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< Table of Contents To Breathe Underwater By Joyce Ma A small, rectangular, pink highlight on my calendar, unremarkable at first glance, marked with the initials ‘HI’; not for hello, but for Hawaii. From explorers charting unknown waters to the mythical sirens whose songs beckoned the brave to venture beyond the familiar, I, too, was ready to embrace the call of the deep: I would finally master the ability to snorkel. 8 years ago, amidst a summer ablaze with China’s relentless heat, I found myself at a summer camp, ready for the day's activity: snorkeling. We snorkeled in a pool shaped with gentle curves, a slice of the ocean itself, oddly placed among laughter and sun-kissed faces. Children, unified in a sea of matching swimsuits, gathered to learn the art of breathing underwater. Snorkeling, they said, was simple: through your mouth, not your nose. A task so mundane on land, transformed underwater into a challenge that I simply could not master. We have all heard of the cliché of fish out of water. I was whatever the equivalent to that is in water. Each attempt was a gasp and a sputter, desperately returning to the surface where the air was too abundant to cherish. My memory of camp is one of lungs heaving, drowning in the very element I sought to explore. 3 years ago, during a family vacation to the enchanting Xel-Há Park in Cancun, I faced the azure skies and crystalline light blue waters that met the lush tropical jungle, armed with a sense of adventure and a checklist of essentials. Xel-Há mandatory life jacket? Check. Diving mask settled snugly over my eyes? Check. The one-time use snorkel tube, alongside fins that promised agility in the water, were all accounted for. With natural beauty unfolding before me, this second snorkeling attempt was less about exploring underwater marvels than it was a battle with the equipment itself. The mouthpiece, rather than being an extension of my breath, hung awkwardly in my mouth. It proved as effective as trying to sip the ocean through a paper straw: soon turning soggy and useless. With nothing to do but chew on the tube, I defeatedly swam above the surface, convincing myself there wasn’t much to see at the bottom anyway. Watching the stunning videos of Hanauma Bay in Hawaii, I was determined to snorkel once and for all. Plunging to the depths allowed by the reef's boundary, I encountered coral formations tinged dark brown, their somber color possibly a testament to the impacts of human intrusion over the years. The neon-highlighter fish—unfazed—became our guide through this foreboding world. Each section of coral was uniquely sculpted: statues within an underwater museum, every piece telling ancient stories, silent testaments to the ocean's vast, untold history. Yet, the ocean’s boundless depths and seeming emptiness serve as its greatest masquerade, a realm not bound by the sediment layers of time as the mountains and volcanoes are, but a fluid historian, endlessly swallowing secrets, erasing and reshaping its narrative with each wave. It leaves no trace. My sister and I swam as waves passed over us. Beneath the surface, we moved as shadows, our forms cutting through the clear, sunlit water. Just two specks amidst the eternity, our bodies buoyed and swayed with the ocean’s waves. Our snorkels, thin lifelines to the world above, bobbed in the ebb and flow. We were cradled by the current. “It was a dance of give and take, breathing in unison with the sea.” My focus tightened as I followed the fish, which felt like a mesmerizing guide from a fairy tale leading me on a path. The rubber mouthpiece, initially foreign, gradually became an extension of myself, like gills. It was a dance of give and take, breathing in unison with the sea. To breathe in this underwater realm was to walk a fine line between exploration and surrender, where every breath was a delicate balance—a reminder that to breathe underwater was the essence of drowning. This act of breathing, so effortless on land, becomes a conscious part of your existence, connecting you to life underwater. Now, reflecting, I realize that this act of breathing, so deliberate and mindful underwater, mirrored the ebb and flow of life itself. When I didn’t think about how I couldn’t breathe, or didn’t know how to breathe through my mouth, I unnoticeably could do it. The ocean taught me that to breathe beneath its surface was to engage in a delicate dance with nature, to find my rhythm in the vastness, and to understand that I was a part of something far greater than myself. Yet, it also meant standing at the mercy of forces far beyond my control, where the only thing I have control over is the very act I often overlook: breathing. Those final moments of snorkeling were when I went with the flow of water and discovered fish with their kaleidoscope scales, shifting and flickering with each movement. In the dense silence, punctuated only by the sound of my breathing, I discovered a profound sense of unity with all that surrounded me. The fish, the coral, and my sister beside me—breathing together in a shared rhythm. Suspended in the sea’s weightless calm, we were reminded that we were guests in the presence of a world far older and different than ours. Alan Watts argues we are not just a part of the cosmos but also its substance, rising out of it like waves from the ocean. Snorkeling doesn’t just embrace this idea, it embodies it, one breath at a time. About the Writer... Joyce Ma is a current senior at Collingwood School in Vancouver, Canada. When she isn’t writing, she can be found readin g thrillers or baking cookies.

No Fresh Air Ana Rosenthal Choppy brown hair falls over his eyes, Like a curtain blocking out the world, Like he likes it. Hand-me-down clothes, muted colors, Like he likes it. He attracts no attention, Just the way he likes it. He forces his thin, shaky legs To feel like boulders As he takes a step forward And breathes in the fresh air. The air of his new life. Return to Piece Selection

< Back Fish Out of Water by Stefani Thomas I’d never seen anything like it—her before. And I didn’t want to see anything like her again. The Genetic Dawn By Hannes Duncan The glass doors slid open as we approached. I followed Doctor Raj through the laboratory, passing by meticulously spotless workstations and occupied containment centers. We walked too fast for me to get a glimpse of their inhabitants. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw vivid flashes of color from each of them —blue, purple, red. Interesting , I thought. When I visited the lab just last week, they were empty. Nonetheless, these flashes were almost relieving to see, as the lab walls were painted a dreary shade of hospital white. Similarly to a hospital, the atmosphere smelled strongly of anti-bacterial wipes and other chemicals that stung my nostrils. My shoes squeaked against the tile as I trailed behind the doctor, clipboard in hand, as usual. Suddenly, we came to a stop in front of one of the containment centers. The doctor, and olive-skinned man with thinning silver hair and insidious eyes, motioned toward the glass, signaling for me to take a look. Avidly, I glanced inside, but my stomach immediately dropped when I laid my eyes on the containment's inhabitant. “Doctor, what the hell is that?” The words came out without me thinking— they almost sounded like a cry for help. The doctor let out something close to a laugh while my jaw hung loose. “Her name is Charlotte. And she is our very first successful mutant,” he exclaimed, his voice drowning in pride. I stared at it—her—in a belligerent awe. "Jesus," was the only word that managed to escape my mouth amongst my wonderstruck state. Peering at me on the other side of the bulletproof glass was a creature with the body of a young human girl, maybe eight years old, but just about everything else about her was dreadfully wrong. Her skin, which was no skin at all but rather scales, shone blue and yellow under the lights within her containment center. Her eyes shared the same circumference as a soda can; her pupils filled three-fourths of her watery, dull gray irises. The eyes themselves were completely miserable and lifeless. Her lips were thin, almost paper-like, with their sharp-as-a-blade edges. The hair atop her head was a straggly, dark shade of umber pulled into two pigtails tied together with white ribbons. Dr. Raj's assistants had also dressed her in a flowy skirt and white tank top, but I didn't think any amount of clothes could cover the sheer alienness of her being or humanize her in any way. I’d never seen anything like it—her before. And I didn’t want to see anything like her again. Coming to terms with the fact—that this was real—was the hardest part of my entire visit to Dr. Raj's laboratory. He'd called me in to oversee his cross-species genetics research and report back to my superiors, but I was too overwhelmed to write notes or take any photographs. My clipboard hung in my stunned grip, nervous sweat soaking into the paper clipped on it. I was no stranger to this line of work, as I conducted the same trials that Dr. Raj had years ago, but where Dr. Raj was successful, I was not. I had tried to cure my daughter, Mona, of the cancer that had lodged itself in her lungs using sloth DNA. In her transformation, she never reached the point where she looked like a mutant, like Charlotte. In all honesty, her hair color changed slightly, and she developed a slight amount of thin, light facial hair. But, in the end, she was never cured. I made her worse. Her life was lost, and my desire to continue any other cross-species genetics experiments perished with her. “What does she share her DNA with?” I finally managed to ask, peeling my dumbstruck gaze away from the mutant and finally facing the doctor. “Her DNA has been paired with that of a zebrafish.” Dr. Raj replied, pompously. He folded his hands across his hands across his chest slowly. His hooded eyes were impossible to read, though the indented wrinkles in his brow told me all I needed to know about his work; it drained the life out of him. I almost laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Why, of all things, a zebrafish?” In the doctor’s hesitation, a light bulb went off in my head; I knew why. Of course I knew why. Dr. Raj stiffened and slid his hands into his lab coat pockets. “A zebrafish has the ability to regenerate cells and tissue at will, Mr. Holland. I couldn't think of anyone who would need this gift more than a Parkinson's patient, as their dopamine-producing brain cells re deteriorating with every passing moment. You understand how Parkinson's affects the brain, correct?" I nodded, slightly irritated with his patronizing demeanor. “So, are you saying that Charlotte has Parkinson’s?” I pressed, turning away from the doctor and looking back at the girl. She sat in the middle of the containment center with her legs to her chest and her chin pressed atop her knees. Her mouth was curled downwards. She looked pitifully miserable, nearing cowardly. I began to wonder if she had any idea that she'd come out of Dr. Raj's trials looking like that. I almost felt sorry for the thing. “No, sir. She doesn’t. Not anymore.” About the Author... Hannes Duncan is a senior studying creative writing at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. He is the Senior Genre Editor of Élan Literary Magazine and a co-director of the writing department’s annual collaborative showcase, Coffee House. He is an avid sci-fi writer and enjoys poetry of all kinds. Besides writing, he also has affinities for music and photography. About the Artist... Stefani Thomas is a 12th grade Visual Artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She primarily works in the mediums of drawing and painting, where she expresses herself through bright colors and flowing patterns. Previous Next

Ephemeral by Jayci Bryant You Used to Know How to Dance (Really Well) Somewhere, outside of my conscious memory, I am two years old and I am helping make peppermint chocolate frogs. Before my mom moves across the country away from my dad, they have a small chocolate business. We have a house in Sedona, Arizona, and steps away from the door is the Chocolate Kitchen. From borrowed memories, the kitchen is silver and grey and light blue. There are the countertops of stainless steel and cold marble, to assist in tempering and various other chocolate pursuits. Here, a large melting pot. Here, the fridge. A smart-looking freezer stands next to the fridge, and the floor is cold to the touch, even in the heat of an Arizona summer. The walls are lined with giant racks of cacao powder, cacao butter, and Belgian truffle moulds. “and I will finally hold on to memories of my own, of two different flavors: Arizona as cinnamon, Florida as saltwater taffy.” In these borrowed memories, I am very small with whisps of light blonde hair and bright blue eyes. My dad is tall, lanky, and bald, with a loud laugh and clever fingers, and my mom is the same, but with some of the blonde hair I inherited. She wears summer dresses and platform flipflops, and my dad wears loud colorful shirts. I wear soft dresses and whatever I want, a Cinderella dress on an August afternoon, because I am too young still to be judged for those things. Here, in memories I will never have, we are happy. The frogs are happy too, I think, because they have little speckles of white chocolate on their backs, because I am the one who picked peppermint, and because I think that everything must be happy when I am. My mom returned us to Jacksonville, Florida some months later. It is not the first time we have come, and it will not be the last time we will leave here together, but this time our center of gravity is a small pink beach house with a tire swing on the big magnolia in the back. I will grow up here, and in other small houses, and I will only cry at night for my dad for a year. I will be another year and another year and another year older, and I will finally hold on to memories of my own, of two different flavors: Arizona as cinnamon, Florida as saltwater taffy. There are only a few good cinnamon memories, but in this one I am still blonde and still missing my dad when I am not with him. We are on my grandmother’s yellow corduroy couch, he and I, and he is reading Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” aloud. His voice drops dramatically, and I know before he says the name that Badger has something to say. “’Foxy!’ cried Badger. ‘My goodness me, I’m glad I’ve found someone at last!’” My dad’s voice gravels and rises and I gravel and rise with it, so eager to laugh with him. Soon he’s falling asleep and I’m poking his cheek, scratchy from having shaved the day before, but I give up in favor of falling asleep too, curled up in his lap like a creature full of trust. Time passes, and my hair turns darker even as I spend more and more time in my saltwater taffy home. Cinnamon memories are soon displaced in favor of Michigan ones, tasting like licorice and something just a little wrong. Soon, my father will take me to a Coney Island (where I will order one of only a few vegetarian items—he seems to have forgotten this life-long trait of mine) and he will tell me in so many words that he wishes I had not been born. When I get home to saltwater taffy and my mom and our house with a red door and the pecan tree out front, I will cry in her arms until I fall asleep. The next day, or perhaps the days following, my mom will start telling me stories about a light blue kitchen and peppermint chocolate frogs and a dad who loved me so much he broke down in tears when I was born. She will tell me that he promised to be the world’s best father, and perhaps her voice will tighten here, but neither of us will talk about it. She does not need to tell me about the bad parts. Instead, she will tell me that when she met him, they danced really well together. She tells me about the ferocity of his joy, and the quick passion of his interests. I will listen, even though I know nothing about the man she describes. The man she met, who wrote her poems and studied art in Italy for months, is not my father. We will both pretend he is. Often, my father will tell me he is going to change. In one licorice memory he will take me to a small diner in downtown Lapeer, order me a hot chocolate and a blondie, and apologize, telling me he has realized the error of his ways. He will reach for my hand with fingers that are no longer clever, but I will clutch my mug like it could take me away from this moment. Still, though, I am young, here, and I will want so dearly to believe him, a creature of hopeless hope. I have so little proof of my own that he can be good. 15 years after my mom and I moved away, when I am less than a month from 18 and I am finally learning that none of this was my fault, my father will call me. I will ignore it, but his voicemail will apologize for neglecting to love me as he should. His voice is flat, and his pauses are long enough that it feels like he didn’t plan this at all. He promises to seek out more ways to show his love to me, says he’s proud of me, and that he thinks I have a lot to offer to the world. Seven, five, even three years ago, I would have called him right back and heard him out, crying as he finally said what I had always needed to hear. But this is not then, and I know that I am worthy of praise, that I am talented and brave and strong. I have proved these things to myself, and that’s all I need. So when my father leaves me this two and a half minute voicemail of hollow praise, a last-ditch effort at fatherhood, I will laugh. There is nothing else to do.

< Back Foreign Accent Syndrome by Colson Gomez Hair plastered to my mouth; virid leaves drowned to cracks in the road And waxy crayon sank into cement like a sob. ersatz memories By Olivia Shin A year and ten summers passed me by I, reflected in the tall windows that surround high-rise buildings, drink The sun cracked into oxtail soup melting cloudy, wispy mornings Ladled up into my head A piping hot memory broth. In July, rains slithered down the hills– fat tears preceding wrathful downpours The mountains keeled over with a great heave Hair plastered to my mouth; virid leaves drowned to cracks in the road And waxy crayon sank into cement like a sob. There were languorous days too; warm shadows crisscrossing the room I lay on my back behind a watchful old couch, to see Fluttering telephone lines that kiss the wood floors And the air conditioner that whistles with a bright blue grin. I am American. But the sparrows in Seoul, They don’t seem to know; not by my long shorts-hands-folded-hair-crumpled shirt Not by my couldn’t-care-less-don’t-know-maybe-so attitude Or by the look I give them. A long-awaited “homecoming.” The bus driver announces the next stops From his mouth drop round honey syllables, tongue flat, teeth hidden, warm barley tea A middle-schooler behind me slips in earbuds, voice low under the rattle of the handles I try to laugh a Korean laugh, click selfies, fingers, lips Everyone stared; how unrefined! That day– every day– they sprawl across the sidewalk like cats. “They” as a collective, seeking to belong among the shiny hair wispy bangs beige academy tote Bubblegum, lip-glossed, black baseball-capped Girls in loose gray sweatpants Girls in white starched uniform tops, not quite see-through in this weeping heat But instead it’s me, so transparent That even the visor-sporting ajummas on the corner don’t see me. Between mile-high skyscrapers I used to crane up towards crumbling stars, dark and smoked with overseas pollution, shining across the Han river Now we’re miles from the coast, hills rolling to the end of the horizon Yet this atmospheric sea is beyond belief– blindingly, dazzlingly, soul-crushingly Californian. Really, though, who am I to talk? About the Author... Olivia Shin is a junior at Maria Carrillo High School. She is an editor for Polyphony Lit, and the proud owner of a second-hand typewriter that annoys her family when she writes at night. When she is not studying or going down various rabbit-holes, she also enjoys playing the violin and reading classic novels. In her opinion, the world could use a bit more whimsy at any given moment. About the Artist... Colson Gomez is a Senior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She has begun to dabble in embroidery and fiber arts, though her heart lies with drawing and painting. Previous Next

What Happened to Us by Dion Hines How to: make it to room 404 by Chloe Pancho Step #1 . Say hello to the man at the counter. He says hello back and tells you to say hello to your mother for him as well. You promise that you will. Get your temperature taken beside the front door. You didn’t know how to use the machine the first time you came in contact with it. You stood as close to it as you possibly could, thinking that was the only way for it to check your temperature properly. He was the one to correct you and say that there was no need to get so close. A full twelve inches in front was ideal. You laughed and thanked him and now you look forward to your quick greetings. “Don’t forget to say hello to any of the staff or any other breathing person that exits out of the elevators, assume they crave just as much comfort as you do.” Step #2 . Make your way towards the hallway on his right and onto your left. Walk past a water fountain and a gender-neutral bathroom until you ultimately reach the elevators. Press the button to ascend towards the higher floors and wait until one of them opens for you. Don’t forget to say hello to any of the staff or any other breathing person that exits out of the elevators, assume they crave just as much comfort as you do. Once inside the elevator, press the button etched with the number 4 and make your way towards the ER where Mama is most likely to be sleeping. Step #3 . Introduce yourself once again. (Note: The ER is separated from the rest of the hospital by two heavy-set metal doors. On the wall is a white intercom in which each individual must push to announce their presence and reason why they would like to enter the ER.) Reiterate your first and last name, as unlike the man at the front, you are never fully able to recognize the voice that is on the other side. Tell the face-less figure that you are here to visit your mother. They request for your mother’s name and ask you to wait as they confirm that the patient knows of your existence. Step #3 .5. You imagine a life in which her accident never happened. Step #4 . Listen to the unfamiliar voice as it announces that you are permitted to see your own mother. They instruct you to stand back as they open the doors, but before the sentence is finished, take three steps back as you are used to these procedures. The first sight you encounter once you enter the ER is an empty gurney stationed in front of the first room. You remember it as the room for the unconscious woman. The woman looked the same age as your mother, dark hair just like your mother as well, you don’t know how to describe her eyes as you have never actually seen them open. You expect to see her today, but yet she is not there. Her room is completely empty. The bed wiped of its sheets, the curtains drawn dark. You want to ask one of the nurses what happened to her, ifshe is okay. But you do not. Step #5 . Smile. You finally make it to your mother’s room. Your father is inside along with your mother's registered nurse. They both say hello to you as they adjust the tube that is going to be feeding your mother lunch today. Keep smiling. Your father leaves your mother in the nurses’ care as he comes over to hug you. He asks you if you are okay and how school was today. Smile at him and tell him that everything is okay. Your mother finishes her lunch a little after you and your father are done conversing. The nurse reassures the two other conscious people in the small room that your mothers vitals are finally starting to look better. She soon leaves the three of you alone. Look at your mother. There are wires and multi-colored lines wrapping around her body, all with their specific use and purpose to keep your mother here. It is then when you notice truly how much weight your mother has lost. She has always been a small woman. Standing at a mere 5’2 most of her life, she looks even smaller now, frail, fragile almost. Her eyes are sunken in, hands slender to the point of concern. She looks almost dead. “The man at the front told me to say hello to you,” you tell her. Massage her forearms as you remember Papa telling you they were bothering her during your last visit. She doesn’t respond. You didn’t expect her too. Step #6 . Close your eyes. Papa’s lap will act like a pillow for you tonight. The denim of his jeans scratch the side of your cheek, and his thighs are bony like chopsticks, but you will cling onto any form of familiarity life is willing give to you. Listen to the local news playing on the hospital TV along with the constant buzz of the heart monitor sitting beside your mother’s bed, telling you that it is okay to go to sleep, that your mother will still be right there, in her bed, when you wake up.

< Table of Contents Still Holding On by Andie Crawford The Myth By Hannah Rouse Mermaids, much like humans, have fingers so they can thread through seaweed. The only differences are their shimmery, scaly tails and magical lungs or gills or whatever they use to breathe underwater. Maybe their skin is seafoam green, and their fins like stained glass with the texture of damp leaves. In my head, they look just like in the stories and the movies. They’re out there somewhere, singing ships to sleep. Perfect and perched on jagged rocks. Dancing in waves that collapse into nothing. They fall in love with sailors and revel in the wreckage of storms. They’re not afraid of sharks or the vast, aqua emptiness that is their home. *** I always wanted to be a mermaid. Even when I wouldn’t swim in the pool unless my parents checked it for spiders and frogs. I wore Disney Princess floaties on my arms, a small inflatable tube on my stomach, and green and blue goggles to protect my eyes from the sting of salt water. I wouldn’t put my head underwater until I was five or six years old, when an older girl asked to play mermaids with me. After that, I finally managed to dip my skull beneath the ripples. My long, brown hair, pulled lovingly into a braid by my mother, once dry, dripped with dreams of my legs merging together and growing gold or green scales. *** I used to reenact the giant rock scene from The Little Mermaid at the mini-golf course. I sang “Part of Your World” softly to myself. The rough surfaces scratched at my skin but all I could think about was swimming with Flounder, about having a dinglehopper. At seven years old, I still wanted a Snarfblatt more than anything in the world. My new room at my grandparents' beach house was decorated entirely by myths: dolls, ornaments, signs, and miniature statues. With my toes in the sand, I observed the whitecaps breaking in the distance, wondering when I’d see her for real. *** There is a painting hanging on my wall: a mermaid sits on a rock, arm outstretched toward a white unicorn—beach waves in her hair, a pale gray seashell bra, and a glittery green tail. The sky behind them swirls, pink and purple around a flaming sun. But their reflections show them as they are. A girl and a horse under a boring blue sky, fantasizing about a life where they could be something magical. *** “I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells.” Until I was thirteen, I wore a full-length pink mermaid tail in the pool. Exhilarated by the sensations of gliding, slicing through the thick water. I took my hair down and let it float behind me in the chlorine, a cloud of thin brown strands with a mind of their own. I pretended that my swimsuit was made from scallop shells. Imagined that I was fearless enough to swim, not in the confinement of a pool, but engulfed in the ocean’s cerulean darkness. *** “I’ll give you a dollar to stand by that shark,” Mimi said, pointing to Tommy, the giant fifty-foot statue of my worst fear, whose gaping mouth was the entrance to Jaws Resortwear. I didn’t look at him, but knew all too well what the store and Tommy looked like. Beady, black eyes. His sharp teeth pointed at any poor soul who wanted to enter. All the windows next to him were covered in towels with the terrifying creatures printed on the front. Other sharks, Tommy’s friends, I presumed, were posed to look like they rose through the concrete, their faces full of hunger. I shook my head. Just the thought of standing anywhere near the store made me sick. “Five dollars,” she smiled. I did not. “Ten dollars?” I wouldn’t have stood by the door of Jaws Resortwear for anything. She upped the offer to twenty, thirty, then finally, forty. I always refused. For the rest of the week-long vacation, Mimi tried to make that same deal each time we passed Tommy, the ominous entrance to the store. Not once did I budge. Not once did I even think about actually letting her take the picture of me standing in Tommy’s mouth. On the surface, this is why I cannot live in the ocean. *** For him, my bra was not made of seashells, but rather of wires and lace and polyester. I did not have a tail. My hair draped across the armrest as if again just released from its braid, free to float. I reveled in the way he looked at me. Perhaps he was just a shark, like Tommy, and I just never noticed his bloodthirsty mouth. Or maybe he was the ocean. Seaweed limbs wrapping around me. Hands all over, the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish searching for something shiny in a shipwreck. But he found nothing worth loving in the rotting planks of wood. Drowning in the stained leather of the couch, I began to see myself as the reflection in the painting. The reality. No magical lungs or gills or whatever the mermaids would use to breathe in the chaos of the ocean if they were real. Nothing more than a girl trying to touch something that looks mythic, magic, but is just as raw, as real as she is. *** Now, I don’t dare go in the ocean. Not a single painted toenail touches the seafoam. Even pools scare me when I can’t feel the floor below me. The concrete scraped holes in the thin fabric of the pretend mermaid tail I outgrew. But I still think if I stare at the ocean for long enough, I’ll see the sparkle of a mermaid's fin somewhere in the distance. So, I watch the waves closely, waiting for my girlhood to return. About the Writer... Hannah Rouse is a junior Literary Arts major at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. She has been published in Asgard, Fledge, Under The Madness, Appelley, Free Spirit, and You Might Need to Hear This. She won runner-up in Georgia Southern University’s High School Writing Contest, as well as fiv e G old Keys, a Silver Key, and five Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She received first prize nationally for the Sarah Mook Poetry Contest in 2023. Hannah is also a competitive dancer and enjoys spending time with her two cats. About the Artist... Andie Crawford is a 12th grade visual artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Her best mediums are drawing and painting.

Élan presents the winners of its annual Middle School Writing Contest. Winners archived up to 2019. Middle School Writing Contest Élan celebrates the work of students between 6th and 8th grades in our annual Middle School Writing Contest. Learn how to compete We Still Have a Heart in Ourselves Indie Pascal 1st Place View More Our Cafeteria Dimitria Banov Russo Honorable Mention View More Oblivion Greta Reis 2nd Place View More No Fresh Air Ana Rosenthal Honorable Mention View More The Blue and Yellow Lila Hartley 3rd Place View More 2023 We Still Have a Heart in Ourselves Indie Pascal 1st Place View More Our Cafeteria Dimitria Banov Russo Honorable Mention View More Oblivion Greta Reis 2nd Place View More No Fresh Air Ana Rosenthal Honorable Mention View More The Blue and Yellow Lila Hartley 3rd Place View More 2022 on your name Cloris Shi 1st Place View More We Just Want to be Loved Riayn Smith Honorable Mention View More Dear Linh Kate Kim 2nd Place View More Blank Page Cecelia Richardson Honorable Mention View More How Lucky we Are Meredith Anglin 3rd Place View More 2021 Grief Janna Tannous 1st Place View More Untitled John Walker 3rd Place Tie View More Questions of Youth Erion P. Sanders 2nd Place View More The Roaring Himalayas Rehan Sheikh 3rd Place Tie View More 2020 Fading Marlo Herndon 1st Place Read Toby Georgia Witt Honorable Mention Read The Curious Murder of Lilliane Baldwin Hannah G. Klenck 2nd Place Read Becoming One Amelia Elder Honorable Mention Read The Castle Isabella Bolger 3rd Place Read 2019

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All Posts Craft Announcements On Élan Profiles Community Featured Blog Reflections Reviews Search Log in / Sign up Staff Aug 26, 2020 Élan Middle School Writing Contest – 2020 Winners! Élan celebrates the work of students between 6th and 8th grades in our annual Middle School Writing Contest. The winner of the contest is... Reece Braswell May 15, 2020 Tiger Games Noland Blain May 13, 2020 Stories Without Words: Samuel Pabon’s Pressure Cooker Evette Davis May 11, 2020 A Needed Intimacy: Élan, Spring 2020 Catriona Keel May 8, 2020 Vulnerability and Truth in the Spring Online Edition Jasper Darnell May 6, 2020 On “Becoming a Wishbone” by Riley Bridenback Luz Mañunga May 4, 2020 The Changing Élan Staff May 1, 2020 National Poetry Month Prompts Pamphlet – Download and Enjoy! La'Mirakle Price Apr 29, 2020 The Black Girl Duet Noland Blain Apr 27, 2020 “Mixed Emotion Elegy” Demands Understanding, Engagement Reece Braswell Apr 24, 2020 No Single Life to Live, or Way to Feel Blake Molenaar Apr 22, 2020 Morning Chat, Élan, and Life in Isolation Anna Howse Apr 20, 2020 Another Powerful Edition Sheldon White Apr 17, 2020 On “The Challenger Shuttle Disaster, 1986” by Sara Carmichael Conor Naccarato Apr 15, 2020 How to Remember–An Exercise in Eulogy Olivia Meiller Apr 13, 2020 Spring: Breathing New Life into Élan Blake Molenaar Mar 19, 2020 Writers’ Fest Through New Eyes Sheldon White Mar 17, 2020 On Writers’ Fest Ashley Chatmon Mar 11, 2020 The Importance of Writers’ Festival Reece Braswell Mar 4, 2020 Personal Truth Tags On Élan Reflections On Poetry On Writing Community growth happy trails Writers' Fest On Art Douglas Anderson Florida Jacksonville On Fiction reviews 30th Anniversary Prompts nature Yellow House On CNF Coffee House college culture friendship family Interviews Color Me Kona history National Poetry Month Nikki Giovanni Patricia Smith

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