Nassau Weekly

Overheard in Creative Writing

  • When Shall White Lilies Replace my Kalaniot?

    When Shall White Lilies Replace my Kalaniot?

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    The Kalaniot (poppy anemone) is a potent symbol for both Israelis and Palestinians: its red, white, and black petals and green stem match the colors of the Palestinian flag, while in the winter it famously blankets the Otef Azah region of Israel, precisely where the October 7 massacres occurred. Both peoples have since used this…

  • Diamond in this Room

    Diamond in this Room

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    We all want the melt of you the pulsing red ocean full of brine,  combed by pearly topsail shimmers   imagined to infinity but never really making slices, want to drive a four-fathom pike down and down and lose it on the way.    Fathom comes from old english  when it used to mean “embrace”…

  • Initiation Spins

    Initiation Spins

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    “Some guy I must’ve known threw his hand over the glass to block me. He mouthed something I couldn’t hear, as if we were underwater, and tapped his finger on the side of the glass. Someone’s phone flashlight blinded me as it attempted to illuminate what was in it. Someone screeched.”

  • After Kabul – Lutf Ali Sultani lives again

    After Kabul – Lutf Ali Sultani lives again

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    I   The cell was a nightmare. It was loud and hot and small — twelve square meters, if that. In the days of the former government it had only ever held one or two inmates at a time, but now the enemies of the Taliban stood packed shoulder to shoulder, civilians and soldiers, protesters…

  • Allen’s New Kettle

    Allen’s New Kettle

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    “For a moment, Allen just stared at the kettle. The room felt smaller, like the air had thickened. He thought of Ryan, of work, of losing the job, and the apartment, and everything else, and then looked back at the kettle’s bright little screen, now a meadow in the wind, calm, and endless.”

  • Spetses Sonnets

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    Avery Gendler’s sonnet series was awarded first place in the 2025 Nassau Weekly Poetry Competition. The poems demonstrated not only an innovative style but a commitment to consistent and beautiful language — making the old new again. Spetses Sonnets  I. Legend We swim to a cave, underneath the rock ledge inches  from our heads. Pleasure…

  • Letter from the Editors

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    Dear dearest, Lines that we abide by, whether spatial or social, often appear to us as natural. But there is no inherent reason why a boundary exists in one location rather than somewhere else. To raise that thought would be to undermine the social force that stabilizes that boundary—the force that transforms what we may…

  • Nass Recommends: Eddington (2025)

    Nass Recommends: Eddington (2025)

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    Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?   A sheriff walks into a party for a noise complaint, without a word or a mask. As he reaches the party’s speaker setup, the music cuts out with a thump.    “What’re you doing? Not here on rape charges? Didn’t really pan out for you did…

  • Queerness, Creativity, and Community – Zine Making Night with Passionfruit Magazine

    Queerness, Creativity, and Community – Zine Making Night with Passionfruit Magazine

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    Zines are self-published magazines crafted from conjoining pages of paper into a miniature booklet, embellished with all sorts of mixed media throughout their pages. Magazine cutouts, paragraphs pulled from old books, paint, writing and/or stickers; whatever your heart desires, as long as it can be glued onto a page, it belongs in a zine. It’s…

  • Kaleidoscope of an Ending

    Kaleidoscope of an Ending

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    “My perception of time is distinctly geometric: I trace the progression of years in counterclockwise circles that thicken like layers of pencil. I wish I could distinguish between them.”

  • Everything will be okay: Full Design

    Everything will be okay: Full Design

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    Pick up a physical copy around campus, or view the full design here!

  • Letter from the Editor

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    Dear dearest,   There’s a schoolyard question that goes something like: “Would you rather know how you are going to die, or when?” The question is perverse, with both options becoming increasingly tortuous the longer you think. It’s easy to pretend that the question is hypothetical, ignoring how inevitable knowledge of both often is. For…

  • Thoughts from my time sitting on the window sill of a castle in the Czech countryside

    Thoughts from my time sitting on the window sill of a castle in the Czech countryside

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    Is it better to not understand than to be misunderstood?

  • Because We Were Girls Together

    Because We Were Girls Together

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    Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.                So how should I presume?   (from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)    Because We Were Girls Together (a golden shovel)   …

  • No machine

    No machine

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    In lieu of goodbye I send a tiny house in the mail, flimsy porcelain talisman a weak barricade. Like Joni I become cellophane, no personal  defenses, the wrapper on a pack of cigarettes, the dirt on the road of your espresso cup — in sand in bone you  will learn to drink it. I let…

Joyce Carol Oates: What *is* a summer?