing stories for fun ever since 5th grade. She mostly writes about stories she find enjoyable to read; sometimes that means a lighthearted adventure, and other times this means something more serious but comforting. She likes to see characters be dragged through the mud and be made to crawl back out, as that sort of perseverance is what she finds comforting.. She doesn't like to hold back when it comes to more serious topics, but also doesn't like it when situations are hopeless. There's a balance to be had there and it's what she strives for in most of her stories. Geneva has been inspired by many published stories - books and video games alike - as well as stories her friends have made but have yet to publish. Currently, Wasp is her only published piece of work. She created and re-worked it for her creative writing class that she took this past fall. After getting a good final grade on it, she figured she "may as well try to publish it!" The story isn't based on any particular event she’s witnessed or experienced. Rather, it is the culmination of other experiences: leaving behind a toxic family member, the joys of a found family, and the curious thoughts of what your old family would think of your new one.

Riley Courtney

Riley Courtney is a current senior in high school at Anderson High School and has been taking classes through Miami Regionals through the CCP program. She has previously published a short poetry collection and has more works self-published through her creative writing blog, rileycourtney.com. She has been writing since the first grade and will be attending Miami University in the fall as part of the class of 2026 as an English Creative Writing major. She takes inspiration from moments in her life, personal experiences, and other forms of art and stories she has heard over time. For these pieces in specific, “The Lord Shut Up Her Womb” is a poem

inspired by a Bible verse along with the accompanying thoughts when reading the verse regarding her own fertility and femininity in regards to said fertility. “Tiger in Ohio Wood” was inspired by a much lighter and much more simple moment: seeing the way an orange construction sign looked in the rain. “Night is Darker in Winter” was inspired by the way days shorten in the winter, leaving more room for the darkness of night, as well as the way that snow clouds make the day feel darker and heavier. It also was inspired by her experiences with seasonal depression. And finally, “A Year Below” was inspired by the myth and historical practice of putting coins on the eyes of the dead in order to ensure their passage to the afterlife. Her writing process often includes 2 rounds of drafting followed by countless rounds of editing. She typically handwrites her first draft and then types the second, allowing for a smoother process and a quicker flow to get her writing out.

Isabella Del Turco

Isabelle Del Turco, a full-time senior at Miami pursuing her English Bachelors with a minor in Psychological Science. She resides in Northeast Ohio, where she was born, bred, and continues to be. She is a cat mom of one and a novice writer. When not studying or working she’s usually found reading or slaying fantastical beasts in RPG videogames. Her inspiration for most of her writing is a result of the lingering effects of her childhood. Somehow, she’s both nostalgic for the ease of childhood and the hurt from growing pains and finding yourself. When looking to start a new piece, whether a short story or poem, she finds that reading through old journals that she has kept for a decade is often where her ideas arise. These ideas are then spun into stories that she lived through, stories she haven't experienced yet, and others of things that she never will. At long last, her over-romanticism and dramatics have their place and purpose in her life as pieces of herself that she can purge onto paper. To her, that's the beauty of writing.

Karly Hensley

Karly is a 16 years old high schooler attending a program called College Credit Plus (CCP). This allows her to take college classes online (or in-person if she wants to since she lives close to the campus) at Miami University. Her whole life, she’s always been interested in drawing and anything artistic. Alongside her passion for drawing, she also has developed a strong interest in photography as well. She never would have found this passion if it wasn't for her online homeschool, Connections Academy. She plans on becoming a freelance photographer

as a hobby and hopefully running that as her own side business. On the other hand, at Miami, she plans on getting a Bachelor's degree in Science and Audiology, because she’s always been fascinated with ears and the deaf community. Coming back to photography though, for these two pieces, nothing really inspired her to take them. Whenever she looks at the world, even if she doesn't have a camera on hand, she still views it with great appreciation for all life on earth. Her eyes are constantly "taking pictures," admiring the world around her. The story behind these pieces might make you laugh. tiHer family was visiting one time, and her sister had on her makeup and was just sitting next to a lamp that they had in their living room, which had really good lighting, and she snapped a picture. As for the photo of the strawberries, she happened to have been craving strawberries because she kept seeing these commercials where the strawberries looked like they had been sprayed with water to make them look extra fresh. So, when her mom bought some one day, she washed them and took some pictures. She then save the photos onto my computer and went through the thinking process to come up with a title for one favorite photo of the bunch. She’s seen other photographers plan their whole day around taking pictures with the goal to find a scene that fits a certain theme or title they have in mind, but she does things a little more casually and kind of backwards, one could say.

Cynthia Fischer

Cynthia is in her second year at Miami Hamilton, majoring in Applied Biology with an environmental concentration and a GIS certificate. Her creative process is a deeply meditative experience and one that she treasures the mental, physical, and emotional sanctuary that nature photography affords her. She uses an Olympus OMD EM5 with a fixed lens (45mm f1.8), a polarizing filter, and a neutral density filter. She likes to capture things as they are, not wanting to ask or make subjects pose or rely on photo editing software for effects. Fischer finds herself drawn to contrasts and loves to capture images from unusual points of view. To her, the photos selected reflect the fragility and strength inherent in transformation. She’s very grateful for the opportunity to share these photos and hopes they will inspire others to take an extra moment for a closer look at nature.

Chandlier Jones

Chandlier Jones treats writing like a coping method when she can't find solace in anyone or anything. She writes. Of course, the writing is cleaned up for this issue, but her process is messy. Grammar mistakes litter her pages. Misuse of verbs and analogies that seem right at the time, and long run-on sentences convey her bottled feelings. She writes to comfort herself. She writes to acknowledge her pain. She writes to remind herself of her place. Chandlier Jones: a graduating senior who went against all odds to avoid becoming a statistic. A black woman. Delicate and fragile. Strong and uplifting. A walking oxymoron of potential and the insatiable need to thrive and exist within a world that sees her as the bottom of the barrel. Jones sees her poems as an extension of herself and the tumultuous trials that she participates in, willing or unwilling. Words to a battle of emotions that she couldn't think to describe in her head but finds it so easy on paper. A way to self-soothe. She finds it in writing. And she just hopes you enjoy her poems as much as she needs to write them.

Josette Kochendorfer

Josette Kochendorfer is a 2-D artist in Southwest Ohio inspired by the natural landscape and organic forms. She strives to highlight the beauty of the world around us to find the extraordinary in the ordinary often through color, texture, and contrast. She focuses on organic forms in her drawings. Her close-ups and textures in photography result in abstractions, making it difficult to recognize familiar objects. Viewers pause. “What is this?” and “Where was this photograph taken?” Josette’s goal is to invite audience members to pose questions and consider what they are perceiving. She is passionate about making art accessible to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic status.

Benjamin LeFevers

This is Benjamin LeFevers’ first semester as a student at Miami. He loves playing the guitar and making music. He also is a giant film lover. There's nothing he enjoys more than making music and writing and hopes to always be able to do so. Lefevers loves poetry for how it can allow us to make strange abstract connections with things we experience in life. And show how surreal the world around us can be portrayed. It’s just such a free art form. And he loves poetry for that reason, so all of us can express ourselves and our opinions in our unique ways.

Makaylla Maldonado

Makaylla Maldonado is a junior here at Miami University, but her main campus is here in Hamilton. She has been working towards her major in English Studies with a minor in Creative Writing. Maldonado wishes to minor in Film Studies as well but hasn't pulled the trigger on that decision yet. She has various hobbies outside of writing and academics, and these range from playing video games to watching horror films or spending time with her family. Until middle school, she never had a spark for anything regarding English. Since 8th grade, she ventured into many genres and has been inspired by many, between S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. Although she has read numerous books by these two authors, these two books heavily influenced her and promoted her to create “Empty Capsules”. Furthermore, when it comes to certain elements within this story, not everything came to existence all at once. She has always created characters with diverse backstories. She’s been keeping tabs on this document since middle school and continues to add to this list today, and this is where all her characters from “Empty Capsules” originated from. Blackwood is also a place that mimics a few different places. This place has been in her notes for years, but it didn’t have a name until early 2020. Most of her extended family lives around Champion, Ohio and this is where Blackwood stemmed from. This is a place that she frequently visits and is a place that contrasts with her life here in Cincinnati. When it comes down to the two, Champion is more of a small town, and this is the essence that created Blackwood. Throughout the years, she’s written some material that many people try to steer away from. She’s written about death, mental illnesses, divorced families, disabilities, overdoses, crimes, and various traumas. Besides these, she always finds herself writing about families as well. Maldonado was raised on the notion that family is more important than anything or anybody else. Thus, when it comes to her stories, Maldonado tries to instill this into her works whether this is direct or not.

Gwenevere Markey

Gwenevere Markey is a student at Lebanon High School that attends Miami University through the CCP program. Her story, "It's Never Too Late to Change," was written in a practice round at her school's competition creative writing team. The prompt that was assigned to base their stories on was, "It's never too late to ____". The first thought that popped into her head was change. It's never too late to change. Markey has a little brother, and they fight just about as much as regular siblings do. On the rare occasion she is actually mad, she never truly means it, and they always make up. This was the inspiration for her story, to write about sibling fights and rivalries, and about growing further apart as you age, which is represented as opposing sides in a war in her story. Markey hopes her story was as fun to read as it was to write.

Jason Otis

Jason Otis is in the process of earning his bachelor's degree in English Studies at Miami University Regionals with hopes to either attend graduate school or law school upon completion. He holds a great love for the work of H.P. Lovecraft and loves to write about similar subjects that fall within the surreal. This will be Otis' second publication of poetry, with his first attempt earning him the 2020 Gary Mitchner prize for formal poetry for The March. When crafting “The Closer” and “We Bootless Drudges” I found great inspiration in the works of Charles Simic, Charles Bukowski and Dylan Thomas. Both poems come from a place of criticism concerning my occupational history, coming not from a place of hatred but rather questioning. I wrote these years ago while attending Sinclair Community College but only now decided to present them for publication. That being said, I'm in a different place both mentally and emotionally when compared to my mindset at the time of writing. I hope that my writing can find relatability with readers, even if my perspective on these pieces has changed as I have matured.

Hailey Parker

Hailey is pursuing an English Studies major with a minor in Creative Writing. Writing has been an important aspect of her life for as long as she can remember, and storytelling has always been one of her strongest passions. For years now, her genre of focus has been horror stories and more recently fixating on poetry. Parker’s poem, "The Statue Man," is a work from an Intro to Poetry class here at Miami. As part of her final project, she created a chapbook of poems, and "The Statue Man" was her favorite. Much of her poetry has hidden meaning behind it, and this one is no different. Most of her poems tend to relate in some way or another to mental health, while "The Statue Man" is meant to personify a sleep paralysis demon. Parker hopes you enjoy it.

Kara Reedy

Kara Reedy is a junior at Miami University, majoring in English Studies. Reedy’s piece, “Jingle”, was inspired by a writing assignment in a Disability Studies class taught by Dr. Tory Pearman. The class was tasked with composing a Braided Essay, a type of essay that incorporates personal and research subjects into one coherent piece. Students were to write about either their own disability or the disability of someone else they were close to; Reedy wrote about her mental condition: anxiety. “Jingle” encompasses a decent chunk of her childhood in which she would have such stark paranoia that she would be unable to sleep at night. The creature portrayed in the story is not a real thing. Reedy pulled inspiration from a Venetian-style mask that her grandma had given to her. The story ends with the main character realizing that her anxiety was not a separate

part of her. Over time, she has also come to the same conclusions, and she now embraces her anxious mind. When it comes to mental health, the first step is always recognition, followed by acceptance. If we are to be who we are truly meant to be, we must accept ourselves for who we are.

Emma Steigerwald

Emma Steigerwald is a junior majoring in Small Business Management here at Miami! She was honestly driven to submit her work by her creative writing teacher, Dr. Kulbaga. Steigerwald took Dr.Kulbaga’s class during the fall semester and she gave her the confidence to get back into creative writing, so shout out to her! Steigerwald’s inspiration for “It’s Not a Phase” came from that phrase. As someone in the LGBTQ+ community, she has always hated the phrase “it’s a phase, you’ll grow out of it”. However, she was also trying to convince herself that it was only a phase and that she was “normal”. The truth is that there is no “normal”. Steigerwald tried for many years to suppress that part of her life, but she was also really unhappy. She thinks a lot of people don’t talk about this, but coming out to oneself is one of the hardest things to go through. That’s one of the reasons why she loves this piece. To be honest, this piece not only brought her tears, but it also brought her acceptance. She stands before you, a proud bisexual woman, and it’s not a phase.

Jonah Van Lehn

Jonah Van Lehn is a sophomore, majoring in English and Western Studies. Poetry, prose, and art have always been significant interests of his, but he never started creating in those outlets until he came to Miami. The supernatural, the scary, or the "weird"- that is what he loves to write and create about, whether in subject matter, or the feeling that is created. Lehn often is inspired by the real world, but in a way where he wants to see what it can be, for better or for worse. Lehn’s main goal as a writer and creator is to simply provoke thought, to spark discussion, whether internally or externally - which is the goal of all media, to an end.

Adam Ward

Adam Ward is a junior majoring in nursing and minoring in creative writing. His goal is to be a nurse in pediatric oncology. As a single father of three and a full-time student, he doesn’t have a lot of time for himself, so uses writing to work through things. The inspiration for his writing, in general, comes from personal dealings with his PTSD from his experiences during combat in the military. Ward finds that writing is his therapeutic way to work through thoughts and feelings.

Jillian White

Jillian White always believed that poetry is meant to strike a chord in us. She writes to show the innermost parts of herself, hoping that anyone who reads her work might find comfort in knowing they aren’t alone in their experiences. She’s the daughter of an extremely hardworking single mom, and has had to deal with the death of her father, among other things. She very much likes to focus on feminism in her work because of the woman her mother is, and the woman she raised her to be. White doesn’t like to shy away from painful topics, because that’s what it means to be human; raw and transparent pain and the beauty that can be found within. She sincerely hopes that you enjoy her work and that it might resonate with you in the best way possible. She thanks you, from the bottom of her heart.