FICTION
Mama: The Girl Who Danced With the Moon by Quinn Hoggan 
Winner 1st Place Best Short Story CCHA Southwest Division Individual Awards

I was born in California and was raised in West Jordan. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I served a mission for the church in the Pacific Country of the Republic of Kiribati. I was homeschooled in my youth. I didn’t have a lot of friends. Video games were and are my main hobby and have strongly informed my literature sensibilities, alongside movies like Star Wars and the Nightmare before Christmas, and books like Harry Potter and Watership Down. My goal is to enter video game development in some way and writing seems to me the most attractive way to do that. I want to write stories filled with warmth and vulnerability, the kinds of things that people can relate to and connect with immediately.

I have recently discovered the power of expressing myself through writing. Putting thoughts, ideas, and dreams on paper and seeing the art within the words has inspired me to become a writer. Writing poetry is one of my favorite ways to explore my feelings through creativity. I find that it helps me communicate with myself. Poetry has the power to place us inside our dreams.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Inter by Emma Houtz

As evidenced by her Halloween sunrise elopement, Salt Lake based graphic designer and photographer Emma Houtz finds inspiration in the strange and unusual. Currently pursuing an AS in Graphic Design at Salt Lake Community College, Emma is influenced by her favorite artist David Byrne as they share a love for all things weird and cool. Her portraiture photography reflects how beauty can bind a broken brain.


Emma's day job is a library circulation specialist, where she is able to combine her interests of design, technology, and learning. In her spare time she can be found experimenting with hair colors, playing tabletop games, and collecting obscure VHS tapes.

My name is Ethan Eldred, I am 24 years old and have been at SLCC for a few years now but getting close to wrapping up. I wrote this story last semester inside of a creative writing class for a non-fiction assignment. I was going through a lot of my struggles during that time and for myself cooking and my dad is what got me through it. This started a series of memories to trigger and it lead me to reliving these nostalgia filled moments that I was able to connect to my own father In writing this.

VISUAL ART

Grief Once Held by Daniel Vielstich
Winner 1st Place Artwork, CCHA Southwest Division Individual Awards

I find useful the ability stories, and fictional characters in them, have in helping us process real events in our lives. Grief, being such a powerful thing, can mold us in ways we would not expect. Letting go of grief, once we are ready, is the most powerful part of the process. Azrien, illustrated here, is a character who lost everything and everyone whom he loved, and made many decisions out of anger and hatred before he took his grief and gave it to the universe to do with it what it would. Here he lays the ashes of his dearest friend to rest and let’s go of the pain that held him for so long.