Personal Essay/Human Interest

Oh, Word?

Fall 2023

A Letter to All The 20-Something Women

By: Reiley Zeitler Womanhood is a constant flow of new experiences and everlasting questions. It’s about borrowing each other’s clothes and forgetting to ever give them back. It’s about going shopping, but not actually buying anything. Or ordering enough takeout that could feed a small village and only taking six bites of it. Womanhood is…

El Sueño Americano

By: Ashly Perez-Hernandez My mom, like many other people, migrated here in hopes of a better life. She was born and raised in Guatemala but after many hardships decided to venture out looking for something more. My mom recounts, with tears in her eyes that her viejita (old lady in Spanish, term of endearment)…

Graduate in the 21st Century

by: Tessa Beach “You’ll figure it out.” A response I received far too often my mentors what I should do and how to find myself. Now, I am a senior preparing to graduate, still unsure who I am and what career to follow. It’s even more difficult when you live in a world where living…

College is a Marathon, not a Sprint

by: Angela Veal Six years ago, at age fifty, my yearning to pursue a dream I harbored since fourth grade returned… becoming a teacher. This aspiration eluded me due to my fear of college-level mathematics. I had been afraid since my first, and only, semester in higher education over three decades ago. To…

Into the Unknown

by: Alyssa Smith August 4, 2014. The day came for us to leave the only place I knew as home. I never left the island, and now that I was, I did not know how to feel about this new event in my life. My aunt and cousins took us to the airport bright…

Why Marta Needs to Change

By Adam Shaheen MARTA is the primary mode of transportation for many Atlanta residents. It’s quicker and less mentally draining than being stuck in the calamity of Atlanta traffic. Despite this, most people don’t have many positive things to say about it. MARTA ranks 47th in public transit in America. As a frequent MARTA rider,…

Actor Jac Cheairs and his son rally to support the writers' strike.

Georgia vs the Strikes

by: Mitzi Flores Editor’s Note: The WGA strike has ended as of Wednesday, September 27th, but the SAG-AFTRA strike is still ongoing. This article was written while both strikes were active. Georgia has seen a boom in film and television production in recent years, earning Atlanta the nickname of “Hollywood of the South.” The state…

I Want Life to Feel Like a Movie

By: Mackenzie Barber Not in a The Truman Show kind of kind of way where I come to realize that my life is staged and purely for the entertainment and profit of others, but that I want a perfectly curated soundtrack to play when I walk, and wind to blow through my hair, and life…

Leah’s Advice to Aspiring Authors

By: Robby Phipps Two semesters ago, as I transitioned from core curriculum to major classes, I had the honor of having Leah Franqui as my first creative writing professor. Franqui is a student in the MSA program at Georgia State University, as well as a creative writing professor and an author of three books: Mother…