On April 23 at 12:30 p.m. in the Phillips Library, Lighted Corners premiered its 40th edition of the publication during the SPARC festival. SPARC stands for Scholarship, Performance, Art, Research and Creativity referring to the components of Mount academics celebrated during the event. Lighted Corners celebrated performance, art and creativity. Art and creativity for photography, images and written works and performance for the featured artists, photographers, and writers and poets reading and talking about their work.
While the event was held in the Phillips Library, there was an option to Zoom in which allowed remote students and families to join. Several of the featured students joined through Zoom to share their pieces.
“The event was recorded and will soon be available online for the Mount community to enjoy,” Lighted Corners Advisor and Associate Professor of English Dr. Thomas Bligh stated, who has been with Lighted Corners since 2007. “This premiere was a first for Lighted Corners, our first time publishing a digital edition and a print edition simultaneously,” he added.
“I'm so thankful that through Zoom technology, remote students were able to share their pieces with everyone, which is the most important part of the SPARC premiere in my opinion, sharing creativity with others,” the editor-in-chief of Lighted Corners Rachel Donohue (C’21) remarked.
Donohue opened the event with a description of the theme of this year’s edition. She explained that many of the featured artists and writers seemed to record something important to them. Thus the editors came to the theme Chronicle.
“Chronicle explores a variety of themes: parents-to-child relationships, sibling-to-sibling relationships, romantic relationships, growing out of innocence, growing old with time and relatable historical and mythical tales,” Donohue wrote in the Editor’s Note.
Staff member Kayla Jones (C’24) began the event describing the story behind her photograph “Hallway to Happier Days.” It was a story of immigration and quarantining in order to have a better life. Her photograph was used as the cover photo. Following the cover photo was a mixture of art and written words.
Other photographs and art presented were “She” by Donohue, “Pouty Fish” and “Morning Dew” by staff member Victoria Tyler (C’22), “The Battle Within” series by Katie Creamer (C’21) and “Bullet” by Fiction co-editor Jazlyn Ibarra (C’21).
The poetry read included “A Sacrificial Bond” by staff member Javon Sankoh (C’21), “A Midwinter Night” by Margaret Stine (C’24), “Hanging Tree” by Eden Arouna (C’21), “The Austrian Alps” by Ian Schirra (C’21), “Restaurants During the Holiday” by Joanna Kreke (C’22) and “Ode to Patriot Hall” by Maria Elser (C’21).
The prose reading included the creative nonfiction piece “Polaroid of My Mother” by staff member Claire Doll (C’24) as well as fiction excerpts from “Between the Playlist and the Gas Pedal” by Fiction co-editor Betsy Busch (C’22), “The Thief” by Rebekah Balick (C’22) and“Tagalog and Ginger” by Poetry co-editor Alba Sarria.
“Alba is this year’s winner of the William Heath Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Writing,” said Bligh. “[Busch’s] story won first place for fiction from Delta Epsilon Sigma, the national honor society for Catholic universities.”
Donohue ended the event with a question: “What is it that is worth chronicling to you?” The same question can be found at the back of the magazine.