When I first came to Douglas Anderson I swore I would never write poetry. How could I?  Poetry was constructed of line breaks, and choices. Like fiction these choices were made with intention, but with poetry the intention was a hard technique to learn, a hard technique to master. When I look back and think of what scared me most, was how raw poetry allowed one to be. Every word gave away a personal detail. It feared me to know that in a few stanzas people could know aspects of myself I never shared with anyone other than myself. My junior year I wrote my first real poem, what deemed it real is I had to share it with others, yet I didn’t hide my emotion, the emotion I was always scared of sharing. Of course it was the cliché poem about the death of my grandmother. Later that year I had to recite a poem of my choice, and I chose Naomi Shihab Nye. A poet crafted in detail, and symbolism. Metaphors that brought me to the sands of the Middle East, every word counted.  What brought me to Nye was how she respectfully wrote about her heritage half American, half middle eastern. I always had a hard time writing about my half Albanian heritage. I felt as if I didn’t have a right to those topics, because it was only half of my identity.  The poem I recited my junior year was titled Blood, a commentary on war, and a narrative about how it affected her father, symbolism for how it affects us all. “Years before, a girl knocked, wanted to see the Arab. I said we didn’t have one. After that, my father told me who he was, “Shihab”—“shooting star”— a good name, borrowed from the sky. Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?” He said that’s what a true Arab would say.” Yet Nye  wrote about this in the perspective of herself  an American, who is so torn by what is happening, torn because even though she is an American they are still her people. Nye is the reason I can write about my own father, about my own heritage, and also why I can write about being an American. Because what does the word American really mean? Who gets to fit that description? Nye has made me consider how every detail counts, how a title can convey much more than it seems, and that displaying a picture in someone’s head is a gift that not many can master. Nye is the reason I have never felt that when it came to my heritage I had to choose. -Mary Feimi, Co-Editor in Chief

The first thing I was taught when I started writing was how to correctly use both diction and syntax to further the emotional response evoked from the reader. Emotion is something I really focus on when writing and I think it also gives me new ideas when I want to convey raw feelings. An author that I studied who is exceptional at this technique is Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried. His use of masterful language and various sentence structures puts the reader in the mind of a soldier in Vietnam who watches others battle with the mental and physical struggles of the war. A single word in a sentence can make the reader go off into a completely different direction of what the story was depicting, so it's important to pay attention to these details. Tim O’Brien understands both his characters and plot, so his use of this particular style works in favor of the writing. If he were to be talking about WWII instead of Vietnam, then everything would change. The characters, the setting, the time period, and the pressure. But most importantly he would need to change the style in which these characters talked, walked, even just stood there. The words in how he first described the characters would change. The reader can get different themes when reading a story, and a lot of the time those themes come from the idea of particular word choice or sentence variance that conjures up emotions that lead to a recurring symbol or idea. This is another example of how you need to pay attention to your styles. If Tim O’Brien took out his theme loss of innocence and the corruption of war the story would not be the same. It would be about how this war was like every other war and things were hard, but good. This is not Vietnam nor the story Tim O’Brien wrote. All these things are so important to the piece of work, so it’s fascinated me how these things can change one small detail and shift the entire writing into a different direction. I admire his writing style and hope to one day incorporate what he uses in his work into my own. As I read multiple style types my writing increases in emotion. I evolve and learn all I can about a specific style of writing to help arouse rawer emotions just from small detail choices. Both my peers and teachers also help me by critiquing my work and pointing out specific instances where something doesn’t feel right or a detail is saying something it’s not supposed to. It's always good to have someone else look at my writing because it's not their darling and they can rip it to shreds without second thought. Once I can catch on how to see those choices (how to kill your darlings) and how to quickly change them, I’ll be able to write in ways I wasn’t able to before and I think that's something I really look forward too. -McKenzie Fox, Fiction Editor

Èlan Literary Magazine is celebrating its 30th year Anniversary. In honor of the evolution of our published writing, our editorial staff is appreciating the techniques and stylistic choices of those that have inspired them. I am a writer that is constantly battling whether I see myself as a fiction writer or as a poet. I think that I do well in both aspects but there always seems to be the need to categorize myself. Recently I have found that both worlds are attainable through hybrid writing. I am really inspired by writers such as Jamaal May and Lee Ann Roripaugh. These are artists who tell their poetry through a narrative lens. One of my favorite pieces by Jamaal May is, “How to Get Your Gun Safely out of Your Mouth”. The piece is a prose poem in which the examination of the retaining the will to live, to take a moment and breath. The poem takes you through a series of moments, and lists out the ideas to get the reader to take their time and consider the options to move forward. May uses second person perspective to his advantage in the poem, as he’s talking to the “you”, but he is also speaking of himself in the piece. I recently, tried to do this in my own poetry examining a similar pool of thought, and I wasn’t as successful with my endeavors, but I want to be able to speak to the reader and for myself. Lee Ann Roripaugh, is able to take on a more personal approach and even creates an almost, folktale, storyteller vibe. The voices in her poem seem wise and the structure of her poems mimic this. The poetic elements tangle with that natural and ethereal voice which makes me feel that her own story is something I can always take to heart. I believe I am drawn to prose poetry and poems that feel like stories because of their relatability aspect. Story telling is something all people have exposure to, and it makes a poem seem more accessible, and the visual style of a prose poem or hybrid piece always seems to be a journey. I am always interested in how visual structure can change the perspective. A reader can see the piece and dive in, and afterwards, feel in their chest that what they experienced was unique. How to Get Your Guns Safely Out of Your Mouth Go ahead and squeeze, but not before you put on some tea, clean two cups, lift shades and pin back curtains. Not before the end of this song, before dawn reaches in, before you turn the page or a woman apologizes for dialing the wrong man again—not before you learn her name, how to pronounce it, how to sing it with and without regret catching in your throat—Are you done? Go ahead and squeeze after the hinges are reinforced on all doors, the house secure from storm or intruder, your laces tied, this commercial break over, drywall taped, spackled, painted—a nail driven, a painting hung and adjusted— there is still so much to adjust, arrange, there is still time—and you write your letter, correct every letter, scrawl the signature so swift and crooked it becomes the name of another—relax the jaw that holds the barrel in place, remove gun, point to heaven, and squeeze until the clip is empty like the chamber. - Jamaal May -Kiara Ivey, Senior Layout & Design Editor

One of the (many!) writing techniques that has inspired me as an author is using flashbacks to add depth to pieces. It brings so much dimension to both the characters and plot, and though they can get tiring if overused, this technique, when used correctly and in moderation, can really deepen stories and their meanings. The technique is commonly used in children’s books, the most notable of which is Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. During the last book, the author is traveling back in time to explore several different characters’ backstories. The technique helped pull the story together, and by the end of its usage, readers are left with a much more complete view of the characters and many holes in the plot are fixed. Although flashbacks are less commonly used in ‘adult’ literature, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, employs the technique throughout the book. Fitzgerald uses this technique in order to give the reader background about both real historical figures he discusses in the story and his own characters. The main character, Jay Gatsby, frequently has flashbacks about him and the woman he loves, Daisy, in a desperate attempt to keep their past romance alive. The flashbacks are expertly placed, and they provide insight into the intent of the book. I don’t use flashbacks in every piece that I write, though digging into a character’s backstory—how they might have handled certain situations in the past or even imagining them as younger, different people in order to figure out how they’ve changed/what makes them who they are now— is something that has helped my writing grow with every piece that I write. And when I do decide to include flashbacks in my work, I find that it really helps deepen the plot and the ‘fullness’ of the characters. Backstory, whether actually written on the page or not, is vital to creating a meaningful and literary piece. When I was a younger reader and writer, this idea of literally being able to change/turn back time really resonated with me. I loved that I had the freedom to create an entire personal history for different characters and actually be able to employ it in my pieces—that’s a lot of power, especially for a pre-teen. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s best friend, Nick Carraway, urges him to stop daydreaming, telling him that you can’t repeat the past, but as Gatsby delves even deeper into flashbacks of him and Daisy, he can only reply with, “Why, of course you can!” I think that this accurately portrays the importance of flashbacks in stories— they give both the author and the reader a chance to dive into aspects of pieces that would normally not be explored, and they give the piece a more meaningful background and plot. -Oona Roberts, Layout and Design

Since I was young, I knew I wanted to write stories. I would make up elaborate lies, not to get over on someone, but just to capture their interest. When my mother would tell a story, I’d always add, “what if… happened” and she’d say, “you’re such a story teller.” I loved the title “story teller.” The way it gave me permission to come up with scenarios and characters, and to bring life to the page. Being a fiction writer was going to be my one and only task in the writing world, until I read “History Lesson” by Natasha Trethewey.  In my freshman year of high school, I chose that poem to orally interpret in Speech class. As I stood in front my peers, hands shaking and knees locking against my teacher’s instructions, I recited the poem. As Trethewey and her grandmother stood on the “for colored” strip of Mississippi beach, I felt connected to her. I felt as if I was Natasha Trethewey, holding that picture forty years later feeling admiration for her grandmother and remorse for her being gone long before she could be considered any type of equal. That is when I knew that I couldn’t just bind myself to fiction. Natasha Trethewey has a way of putting you into her own shoes, her own clothes, and her own house that stands just behind the railroad tracks in her poem “White Lies.” It is not just because she is writing poetry, which is an ideology that I had to learn. I knew that poetry could be about anything, but the poetry that impacted me the most had been wrought out of personal experience. Consequentially, the poems I wrote were drawn out of my own life and explained in twenty lines or more, both steps I felt I couldn’t take in my fiction writing. I used childhood incidents and teenage curiosities to guide my poetry, thinking that was the only way I could write good poems. Yet, I knew there was something that limited me from being the Natasha Trethewey of my own poetry. A skill that she had that I felt I lacked, and didn’t know if I could gain since I didn’t have the same experiences as her. I initially felt as if I couldn’t write poetry like her because I hadn’t lived through segregation like her. The only south I knew was south Florida, and I thought that was the reason I couldn’t get through this wall I’d built for myself. The poem “Flounder” tells of a time Natasha and her aunt were fishing. The poem, like most of her poetry, is more complex than a younger Trethewey catching a fish, a feat I’d never accomplished. Yet, that didn’t stop me from understanding the poem and understanding every person and detail in the poem. Poetry isn’t just writing about your experiences.  Fiction isn’t just writing about your experiences. Writing as a whole isn’t just writing about your experiences.  It is about using your experiences as a guide for your readers to get to the bigger, important message. Trethewey didn’t have to write about her own experiences, she just had to make the reader feel as if that was their experience. She had to make the reader angry about how they were treated. She had to make the reader understand why she felt it was important to write that poem. Natasha Trethewey uses details so specific to build images so vivid, that we want to relate to her poetry and we do. I haven’t given up on fiction, nor have I stopped using my own personal experiences in poetry. In fact, I’ve mixed the two and gotten something that I think my younger self would be proud to read. I have poured my personal experiences into my fiction, letting them fill out characters and plots in a way that lets the reader relate and become the characters or narrator without even having to experience the situations for themselves. I learned that writing is not telling your experiences or made up experiences and hoping the reader is interested enough to continue reading. Writing is using your own experiences and maybe those of others and allowing the reader to understand and relate to the complexities through your detail and effort at trying to tell your story the right way. -Chelsea Ashley, Digital Communications

I have always greatly enjoyed implementing effective sensory details into my poems, even though it has proven to be a pretty great challenge for me. I’ve found that if I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing, or if I get too wrapped up in the intent of the piece, I’ll completely leave out the details needed to actually show the story. Over the years I’ve gotten better about balancing my focus between images and other aspects of the poem, but still find myself with poems that lack the different details that would make it so much more powerful. I think that because I’ve had to be more cautious about the attention I pay to detail in my poems, I’ve learned to really appreciate it when I can create a powerful image. I also have a pretty deep admiration for poets who are able to write wonderful images without even paying too much attention to the sensory details they’re using; it’s just second nature to them. One poem I read a few years ago, Preludes by T.S. Eliot, has always stood out to me, as it’s compiled of so many beautiful and abstract images that really put the reader in the moment. In the second section, the lines “The morning comes to consciousness, Of faint stale smells of beer, From the sawdust-trampled street, With all its muddy feet that press, To early coffee-stands,” are so brilliant. Eliot obviously pays special attention to the close details of the poem, inviting the reader to smell the thick, smoky air, and walk along the streets as he says they are. You get to go into the homes and lay on the bed, feeling everything the writer describes. The images have a great impact on giving the intent to the reader that they work well for the poem. Whenever I find myself having trouble with my writing, I like to read over this poem, if not for inspiration then just to appreciate the writing. Most times, however, reading it gives me encouragement to work on my images and strengthen them, or gives me specific ideas for how to use sensory details for the betterment of my poetry. I’ve definitely noticed that the longer I take on a poem, the better outcome I’m going to come up with, but that pretty much goes for anything. I would like to think that as I’ve recognized this fault of mine I’ve been able to gather experience and allow myself to grow and learn more about sensory details, and how to successfully use them in my writing. Not only have I learned more about powerful sensory choice from reading other poetry, but I’ve also learned about them from classes and workshops, receiving feedback to help further images for the experience of the reader. While I may be learning to make my sensory details and images stronger in my poems, I’m also making the intention of the piece clearer and improving the experience of reading the poem as a whole. -Kinley Dozier, Co-Web Editor

I have a thing for deeply flawed voices in stories. Those characters who immediately rope you into a new way of seeing the world. Use of diction and sentence structure is crucial to sending the reader straight into a character’s head. There are many great examples, but no one author has influenced my way of composing sentences like George Saunders. A creative writing teacher lent me his book Tenth of December because she thought I would enjoy the stories, but also look at his use of craft when forming my own writing. I read the book, with few breaks, over one weekend, sitting on my chilly porch, each gnawing breeze pushing me further and further into the work. His characters are gritty, realistic people in slightly unreal situations. The really incredible part is, he can put me into a way of thinking without so much as using first person. His word choice and forming of sentences is largely to thank. Take, for example, this passage from the first story, “Victory Lap” of his recent Tenth of December: “Had he said, Let us go stand on the moon? If so, she would have to be like, {eyebrows up}. And if no wry acknowledgment was forthcoming, be like, Uh, I am not exactly dressed for standing on the moon, which, as I understand it, is super-cold?” What stuck me, what would change the way I write, is how a character's’ thoughts become part of a stream, the way both dialogue and action are projected in his mind. He doesn’t think in clear patterns, the way people are expected to in stories. Instead, it’s much more real. When a person becomes jittery and nervous, they cram their thoughts and reactions together. This is what Saunders does in the anxious stream of possibilities, of a character with that “super-cold”, creating a condensed form of thinking, the way I have internally. Reading this style of writing strikes me, because it’s unusual, but once I fall into the patterns of it, my thinking matches up with the character and suddenly, at least in my experience, the two of you are one. The story is immediate and palpable, not distanced and planned. This is what I wanted to create. A kind of writing so direct, so natural, that it becomes synonymous with a reader’s own mind. At the moment, I have many stories with the subtleties of Saunder's style creeping up in them. I wrote a story last year about the destroyed landscape of a Florida swamp swallowing its abusers in a storm, “Song”. The terror of the characters needed to be visible, but just as important was their way of interacting with the world from the beginning. Anyone can be scared. Only Johnny, a doomed Floridian, could arrive with his background of going to work each day to smother the land in concrete and wood, a life dripping with heat and humidity, the whole system of values instilled in him so, when the land finally did claim him, it was as a product of place being consumed by place. When I revised the story, the sentences were just as much a product of the place as Johnny himself. The words were carefully chosen in both vernacular and specificity. The land’s reaction isn’t the first violence; this is a setting fraught with battles over control. Word choice, whenever possible, held that history of conflict. In the end, that story was published in the 2016 edition of Elan. And I plan to keep reading George Saunders, keep inventing characters that are so saturated with individual views, so honest through language, that a reader can’t help but delve into their world, headfirst. -Ana Shaw, Junior Editor-in-Chief

In the first half of my junior year in Creative Writing, I quickly cultivated the most intimate and intense relationship with poetry I’d had thus far. I became exposed to an enormous amount of poetry and poetic techniques that, through practice, I could eventually use meaningfully in my own work. After closely studying the choices of established poets in their writing, with each piece I felt a sense of enlightenment and awe, as if every new technique I hadn’t previously known existed was a key unlocking a door, and another door, and another. A particular poem that stuck with me from that semester was A Blessing by James Wright. The majority of the piece describes the speaker and his partner pulling over to the edge of the highway and getting out of the car to pet and marvel at two Indian ponies. Within this image, Wright uses descriptive implication to give the reader a sense of how she should feel in response to the brief experience with the horses, and also toward the relationship of the main characters in the poem. In the last two lines, the reader is struck with an extremely abstract bomb of language that floods everything we thought we knew about the moment with emotion and insight. It created the perfect balance between concrete detail and abstraction. Another piece that revolutionized my approach to poetry was The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop, which did most of its work with intense sensory detail and descriptive implication, as well. However, the interaction with poetry that proved to be the most influential to my original understanding of the genre was the one I had with the work of Adrienne Rich, whom I deeply studied and analyzed for a huge project I will be forever grateful for. With an in-depth understanding of her life, specifically difficult times she experienced that played major roles in her writing throughout her career as a poet, I developed a close relationship with her individual style and became familiar enough with her signature techniques to attempt to execute them in my own writing. This is when I discovered gaps. I noticed they showed up frequently in her poetry, and after doing some research, learned they are used to juxtapose two concepts either on the surface of the poem, or hidden inside the subtext of the word choice. Essentially line breaks within lines, gaps do the work that the language itself cannot. I’d had prior context for juxtaposition, but never knew how to properly go about it, and gaps allowed me to more constructively search for and utilize the complexity and dynamism in my work. I tried it out in an original poem entitled The Origin of Lost People, and its use proved successful. It significantly contributed to the progression of my work and myself as a writer. While not the only important thing I learned from Adrienne Rich, this particular technique helped expand and transform everything I thought I could do with poetry. I’m anxiously anticipating other secrets I’m bound to unlock in the future. -Alexis Williams, Co-editor in chief

Èlan Literary Magazine is celebrating its 30th year Anniversary. In honor of the evolution of our published writing, our editorial staff is appreciating the techniques and stylistic choices of those that have inspired them. One of the first poems I ever read in middle school was “in Just-” by e.e. cummings, a poem about an odd little balloon man in a neighborhood during the height of Spring. We had someone read it aloud, the words smushed together, the spacing odd and confusing for students who had barely even read “standard” poetry. After the reader finished, everyone pounced on the writing: several comments like, “Doesn’t he know how to use punctuation?” and “This is stupid.” I had the same doubts; surely someone good enough to be in a middle school literature book knew how to construct basic lines and use proper grammar and punctuation. But it was the way “eddieandbill” looked on the page, the way they became one and the same as they ran down the street, chasing the balloon man. There was something purposeful in those conglomerations of words, something about the way cummings described spring - something more than a season. In my own poetry - towards the end of my Junior year - I, too, began playing with form and grammar. In my final portfolio, I created a piece titled “Just a Pill,” a poem about my fear of medicine, stemming from having lived with my drug-addicted grandmother for the majority of my life. I began to understand just how meaningful floating language and improper grammar could be in conveying emotion; they weren’t just to make the poem look eccentric, or more modern. It was such a useful technique in what I wanted to create, lending a visual tension and pause to a piece that was otherwise gripping and forceful. Once I started writing things I valued, it became much easier to allow myself time to play with form. Just like e.e. cummings did in his balloon man poem, floating language and combined words took my writing to a place it couldn’t have gone in any other way; these choices shaped the pills into more than medicine, more than seeds of fear - suddenly the pills were an idea, a moment, a snapshot into a part of my life I didn’t want to re-examine. Sitting in my seventh grade classroom puzzled by a man who would later become one of my favorite poets, I discovered something about writing: it doesn’t have to be perfect, or formal or anywhere close to “normal;” it just has to make you look at what you thought you already knew - how to write a line of poetry, how to interpret scary moments in your life. e.e. cummings was a man so dedicated to letters that he legally changed his name to all lowercase. He was a poet so dedicated to craft that he broke rules and created new ones. In the space between “far   and   wee,” the poem lives; in the closeness of “bettyanddisbel,” innocence is illuminated; in the “mud-luscious” world, the odd little balloon man delivers the essence of Spring. -Mackenzie Steele, Co-Art Editor #Poetry #Inspiration #floatinglanguage #grammar #inJust #stylisticchoices #eecummings #technique #September #balloonman

While we have been taking a break from Blogging over the Holiday season, the Elan staff would like to share a few of our New Year's Resolutions with everyone. A new year brings with it new opportunities, new goals, and new writing to create and explore. What are some resolutions that you've made? My New Year's Resolution this year is to win the Batten Award Scholarship and not pay a single cent for college! -Mariah Abshire, Editor-in-Chief I don't know if this is weird, but this is my very first New Year's Resolution, which is fitting because 2015 will be a start of something completely new for me: college. In the year 2015, I want to 1) figure out my future, 2) hold off Senioritis for as long as I can, and 3) be ready for anything! -Shamiya Anderson, Creative Non-Fiction I want to maintain relationships with people from school after I graduate and continue to write poetry. -Taylor Austell, Layout and Design Editor I want to continue to write after I graduate, and I want to devote more time to studying (math especially)! -Sarah Buckman, Editor-in-Chief I have never been the person that made New Year's Resolutions but I have decided to try something new this year. In this upcoming year I have decided to be happy, find my Zen. I want to keep a positive outlook on life despite anything bad that may happen in this upcoming year. -Anna Dominguez, Junior Poetry Editor My New Year's Resolution this year is to write some bomb fiction next semester and meet Blake Griffin! -Madison George, Social Media Editor This coming year, I hope to expand my writing into more personal endeavors. I've been slacking, in terms of writing outside of school, and I think it's starting to take a toll on my overall enthusiasm for writing. I'm going to work on taking it back next year, and start to immerse myself in some writing that is really close to what I want to see coming from myself. -Ruvi Gonzalez, Junior Fiction Editor I've never really stuck to my New Year's Resolution but since this is my last year at home, why not stick to it? This year I'm going to get a job. -Grace Green, Poetry Editor It shouldn't take a set date to make changes for the better. A New Year is a new opportunity, but so is a new day; acting on a decision to change should happen at any moment, not just at the turn of the year. Ironically, my resolution is to keep that in mind. -Jordan Jacob, Junior Editor-in-Chief In the upcoming year of 2015 I hope to come to some sort of resolution in terms of what I want to do as a career in life. I will be a senior by next Autumn, and I really want to have a good grasp as to what I want to do later in life. - Briana Lopez, Junior Social Media Editor I don't normally do New Year's Resolutions because they typically get forgotten. Plus, why wait until a New Year to make a new you? But I think I'll play along this time. Next year, I'll be funnier and more responsible. There it is. I think it's ambiguous enough to follow. -Rey Mullennix, Fiction Editor Resolutions are embarrassing. My resolution when I was seven would probably have been to stop picking my nose. My resolution when I was nine would be to stop sleeping with a night light. My resolution this year is to stop eating so many Reese's. I eat them for breakfast sometimes, I eat them when I get home from school... It's a problem. Maybe I could start eating some cantaloupe or kiwi or something. Anything healthier would be an improvement. -Kat Roland, Art Editor I resolve to read more poetry books, care less about the Kardashians, and most importantly, to feel how I feel and do what I want instead of letting other people's expectations be in charge of my actions and thoughts. -Savannah Thanscheidt, Web Editor This year I want to have more spontaneous moments. Being a senior and having less than a year before I run off toward another adventure I want to not worry about stuff and have more genuine moments of fun. -Chrissy Thelemann, Submissions Editor I do not have a resolution for 2015. I don’t think people should focus on changing because a new year is coming up and everyone is buying into the “New Year, New You” perspective, but people should instead focus on change because they are striving for personal growth. I think making plans are good for yourself on a yearly basis, but for myself personally, I’m still trying to make good on the ones I promised years ago. -Stephanie Thompson, Marketing Editor

This year the Élan staff has a lot to be thankful for. We are thankful for our wonderful staff, our lovely supervisor Mrs. Melanson, our Winter 2013 book, and of course our readers. This is what we are most thankful for this year: Emily Cramer (Editor-in-Chief): For Cormac McCarthy, who showed me that it’s okay to break the rules. Sarah Buckman (Junior Editor-in-Chief): For Creative Writing seniors! Emily Leitch (Layout and Design Editor): For Paul Legault for inspiring me to be the poet that I am today. Taylor Austell (Junior Layout and Design Editor): For the teachers and the staff that allow me to grow into the person that I am today. Kiera Nelson (Fiction Editor): For women like Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker who inspire me to be the best combination of a writer/womanist that I can be. Zoe DeWitt (Fiction Editor): For Tom Hiddleston reciting poetry, especially Shakespeare’s sonnets. Raegen Carpenter (Poetry Editor): For Rachel McKibbens, who proved to me that you can be both a witty, tattooed goddess, and a poet. Brittanie Demps (Poetry Editor): For the culture and atmosphere of Douglas Anderson. It’s given me the chance to grow into the person that I want to be and to express my passion in writing. Mariah Abshire (Junior Poetry Editor): For the Creative Writing department as a whole and all the opportunities the teachers and staff expose me to. Emily Jackson (Nonfiction Editor): For the creative writing department that has supported me and my writing for these past four years. Shamiya Anderson (Junior Nonfiction Editor): For being in a department that thrives and helps me grow as a writer. Haley Hitzing (Social Media Editor): For Yusef Komunyakaa for making me fall in love with poetry. Madison George (Junior Social Media Editor): For an amazing Élan staff to work with. Makenzie Fields (Submissions Editor): For the Dodge Poetry Festival for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of poetry. Stephanie Thompson (Public Relations and Marketing): For John and Hank Green.

The first semester of my senior year has just finished. I will never have another first day of high school, I will never be scared of my school's mascot -a hideous puffin- at orientation, or be forced to take another Douglas Anderson-style mid-term again. I will also never have another poetry class with Mrs. Melanson, never hear "So, my children..." with a flourish of her hand as she explains just how synesthesia reflects on life as a whole. It's bittersweet. I've just started Senior Fiction, it is day three and I'm already waiting to see my prose grow the way my poetry did in the semester prior. Writing story starts, reading flash fiction- it feels weird. So far, what I've realized is that the most interesting part to every beginning, is the ending it leaves behind. I first realized just how true this was when I began "Casual Vacancy," by J.K. Rowling. The story starts when a man dies, and the entire town learns about his death. They feel things about it, their lives are changed by it and new things happen to them through it. The end of a man's life became the beginning for so many other things. After this realization, I started thinking about other stories I'd read, other myths and parables I'd been taught. Adam and Eve begin life on Earth after their lives as angels end; monarchies are squished to bring forth republics, if Hester Prynne is going to raise her child, her good reputation and even her infatuation with the baby's father has to be over. Sometimes good endings lead to bad beginnings, and sometimes it takes a little tragedy to bring the dawn in. I've often thought about being a history teacher after school, and with that idea in mind, it's really hard for me to "leave the past in the past." We, of course, shouldn't hold onto the past, we should grow from where we've come. But at the same time, as we start a new year, a new semester or job or relationship or short story, I think it's important to reflect on where we -or the character's we're writing about- have come from. It's important to know how all of the things that are constantly ending, relate with what's to come. -Savannah Thanscheidt, Web Editor