Editor's Letter

BREAKING NEWS: it's not always great to be a woman. Shocking, huh? I could make a list of a quite a few things that tend to make womanhood seem more like a curse than the blessing.

Here at Iris, we strive to be a provocative magazine for thinking young women. That means we want to make you think, and give you things to think about. Here are some things you might not know:

Las Vegas just happened, and we are heartbroken and numb. What follows is the editor's note as it was written Friday, before the Sunday night massacre in Las Vegas. Already the Concert for Charlottesville seems to have happened months ago, but maybe we can hold onto the best of what it offered, and maybe we can still strive for unity, justice (gun control now!), and peace, somehow. 

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Well. It’s been quite the interesting start to the semester, huh?

Walking through Grounds the first day, knowing just days before it had been filled with torch-wielding neo-Nazis was a bit of a weird feeling.

As a fourth year, I can say that UVA being in the news is not a weird feeling. Class of 2018 has had some newsworthy scandal nearly every year since we’ve been at this University. Sometimes more than one in a year.

The Iris team is happy to announce the winner of our Essay Contest! After two months of reading through all of our amazing essay submissions, we are pleased to announce that Mr. Claude Smith's essay "Question Mark" was our 2011 winner. Mr. Smith's essay will appear in a future issue of the print edition of Iris. In the coming weeks, we will also announce our runner-up and publish that piece here on the website. Again, thank you to all who participated in our essay contest. It was a pleasure reading your work.