Katie Jane Villanueva

Compared to the fall, the spring season carries with it a palpable shift in tone. Especially speaking as a fourth-year student here at UVA, I haven’t been able to go a single week without suddenly being ambushed by a wave of “it’s almost over.”

You just are, no need to play a part

Names and Pronouns and Sexuality

Can change as easily as the seasons 

It is accepted and no less normal

The first Panic! At the Disco song I heard was, surprisingly, not “I Write Sins Not Tragedies.” I was sitting in my childhood bedroom

My fluttering feet had splashed up into the air–suspending, if just for a moment–in that beautiful, blissful moment when an overwhelming sea of blue rushed and rippled over my streamlined body as I swam in my neighborhood pool.

One bite at a time 
my mother says as it sits there 
in my kitchen 
blowing dish-soap bubbles 
through its pool-noodle nose.

It’s January 27th today. Lunar New Year’s Eve.

The streets– meaning an amalgamation of Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube, fashion websites and blogs– are predicting that the peplum dress you wore to your 7th grade promotion ceremony will be back in style sooner than you think. 

Have you ever been lit on fire? I have. Seven times precisely. Some might call it bad luck, but being set alight didn’t hurt me, it made me feel alive.

It is my firm belief that all writing is, at its core, about community. Anything worth writing about will find its most powerful moments centered around the people who care for us and the ways we care for them in return.

Let's do a little exercise. Think of the attributes women often list when talking about the guys she’s dating or has just started talking to. How does she describe him?

I was driving home on an autumn evening
Accidentally on a backroad route
Leaves turning
John Mellencamp on the radio station – I’ve always loved the oldies – 

It fills my body 
Fills my body so full of light 
I am almost bursting at the seams with 
Joy so infectious I cannot avoid it if I wanted to