Jasmine Wang

Jasmine Wang
Editorial Staff

(she/her/hers)

Jasmine is a third year double majoring in English and Political & Social Thought. She is interested in studying restorative literature, the reciprocal cycle of intergenerational trauma, and the rediscovery of pleasure following sexual trauma. In her free time, she is obsessed with baking for her friends, fueling her Tetris addiction, tying bows in her hair, and wearing platform shoes.

iris flowers

She feels an unsettling rumbling in her chest before she feels the tremor beneath her feet. She opens her face to the sky, which is now thick with billowing plumes of pearly smoke.

a crown on a green background

Our issue opens with Cheyenne Butler’s piece “What Happens in Vegas Should Stay in Vegas,” when the thin veil of adoration is trespassed.

photo of mary, miriella, and jasmine

Mary has lived many lives, as a journalist for People nagazine, a Georgetown University professor, a Discovery Channel documentarian, and a poetry anthologist, but I find her here today, as the living backbone of Iris—or more formally known as Iris Magazine’s program coordinator and editor.

hand holding letter

This issue, we are telling the "Story of Iris," which is to say we are telling the story of the writers behind Iris. We paired our writers together to write pieces about each other, for sometimes the truest reflection of ourselves is the one refracted through someone else’s eye. 

letter surrounded by flower

Dear Beloved Reader, 

I am no stranger to the Unexpected. In fact, we are now old friends, but we weren’t always so friendly. 

hand holding a letter

Dear Beloved Reader,

As the semester draws to a close, I have not only been looking forward in anticipation of frightening finals and a relaxing release, but also backwards in reflection of a tumultuous yet thrilling semester.

hands holding letters

Every year on my birthday, I write a letter addressed to myself a year from now. I click send (god bless the internet and pre-scheduled emails) and the next birthday, in reading all that I wished for myself, I am renewed with hope and visions of futurity—a gift from the past.

envelope sealed with wax amid images of iris flowers

In the fifth grade, as leaves cascaded down into a shriveled crisp and as the autumnal air descended upon us, I begged my mother to be Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween.

hand writing in the center of the page surrounded by scribbles

Dear beloved reader,

Close your eyes.

Inhale. Exhale.

How do you imagine blindness? 

envelope with iris flowers

Dear Beloved Reader,

I have a confession to make. 

It’s a secret that I’ve been quietly harboring since high school graduation. 

I was a band kid. 

image of red flowers on grey background

Most love stories begin with a hello, ours began with a ransacked lunchbox, a stolen spork, and a touch of pyromania.