When I first ordered The Cage Keeper by Andre Dubus III, I wasn’t expecting what appeared on the first page. With a title such as this one, I expected the book to be a linear set of stories about human trials and tribulation. The book opens with a short story called “The Cage Keeper,” which I assumed would be a tale of finding a heart for criminals who were misinterpreted and prejudged. However, I was taken for a complex journey encompassing human interaction, violence, sorrow, loneliness, and desire. Dubus has a gift for crafting short stories that embody multiple themes without crowding the piece. As an aspiring writer, I enjoy when an author has the ability to open a story and instantly put you into a setting or character mentality. Since Dubus uses strong, authentic imagery, I was fascinated to see this didn’t affect the pacing in a negative way. In my own writing, I typically have a challenge with adding imagery that adds to both pacing and theme. I admire the fact that he could utilize extended metaphors and symbolism to explain such dark and uncomfortable themes. He also uses flashbacks to expand on how or why a character has been placed into bizarre situations when you first start reading the piece. It adds depth and engagement to characters you may have assumed were simply protagonists or antagonists. Another thing that interests me about Dubus is that his short stories are long, but still keep you invested through the dynamics of the characters he creates. I haven’t come across a character in his stories that is cliché or unforgettable, which is something I’m also attempting to work on as a writer. In the short stories “Mountains” and “The Cage Keeper,” first person narration is used. First person narration is usually a risky point of view to use since it can make your story sound cliché or overtly limited to the perspective of one character. However, in both short stories, this perspective guides the reader through the plot of the story and helps the reader care about every character in the story. In fact, I don’t know that these pieces would have worked in any other point of view since second person would have felt too inclusive, and third person would have felt distant and absurd. First person added a humorous take on the daunting situation of being held hostage in “The Cage Keeper,” and made you laugh even though you knew how serious and dangerous the situation actually was. Ultimately, I applaud Dubus for the risks he incorporates in his writing. His writing is fluent with societal issues that many of us refuse to acknowledge or act on out of our own fears and guilt. As a reader you become challenged to think about the “what if’s” that are presented in his pieces, whether they are what society deems good or bad. I’m ecstatic to workshop with him during Writers’ Festival and learn about his writing process, how he creates characters that are both engaging and thought provoking. During senior fiction, I wrote a portfolio from first person narration in hopes of stimulating the reader to engage alongside the character instead of as an observer or a character themselves. I hoped to mimic Dubus’s style of engaging the reader from the first minimal character description that he typically utilizes to set a tone for the story. I was surprised by the results, and anticipate that it’ll be fun learning how to perfect this craft even more. -Christina Sumpter, Senior Creative Nonfiction Editor

The theme of racial identity has been frequenting my writing as of late. Being biracial half-Mexican and half white, I have gone exploring my heritage in both my poetry and fiction. Of course there many joys in being of mixed race, such as having the opportunity to claim and celebrate both cultures. However, for me a sense of inadequacy always resurfaced, that is concerning my inability to satisfy a certain racial identity. With that there sometimes came the alienation, feeling out of place, and as though I belonged to neither parent’s side. One of the many poets coming to Douglas Anderson Writers’ Festival is Lee Ann Roripaugh who explores this theme. This confusion, and hurt is peppered throughout her work but especially prominent in the poems Snake Song and Transplanting. When I read these poems I thought of my own struggle with claiming my father’s identity. There were times I was insulted and openly made fun of by Spanish speaking strangers at my hesitant use of the language. Several times I drifted apart from that crowd frustrated, embarrassed, and trying to create distance between myself and my father’s culture. Likewise in Roripaugh’s image driven poem Snake Song she captures rather perfectly being torn between two identities, and struggling to navigate both through the metaphor of the snake, and her birth. Here she especially targets how she communicates through both English and Japanese. “I was born in the year of the snake and maybe this is why I speak with a forked tongue. …when I open my mouth to talk, a strange song, not mine, comes tumbling out. Ai-noko, half-caste, I tilt my head in the mirror first this way then that–Horikoshi cheekbones, Caucasian nose, my ojii-san’s serious eyebrows feathering like ink strokes … My blood runs hot and cold.” In her poem Transplanting Roripaugh plays more subtlety with her isolation, and estrangement.  In this poem she talks of how her sneeze is different from her mother’s and the unexpected distance and criticism that breeds. Sneeze My mother sneezes in Japanese. Ké-sho! An exclamation of surprise—two sharp crisp syllables … Sometimes, when ragweed blooms, I wonder why her sneeze isn’t mine, why something so involuntary, so deeply rooted in the seed of speech, breaks free from my mouth like thistle in a stiff breeze, in a language other than my mother’s tongue. How do you chart the diaspora of a sneeze? I don’t know how you turned out this way, she always tells me,” After reading these poems, I was in awe of Roripaugh’s approach to such a highly personal subject. Indeed, reading it gave me flashbacks of my own experiences and my own questioning and confusion. Yet she can’t help but touch on the importance and beauty of Japanese culture to her identity. In my own life I’ve made peace with my Mexican identity, and Caucasian identity like Roripaugh.  I’ve realized they are both an enormous part of me, one I have to learn and love on my own terms, despite what others say. Inasmuch, I’m excited to attend her workshop at Writers’ Festival, and glean some inspiration and technique to further my exploration of identity and culture. -Aracely Medina, Senior Poetry Editor

Beginnings are weird. They stare at you, straight in the eyes and say, “Yeah, I’m here,” and they either excite or frighten you. Recently I have been staring at a big beginning in my life: starting college. This beginning does not only mark the beginning of adulthood for me but also the end of high school, the place I have found myself as an artist. Beginnings are scary in that way. They are the start of something but the ending of another. I think that’s why I have such an odd feeling when I think about starting college. It’s beautifully bittersweet. But every story has a beginning. Looking back on my writing, beginnings were never hard for me to write. If anything, the ending was hard. From the first day of freshman year I knew how to hook a reader with a quote or an interesting fact. I knew how to grab their attention with a character or scenario. I’m good at beginnings. Yet when I look at my future, I think of everything that is about to begin and I just turn into a big ball of anxiety. I can write the beginning of a poem or an article but I can’t write my own life. It’s so frightening when you think about it, because in your life you have control over a certain amount of things but at the end of the day you are not the one in charge, you are at the mercy of the world around you. Recently I’ve started to think of my beginnings this way. When I sit down to write something I don’t want to follow that formula I’ve had for years. Frankly, that formula is boring and I only use it for English class. Beginnings shouldn’t be generic, they should be interesting. In real life, beginnings happen all the time. High school doesn’t really happen until you meet the people that will shape your experience there for the next four years. The truth is, when I start college there will be a multitude of endings and a multitude of beginnings and I won’t even realize half of them are happening. So why should I write like I know when these things are happening? Beginnings aren’t definitive. You can start something but it doesn’t begin there. There’s always something arbitrary in beginnings. So the best advice I can give you is to start writing from where the story really starts. The beginning is never simple. Let it be complex. -Grace Green, Poetry Editor

This year is my first year on the Élan staff and I’m so excited to be a part of something so huge. I wanted to be put on Élan for many reasons but the biggest would be that I wanted to be deeply involved with the Creative Writing department. I had never really felt like I was apart of the department in the ways I wanted to be. I never helped with candy sells or anything that benefitted the department as a whole but the past year showed me that I really did want to be a part of this in any way I could. Seeing everything the Creative Writing department does for us, such as Writer’s Festival, I was able to realize that I wanted to give back in a sense. I’m willing to put my all into the department and see what comes of it. Last year I didn’t think there would be any way I would be put on the Élan staff because I had never really shown an interest in the department, let alone Élan but somehow I was lucky enough to be picked. I take great pride in knowing that I was one of the few lucky enough to be given this opportunity. I want to do anything possible this year to make my role matter. I want to learn and take in as much as possible because this is such a great opportunity and experience. I was positioned as junior poetry editor this year in Élan and I’m excited to see what I can add to that role to make the poetry section even better. Not only does this give me the chance to make it better but I’m also getting to surround myself with work from other writers. I have a deep passion for poetry and being given this opportunity allows me to grow as a writer as well as an individual. This is giving me the sense of responsibility that I have always craved and I’m excited to see how far that can take me this year. -Anna Dominguez, Junior Poetry Editor

I never thought that entering high school and learning how to write would make me forget how to be a writer. I never considered that uncovering the workings of language, would make me forget that words ever held magic. Most of all, I never believed that growing older and more mature would make me forget how to see the glitter of inspiration in the air, because I was too attuned to the stark world of reality. When I was younger I plucked stories out of the air because for me they were easy to see. They glimmered like specks of dust in certain light, and liked to bounce off one another and land in my friends’ hair, collecting on each individual strand so that even the follicles shone bright. But as I grew older, I stopped seeing stories in the air as sparks of light. Poems were no longer an exotic type of sweetness on my tongue. The music of words didn’t swell in my body. In the midst of all the chaos of junior year I neglected to make time for myself just to sit down and write. Whenever I wrote it was for a class, for a grade, not for myself. This led me done an unpleasant path of being disconnected from most of my works. I thought that I would never be inspired to write again. But recently I read a poem called “Parsley” by: Rita Dove for my author project. On the first read I didn’t understand what was going on at all, but by the end of the fifth read I was devouring the words. Some of them tasted too cliché. Some of them were too intense. However, most of them, to my surprise, tasted like chocolate, soft and rich, deep and smooth. They had filled an appetite that I forgot I ever had. -- Stephanie Thompson, Public Relations & Marketing Editor

In light of the Douglas Anderson Writer’s Festival approaching within the next month, I decided to take time to get to know some of the featured authors before working with them. Janice Eidus in particular stood out to me. She specializes in fiction, but has also written essays. In The Wanderer, an essay published in the New York Times that deeply explores the directions her life has gone up until now, she illustrates how shifts in her environment from her youth into adulthood fluidly, unraveled the milestones in her life and sparked endless imagination of her future, which continued beyond the end of the essay, off the page—as all of our stories do. Even before plunging alongside her into this moving world of crumbling staircases, alcoves, and music on rooftops, when I felt I knew her at least on the surface as an “honorary Jewish Puertorriqueña,” I found her fascinating. She was raised in the Gun Hill projects of the northeast Bronx, where she and her friends devoted themselves to the promise of an education, as well as the toughness of the streets. After college, she sought the Bohemian lifestyle which would infatuate her for years to come. I could see from the beginning how influenced she was by her surroundings, and realized the truth this holds for everyone, especially myself. I’ve mapped the universe around my neighborhood throughout my childhood, connecting it to the roads that trail out from my home in all directions, as if this minuscule slice of my city is right smack in the center of everything. I’ve caught myself carrying out internal monologues in the lyrical British of my best friend, whose accent molds seamlessly into her words and occasionally slips into her questions. I’ve spent long nights huddled on the floor of my bathroom, like Eidus when the walls of her studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen proved too small, to sit with myself a while and breathe. As childhood friends vanished and a life-long love from a noisy walk-up on the Bowery appeared, Eidus saw more shifts. She named a new building her home, occupied with dancers and musicians and a woman who mothered her cats among other hobbies. She moved upstate and eventually found her way back to Manhattan. Unlike her, I’ve remained rooted in the same spot since birth. My parents bought our simple stucco home with a baby in mind, and while much of it has changed, the carpet is worn with wisdom and wandering feet like paws kneading on old pillows. Being so grounded, I’ve become significantly blurred by the present and its quick movement. It’s left me with little head space to dream of my future. But Eidus reminded me that dreaming is necessary and inevitable. So is the aimless wandering that is required of life’s destinations. I see them as plot points on a map, each preparing feverishly in a sort of time lapse for the moment you will reach them. She hopes for a stroll along the Promenade and an afternoon on the playground with her daughter, as I do for a sunroom cluttered with monstrous canvases and books. Her words encourage me to watch my present, the gasping whirlwind, with eyefuls of dreams and hope. She encourages me to peer out from the palm trees to the vast expanse of rooftops and mountains, and to wander there. -Alexis Williams, Junior Editor-in-Chief

Winter represents to us the traditions we love and the beginnings we create. This year, we welcomed an almost entirely new staff, and learned as much as they did in the process of making the first book. We built from the framework that was laid previously, and are proud to represent the publication in its 30th year. At this point last year, I was terrified of this position: responsible for every part and piece coming together by deadline.  I was confident in my ability to contribute, but not to run the show.  Teaching a completely new group of staff members made the task more daunting. In reality, the situation was ideal and allowed for us to take the publication in any direction we wanted. I allowed myself to be comfortable with all aspects of growth, including starting from the ground. I’m proud of what each member of Élan accomplished this go-round, and honored to have the opportunity to watch their growth, as well as the magazine’s. -Jordan Jacob, Senior Editor-in-Chief

When working within a publication with as long a history as Élan, it’s easy to forget how complicated and interwoven tradition is. For 30 years, this magazine has collected and judged student writing and art under the supervision of teachers and students. There have been dozens of print issues, ranging from handwritten construction-paper projects to typewriter printouts, from small wads of paper custom-printed for Extravaganza to professionally produced full-color journals. Hundreds of staff members have worked on the magazine, and thousands of authors have given their work to the custody of the advisors, the editors, and the staff members of Élan. It’s easy to forget. You work on only the most recent content, the newest poems, stories still in such rough drafts that writers will change entire plotlines when asked to. For those submitting work, it’s the same concept. Writing is new—it’s unique, it’s singular for the person creating it. Even if a long tradition of writing exists for a form or a character type or a style, the work feels like it only exists in a moment. Still, over time I realized how much my own writing had benefitted from the ideas and works of other authors—never from my contemporaries as much as from long dead authors who had been all but forgotten in the modern day. It was thinking about tradition that made me want to investigate the history and lineage of Élan. To understand my role in the publication and the role of the work we were creating, I knew I had to look to the past and see where we had come from. It started in 1986 with the first edition. Élan began as a letter-size stapled magazine, supervised by the English department with advisors that included Ms. Lynch and Mr. Lipp. Each piece was type-written and Xeroxed into the actual magazine, often with strange but eye-catching layout and almost always accompanied by illustrations, not by contributing artists but by the staff members themselves. The cover is blocky, grungy, impressively raw. The art is black and white, simple, almost primitive in its action and emotion. But the most impressive part of the first edition is the writing. One would think that writing so unpolished and unprofessional, so unguided by the structures of a formal department, would be hard to read—spiky, sharp. And one would be right—the poems often rhyme, the stories are simple, and the style overall is what one would expect from any high school, not an arts magnet. But the honesty of the writing still shows. An essay from an English class, strange as it would be in our Élan, feels like it has a place in the first edition because it was written with care and passion. Passion sums up the first Élan. It was simple, it was D.I.Y., but the people making it cared about writing. They cared so much that they started a magazine. It’s our job to continue that tradition of caring and passion—even if it feels rote and mechanical, art began and still begins in a place of creative excitement. -Jacob Dvorak, Senior Fiction Editor

A few years ago I discovered the poet, Jamaal May doing a spoken word piece on Button Poetry, which I recommend checking out, "Movements of a Trapped Animal." I instantly became drawn to the rawness and honesty he achieves in the poem and knew that was something I wanted to achieve in my own writing. Hearing that he was coming to Writers Fest on March 5th was incredibly exciting and I really can’t wait to meet him and be able to learn from someone who has achieved the art of being able to do spoken word and write poetry really well while also keeping them in very separate worlds. He started out being better known for his slam poetry, being a member of six national slam teams, most from Detroit where he grew up and one from New York. He has won the Rustbelt Regional Slam three times and has been a finalist for many national and international slams. When I first heard his piece, "Movements of a Trapped Animal," I was just flipping through Button Poetry on YouTube. Listening to spoken word pieces is one of my favorite past times. I almost skipped past it because I assumed it was going to be about hunting or trapping and that didn’t exactly appeal to me, but I listened anyways. His presence on stage immediately eases you into the piece, welcomes you. He is comfortable and it allows you to fall whole heartedly into the piece, something many spoken word artists still work at achieving, something I still work at achieving. His purposeful hand gestures, full voice, inflection, and well-placed pauses force you to listen as he takes you on the journey of PTSD in Americans, not just war veterans, but everyone. Also on Button Poetry is his piece, "Sky Now Black with Birds," which he performs in his hometown Detroit at the Rustbelt Regional Slam. He walks us through the feelings of grief and the anger that comes with it and the eventual acceptance that one needs to forgive. "Forgive. I swear, the word has feathers. I want to learn to get its wings between my teeth before more retribution blots out the sky." I ordered his poetry collection, "Hum," online. It was the first thing I had read and enjoyed in a long time because it was something I was genuinely interested in. It wasn’t an assignment or anything, I read it because I wanted to. I want to be able to walk up to him at Writers Festival and tell him his poetry has made a difference in my poetry. I will also be able to tell him that I’ve spent the time I should have spent writing, reading and listening to his work. I hope he takes that as a compliment. -Madison Dorsey, Junior Poetry Editor

This year has been a busy one to say the least. With AP tests coming up and junior year winding down, the juniors are starting to think of our goodbyes to the seniors on staff. It is difficult to describe the experiences I have had this year on staff as one of the editors-in-chief, and I want this post to stay true to those experiences that I will never forget. Emily Cramer- Has taught me that it is okay to cry and laugh about it when InDesign is attempting to save a file. She has taught me that senioritis is a lie, it is a code name for giving up, and that I should never let it affect me. She has taught me that I should always be kind, but firm in my decisions and to believe in myself. Emily Leitch- Has taught me that it is okay to talk to a computer when it is not doing what you want it to. She has taught me that it is okay to stand up for what I believe in, even when everyone else thinks something different. She has taught me how to express my emotions, and how to enjoy life to the fullest. Raegen Carpenter- Has taught me that laughing is something to be done loudly and proudly and that I can always find something funny in a serious moment. Brittanie Demps- Has taught me that hard work pays off, and to never give up on what I am trying to accomplish, no matter what gets thrown at me. Kiera Nelson- Has taught me that being sassy can still be classy and that I should always accept my mistakes gracefully and be willing to fix them the next time around. Emily Jackson- Has taught me that poetry can change my life (her poetry to be exact) and that any moment can be turned into a poem if it has raw emotion connected to it. Haley Hitzing- Has taught me that being organized pays off, and that when I say I am going to do something, I should always follow through with it. Makenzie Fields- Has taught me how to effectively communicate with other people without being afraid to say how I feel and that I need to stick with a plan once I have made it. Zoe DeWitt- Has taught me that being opinionated is okay, and that I should always be excited for tomorrow. I want to thank all the seniors for everything they have taught me this year. I will miss all of you dearly, but I know the class of 2015 will handle your legacy with care because of how well you taught us. – Sarah Buckman, Editor in Chief

One writer of Douglas Anderson Writers’ Festival 2016 who I cannot wait to meet is Harrison Scott Key. He has been published in an array of magazines, my personal favorite being McSweeney’s, and writes about what often feels like personal memories through a view of both nostalgia and hilarity. When studying hardcore literature, it is easy to forget the value of humor writing. Key’s work brings both literary value and laughs into the same world. For example, his piece “Fifty Shades of Greyhound” depicts the unsightly experience of riding a bus across the states in a way that is both creatively descriptive and hilarious. An example of this blend can be found in the following line: “It was his hair, though, that was most worthy of note, for his large sunburned head was home to two quite opposing hairstyles: the front hemisphere shorn to stubble, the rear running wild in thick fields of ripe, silvery wheat, the two halves divided by a perfect prime meridian of barbering, as though he had jumped from the barber’s chair mid-haircut, having been alerted of more denim in the area.” The word choice “alerted” is already enough to make me laugh pretty hard, but when combined with the preceding image, I felt like I was choking in a jovial fashion. I have shared the works of Mr. Key more than the works of any other writer, because while you normally have to match up someone’s personal interests with the works you recommend to them, everyone likes to laugh. I have even shared his works with some of my family. If you know me, you also know that I do not share anything with my family. The only work they see from me is the stuff that gets published, and even then I tend to stay quiet. But I couldn’t sleep on the works of Mr. Key. I immediately showed his piece “The Wishbone” to my father, who thought the piece was “pretty damn funny.” Still, the most instrumental thing toward my love of Mr. Key was my first impression of the writer. The first thing that I saw pertaining to Mr. Key was his profile picture on the Writers’ Festival website. (Upon later inspection, I would realize that this picture also takes up a majority of the home screen on his personal website.) The picture shows him holding a book and whispering into the ear of a massive animal, which is mounted to a wall and wearing a cool hat. The animal could be some sort of mutated cow, pertaining to his account of cows in the piece “The Imaginary Farm.” Regardless of exactly what the each component of the picture refers to, the picture is what first made me fall in love with this writer. I can trust a man who talks to taxidermy projects. -Logan Monds, Junior Social Media Editor

This year, Élan made its official debut into the social media world. Quickly. We created an Instagram while simultaneously cleaning up our Facebook and Twitter account all in a matter of a few weeks. Our goal is to reach out to other young writers and student publications, like us and give them the chance to be published in one of our editions. With this comes a lot of hard work. And a lot of self promotion. Each day we update our social media sites. We aim to give insight on our staff and what our day-to-day tasks are. We pick D.A. alumni pieces to highlight Élan's best work done in previous editions as well as pieces from newer editions. The writing that we choose highlights the standard of work we wish to receive. It’s not about the number of followers we have; it’s about the number of people we are able to reach out to. This year, we have a lot in store for Élan. We are looking to publish national and international work, exceeding our previous expectations. Social media is a busy everyday job, but one that leaves endless possibilities and rewards. -- Haley Hitzing and Madison George; Social Media Editors