Lydia Quattrochi transferred to Western Illinois University (WIU) in the fall of 2024 at the beginning of her junior year. Prior to attending WIU, she attended Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, IL. She is majoring in Educational Studies and minoring in English. As someone who’s been passionately writing for her entire life, she’s pleased to be a new writer on The Mirror and the Lamp team.

M&L: What is your weekly routine as an English major/minor?

LQ: I live a very boring life. Most of my time is spent walking across campus to classes and hanging around Malpass Library, doing homework. This semester I have been doing an insane amount of reading–hundreds of pages every week. Sometimes it’s hard to find the time and motivation to sustain my writing career. I am really trying to be as involved on campus as I possibly can.

M&L: What are your weekends like?

LQ: As I have only been at Western for one month, I don’t have much of a routine yet.

M&L: What book are all your English peers reading that lies beyond assigned texts for class?

LQ: I’m not sure what the others are reading. As an English minor, I’ve been assigned an insane amount of reading homework, so I don’t have time to select and read other books anymore. This sort of bums me out, as I used to love browsing the college library in my free time to discover new books. However, the assigned readings are all fantastic and are opening up my literary world so much.

M&L: What book has changed your life as an undergraduate?

LQ: This anthology called Poems From the Women’s Movement, compiled by Honor Moore. Very early in my freshman year at community college, I discovered the library and had an epiphany–I saw more books than I’d ever seen before in my life, and this was my first choice to check out! As a sheltered former homeschooler, I was shocked to find poems like “The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator” by Anne Sexton, but the more I read of authors like Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Diane DiPrima, Joan Larkin, and countless others, the more I felt my world expanding. After reading for a long time one day, I became so inspired that I wrote a three-page poem right then and there, hardly lifting my hand from the page. My mom gave me this anthology for Christmas, but I’m glad that she never really read it because she would be so shocked and never would have given it to me!

M&L: Where do you hang out on campus?

LQ: I hang out on the lounge on my floor in Thompson Hall. In the evening, I drag a lot of stuff there–blankets, pillows, clunky laptops, and journals–and it’s a very peaceful and private place to write.

M&L: Where do you hang out off campus?

LQ: I haven’t left campus very much except for two brief trips home–only three hours away on the Amtrak! A few times a week, I catch a bus out to do my shopping. I love walking around stores and checking out clothes and Lunchables way too much.

M&L: What has been or will be your biggest adventure as an English undergraduate?

LQ: I hope bigger adventures are ahead for me, but I’ve had several so far. One was self-publishing a book sophomore year. Another was when I won a third-place award in the Skyway Collegiate Poetry Awards during my freshman year–this was so unexpected that I walked onstage holding my face in shock.