When I took on the position of Editor here at Iris, I felt very hesitant to use phrases like “editorial vision” when referring to my goals for the magazine. Part of that may have come from your standard, run-of-the-mill case of imposter syndrome making me believe my vision couldn’t possibly be important enough to voice out loud. A lot of it was based in my own hesitancy to overwrite the voices of our writers, and their vision. With 8 months of hindsight, I can say that I do have at least a loose vision for this publication: I want our writers to get weird! I want to see experimental, risky, nuanced pieces that get to the heart of the topics other publications aren’t talking about. In the interest of achieving this goal, and pushing our writers out of their comfort zone, I set forth a challenge for this issue: that each writer take on a form or genre that they have never tried before, and that they support each other’s articles through peer editing. And I must say, they did not disappoint.
Kicking off this week’s issue, Miriella Jiffar takes on an ambitious project in fiction by rewriting a prologue to the Greek myth of Perseus and Andromeda, from Andromeda’s perspective. “Andromeda: A Myth Written in the Stars” is an exploration of gendered power dynamics within the family, and an indictment of all the many painters, poets, and artists who have overwritten her agency time and time again in their own imaginings of the myth. The added context, in this case, gives way to new perspectives, and a more rich form of storytelling. Hailey Robbins also takes a special interest in context, in “Out of Pocket, In Context” she lists disrespectful comments made towards women, by men, before the who, what, when, and where of the encounter. In a world so focused on quotes being taken out of context to obscure their meaning, Hailey’s article is a reminder that sometimes context can make an already gross encounter even worse. In collecting these events, a picture is painted of how the little words and phrases can add up to an exhausting existence for those of us who deal with it on a daily basis.
Perspective and context does, indeed, have the power to shape our experiences as well as our understandings of the world. When Bailey Middleton found herself wondering about time, how it works, what it’s made out of, she turned to two UVA professors with their own perspectives on the topic. Her interviews with Philosophy Professor Ross Cameron and Physics Professor David Nichols are compiled in “The Essence of Time,” where their contrasting beliefs form a conversational piece, sure to blow the minds of those of us with no prior understanding of time’s complexities. In a more artistic approach to the passage of time, Jasmine Wang has written a poem about “Seven People You Already Know,” a pensive reflection on the days of the week, and each of the ways each day manifests itself in our lives. The weekly cycle we all experience can also be expanded to look at larger cycles we see play out over our lifetimes. Kiki McLaughlin compares the life cycle of friendships to the life cycle of fruits in “Rotting Fruit.” In this comparison, she illuminates the ways friendships develop as we get older, and the ways we grow through each person we meet.
It has been such a pleasure to work alongside our writers on this eclectic collection of articles. I hope you enjoy the broad range of styles and topics, just as I have. As always, special thanks to Mary Esselman, Addie Gilligan and KJ Villanueva for all your hard work.
