Constraint and Clarity: Writing Poetry Within a Moving Medium
In the later part of 2022, I found myself living just outside the Quad Cities in Illinois, coping with the aftermath of several negative events: a breakup, job loss, family illness, and a general sense of personal disillusionment. I had been placed in a position where I was available to help and became responsible for…
Shared Inquiry: The 2026 EGO Colloquium
On Saturday, March 28, 2026, the WIU English Graduate Organization (EGO) hosted its annual colloquium, inviting graduate and undergraduate students to share their research across two panels. The event drew an engaged audience of faculty, students, and guests, offering a space for thoughtful discussion across topics ranging from environmental ethics and cultural memory to adaptation,…
Alumni Author Connor Sullivan Publishes First Novel
Connor Sullivan (B.A. 2021, M.A. 2024) returned to campus to promote his first novel, a mystery entitled The Body in the River. Sullivan met with students and faculty to discuss writing and publishing and to share a chili lunch, courtesy of Professor Lawhorn, who organized the event. Sullivan is a full-time English teacher at West…
Listening as Living: An Account of Audiobooks
From an early age, I was immersed in literature—not only through printed pages, but through sound. My father owned a collection titled 100 Great Books, a multivolume set of cassette tapes featuring abridged recordings of canonical works. Alongside these were radio dramas, lectures, and unabridged audiobooks. Stories were not only read; they were performed, inhabited,…
Aja Martinez – 2025 Magliocco Lecturer
On October 1st, 2025, the English Department welcomed Dr. Aja Martinez, the 2025 Magliocco Lecturer. Dr. Martinez is a professor of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Martinez presented “Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory” at the Western Illinois University Art Gallery. Dr. Martinez explained that “counterstory” is both…
Letter from the Chair
Hello from Simpkins Hall! As the Interim Chair of the Department of English for 2025-2026, I have had the privilege of working closely with our outstanding faculty, students, and staff. This year, our faculty continued to publish, podcast widely, and share their expertise at conferences from Cleveland to Chicago, Albuquerque to Paris, and Toronto to…
Five Childhood Books You May Have Forgotten
Our love for reading–for a lot of us readers and writers–was something that took root in our impressionable childhoods and molded our creative minds into what we are today. There are certain narratives that were–for the most part–popular amongst my peers during my elementary school period; there are works that showed me an entirely new…
Returning to the Foundation: Reflections on ENG 285
Last fall, I enrolled in a course that I had been quietly anticipating for many years. As a student pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with a minor in Business, most of my academic life at Western Illinois University has been dominated by quantitative disciplines. My schedule has been filled with subjects that reward…
“Heated Rivalry” and the Miracle of Happy Endings in Queer Media
Heated Rivalry (2025) is a TV show created by Canadian actor and director Jacob Tierney. It is an adaptation of Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series of romance novels. The show follows fictional hockey stars, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, in their steamy interactions, and the profound emotional connection they form throughout their hockey careers. As…
“The Mirror & the Lamp” reviews “AURORA: What Happened to the Earth? Live From Mexico City”
On Saturday, March 7th, at 3:45 p.m. McKenna Schillinger, Taylor Whitmore, Carter L. Myers, Cecilia Garcia Luengas, and Karissa L. Geisinger attended a showing of AURORA: What Happened To The Earth? Live From Mexico City at the Davenport Cinemark. This cooperative viewing came after this group of individuals had been studying AURORA to compose a…
Visiting The Goon Squad: Examining Jennifer Egan’s Time at Western Illinois University
On March 5th, 2026, Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist, and author of 2010’s A Visit from the Goon Squad and its 2022 companion novel, The Candy House, visited Western Illinois University (WIU) for a luncheon, book reading, Q&A, and signing as part of the university’s Fred Ewing Case and Lola Austin Case “Writer-in-Residence.” The…
All that glitters is not “Schmutz” a feature on Dr. Seegulam’s presentation of “The Philosophy of Schmutz”
On a warm day in February 2026, Dr. Esa Seegulam presented on The Philosophy of Schmutz in the Camp Point Library. There were three staff members and eight guests, including myself, at this enlightening event. The event was scheduled to start at noon (I’m friends with all the library staff, and my sister is a…
Finding Myself in the Internet’s Hometown Hero: MICO
Music is really able to connect with people in multiple ways. Some people may use music to study, others may use it to unwind, and some appreciate the melodies and composition. What we all have in common, though, is that we enjoy music. Sometimes, when I listen to music, I find myself getting lost in…
Character Controversy: Severus Snape
When an author suggests that a character is “morally grey,” they imply an ambiguity in the moral motivation behind the cruel and unusual actions of their characters. It is easy to write a villain whose aims are almost entirely self gratifying, but it is even more difficult to orchestrate a tragedy that is complex enough…
My Experience with Audiobooks
As time advances and my grades climb their way even higher on my priority list, the time I am able to designate for recreational reading has been significantly reduced. In the last two years of college, I have not been able to finish a single physical novel when school is in session. Time is limited,…
“ChatGPT, What Do I Think About This?”– My Experience with AI in Academic Settings
Times have changed, and while there are no flying cars or universal healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) is definitely popular. However, in my experience, said popularity does not seem to give way to much productivity. The internet alone and the devices dependent on it were already disrupting the thought processes of those most reliant on them…
A Summer in Oxford
Over the summer of 2025, I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Oxford, England. Studying abroad had been a plan of mine since high school. It was originally my intention to do a semester abroad in the spring of 2025, but plans changed, and I decided a summer program would be a better…
Shifting Loyalties – Tutoring Anatomy and Physiology as an English Major
When I registered for my first semester of college classes, I was given only three choices to fulfill my science requirements: chemistry, microbiology, or anatomy and physiology (A&P). I immediately discarded the first choice since I did not plan to spend the first half of my freshman year bordering on insanity because of the three-hour…
Encountering Small Mammoths: A Reflection on Craig Finlay’s Poetry
During my second ever visit to Chicks on the Square, I joined poet and author Craig Finlay for lunch. When I arrived, he and two other students were already seated and engaged in polite discussion. Finlay had returned to his alma mater, Western Illinois University (WIU), to share his experiences with students through a craft…
Jodi Cook – The Power of Words and Community
In her 2019 Distinguished Alumni Award acceptance speech at Southeastern Community College (SCC), SCC English professor Jodi Cook said, “I am locally born and raised, and this is my home, but I have been incredibly blessed with parents who passed down the wanderlust gene. As an adult I’ve pushed forward and wandered farther and the…
All Things Atlas: A Profile of The Atlas Collective
If there is one place where Western Illinois University-Quad Cities (WIU-QC) students love to hang out off campus, it’s The Atlas Collective. Atlas is a bookstore and café that sits on a corner in the heart of downtown Moline, and is just a five-minute drive from the WIU-QC Campus. It is one of the only…
Social Media Reading Spaces – My Experience with BookTok
In relatively recent years, there has been a noticeable expansion in the online reading community. Social media, particularly TikTok, has facilitated this. In the vast sea of meticulously personalized audiovisual content on the clock app, the rise of the BookTok phenomenon continues. This cyber community with apparent unlimited reach has been the conversation topic for…
Three-Second Toxicity
Recently, I was challenged to consider the balance between authentic artistic expression and the too-often toxic platform of social media. I confess that I am still navigating the balance between engagement and toxicity. While discussing, I will limit this discussion to Instagram, for that is my preferred social media platform at present: I was once…
2025 Elements Release Party
The following article was written in May of 2025: Friday, May 2nd, the Elements Release Party was held in the Simpkins Reading Room. Students and faculty celebrated Elements and all of its writers, editors, and contributors. Professor Barbara Lawhorn kicked off the event, welcoming all of those who attended. She also recognized the editors, artists,…
I Am A Long-Distance Learner…
I am a long-distance learner at Western Illinois University (WIU). I step into my slippers, open my laptop, and see my reflection on the black screen. My blanket is fixed across my lap. I click, “Join from Zoom.” I can see my classmates sitting in a classroom on campus in Macomb. I see their lips…
The First Library Book I Ever Stole
There is a kinship that approaches the sublime when two people discover a shared love for a particular work of art. That bond can be deeper than ordinary attraction. For me, the book which sparked this bond was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. In the spring of 2004—over twenty years ago now—I was finishing high school.…
Rich Ness Retires
Dr. Rich Ness is retiring this June. He has been teaching film at Western for twenty-five years. Generations of students have been introduced to the world of cinema in Dr. Ness’s many sections of Introduction to Film, where they got their first look at classics like Hitchcock’s Rope, Welles’ Citizen Kane, and Ashby’s Harold and…
Leaving Poems Out in the Wild
I became a writer because I wanted the freedom to be an animal. I wanted to lose the burden of my humanity when I wrote, to become pure sinew and blood and instinct. At all other tasks, I was a beginner. I started out not knowing how to do them and ended knowing how to…
