by Athena Lathos
I may be one of those literary types who have perhaps exalted David Foster Wallace to a cult status he doesn’t always deserve. However, I will always believe that—iconographic aura aside—Wallace wrote a great deal of beautiful sentences about the power of art and writing to connect us to one another in enduring ways.
He once said,
“If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, make your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers … becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul.
And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.”
Like Wallace, I believe that art is one of the most powerful tools we have to express the complexity of our innermost selves and communicate that complexity to one another. As Senior Editor of Writers Magazine, UP’s student-run creative work publication, I work with my editorial team to ensure that student writing and artwork maintains this important role in the student community. Each year, we review and select visual art, photographs, poetry, and fiction produced by UP students from every major with the goal of showcasing the talent of our peers and the confidence that student work truly has the capacity to resonate with others.
Though the first deadline for the magazine has passed, we encourage students to continue submitting their work to writersmagazine15@gmail.com for consideration by the extended deadline: Friday, February 20.
For submission guidelines, please see our Facebook page or email lathos16@up.edu.