It’s no wonder Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department resonates with a writer like me. For years, faithful Swifties have been acknowledging Taylor Swift as a poet. Lyrics from her two pandemic albums, Folklore and Evermore, captivated not just her usual audience but many sworn-never-to-become-Swifties, […]
How wonderful a state of consciousness is. An aspect of every living being – the proof of our humanity. Throughout history, it has been a pillar upon which we can strive. Work can only be properly done with proceeding slumber. There could be no change […]
Why is it that artists since the dawn of recorded civilization have constructed their works upon the archetype of the dreamer and the dream? Let us define “dream” not only as an ideal which rules our passions and pleasures—a synonym for “aspiration”—but as an epitome […]
Have you ever been asked what you like to do in your free time? Did you ever respond with reading and get snarky remarks such as “Oh I never read. I don’t remember the last time I read a book, maybe it was in high […]
Memorial Library recently hosted a book club session featuring The Book Thief. After attending and having an interesting conversation about the unique omniscient narrator in this story, I was reminded of a paper I wrote for College Writing I. In this piece, I was supposed […]
Mr. Richard Blanco is a former engineer turned poet and has found great success. He received both his undergraduate degree as well as his MFA in creative writing from Florida International University and has gone on to publish five successful collections of poetry including Looking […]
This is the time of year for reflection. The sun-soaked, breeze-cooled April evenings are punctured with carilloning birds and the scent of burgeoning lilacs. These expectant days, teetering on the verge of tulips and triumph, always seemed ideal for meditation on renewal and redemption. The […]
About the piece: I wrote this piece for my Advanced Writing class as a sophomore in college. I really loved the Warriors Cats books as a child, and still love them today, so I chose them as my topic. It was a really challenging piece […]
About the Piece: “Walls” was originally a poem called “A Hill in Vernon,” but I wanted to try and see if I could write it as prose, while still keeping the flow and lyricism. This piece is about my childhood home in Vernon Hills, a […]
Rating 4.75/5 If you’re looking for (and I’m sure you are) an American adventure novel that will keep your wheels turning months after reading it, look no further. Amor Towles becomes a third-time author with this brand new novel The Lincoln Highway. His first two […]
Enjoy this stunning performance of Brahms’s Requiem on YouTube. Rest. Isn’t that something we could all use more of? As college students, how often do we fall into the trap of being harried and stressed to the last degree; forgetting to engage joyfully in our […]
I’ve always hated shots. I mean, honestly, who doesn’t? The raw trepidation of the whole process is absolutely terrifying. It all starts with going into the doctor’s office, with the small gleam of hope that maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to get one this […]
Recently I began watching the hit HBO show Euphoria. The show centers around a teenage girl, Rue (Zendaya), who is addicted to opioids and is surrounded by horrible things like sexual assault, pornography, and toxic masculinity. I can’t say that I was excited to watch […]
Ruth Kennedy is a Junior English major and theater minor. This essay, written for her Advanced Writing class this January 2022, features a reflection on a memory from her first year in college. The image cover of this article was taken by her on that […]
It goes without saying that A Christmas Carol is a beloved holiday classic. It’s set on repeat year after year in the form of movies, stage performances, and the like. However, I’ve come to realize that there are obscurities about the novel and author that […]
A year ago, I was going through an identity crisis. I was only a semester and a half away from graduation, and the pressure to have a plan for what comes next was getting to me. More than this simple question, I had to consider […]
On Monday, October 4th I was working in the Writing Center covering a shift for Maida Jaspersen while she attended the annual Red Eye Film Festival for which she collaborated on the creation of a film. Since I was working for her and was therefore […]
Rating: 4.5/5 If you need a book that will make you feel emotional, this is the book for you. Girl in Pieces deals with difficult topics such as depression, self-harm, addiction, and human trafficking. Although the topics are somewhat upsetting and might cause the reader […]
“‘Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a […]
Sandra Oh, Nana Mensah, and Holland Taylor in The Chair. Eliza Morse/Netflix The Chair, Netflix’s new original TV drama-comedy, has been a topic of debate since its recent August release. The show centers around Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (played by Sandra Oh) the newly established chair of the […]
When was the last time a craft book was on the New York Times Bestseller list? Not sure, apart from George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021). The book takes several classic Russian short stories and considers them from a writer’s […]
This piece was written about a game Gabe attended in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Naturally we feel rather nostalgic reading it today. *** MINNEAPOLIS–Ra-Ding! Ra-ding! My friend and I scan our tickets to enter Target Field’s right field plaza, security watching closely, greeters […]
Like many other young adults, I still hold on to a great many ideals when I think about the way the world should work, especially when it comes to my chosen field of English and literature. As a student, I am constantly becoming more and […]
On November 7-8, the Minnesota State University’s Good Thunder Reading Series hosted St. Paul-born poet Danez Smith. Smith’s most recent book Don’t Call us Dead earned the United Kingdom’s Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection and also contended in the United States as a finalist […]
On December 3rd from 7-9 pm, come to the Viking Village in Old Main to play pool, air hockey, and other games, eat food, and support a wonderful scholarship at Bethany. Live music will feature Daniel and John Halvorson. There will be a raffle with […]
Almost a month has passed since Bethany Lutheran College put on yet another successful Theatre Physics show. However, this year’s performance was particularly special in that it marked the 25th anniversary of Theatre Physics. Since 1994, the BLC Theatre Department has been entertaining audience members […]
When I first entered the cozy classroom of my Literature Studies course as a freshman in college, I thought I had already mastered the art of reading. I had read about Shakespeare’s love birds and men costumed as women, Dickens’s snowy streets and his bloodied […]
No fairytale princess is as memorable as beautiful Snow White. Gail Carson Levine, however, does not portray blood-red lips and pale white skin as beautiful as the tales would let you believe. No, in her novel Fairest, Levine casts her Snow White figure, Maid Aza, […]
When I was asked by The Well to reflect on my experiences as a published author, the timing of the request was quite interesting. The immediately preceding e-mail letter in my in-box was an editor’s acceptance letter and contract for a two-part article that I […]
Because of the rushed game based on the hit movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the popular game company, Atari, developer of Pong, nearly closed its doors for good due to financial loss during the North American Videogame Crash of 1983. Never again to rise to […]
“What if an entire generation were to reject their central story line?” asks Eula Biss in The Balloonists, a book that is part poetry, part creative essay. Biss draws heavily from her own life in creating this assembly of anecdotes of both her life and […]