Katie Jane Villanueva

You know what. I’ll say it. I liked working in retail. For me, most days going to work meant an opportunity to play dress up with guests, engage with the broad spectrum of the human condition, and get people to spend their money–or even better, their partners’ money.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what my life will look like after graduation. What job will I have? Will I be rich? Will I be happy? 

The Sunday night before spring break, after an Instagram direct message from my friend in Tallahassee, I decided to upend my plans to return home to wintery New Hampshire and instead travel south to sunny Florida.

My mother was born with a green ribbon wrapped around her left thumb

April has begun. The seams of March have ripped apart, and as I write this the temperatures have climbed all the way into the low 80s. Even individually, things are picking up after a March slump. I j

I stumble through life like a dehydration-addled ascetic in a desert during the apocalypse

In today’s Third Wave feminist movement, there’s a growing idea that any “choice” a woman makes, with the intention of doing so to empower herself or the women around her, is inherently “feminist.” Such ideology is referred to as “choice feminism,” and isn’t it a relief?

I recently started watching the Netflix TV series Shadow and Bone over spring break, adapted from the seven novels that span Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse.

Not long ago, I was a high school student who had assigned readings. Some novels I loved, some I hated, and many I’d forgotten about. However, four years after I read Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel The Awakening in the twelfth  grade, the piece of literature once again crossed my mind.

In the quiet nights of winter 
The air sighs with an icy chill 

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.

Monday grips a pen
Neurotic scribbles fill a blank page