FOLIO 47
Spring 2024
Faculty Moderators
Keith Kopka • Raena Shirali
Editorial Team
Editor-in-Chief: Kevin Flynn
Readers: Amanda Knipe, Rue Jewett, Nicole Kontogeorgos
Marketing: Brianna Wojnar
Editor’s Note
The Faculty Moderators here at Folio are thrilled to introduce our 47th issue. This collection of writing and art includes undergraduate students from UCLA, Stanford University, Krea University in Mumbai, Georgetown University, University of Michigan, and beyond. The content in Folio 47 ranges from artwork inclusive of trans and disabled populations, to writing by authors of Palestinian diaspora. And the first five students of this issue represent Lewis University’s Prison Education Program; it is our incredible honor to feature incarcerated students’ voices, as introduced below by Melissa Pavlik.
Folio is published each year in April, during National Poetry Month. Here in Philly, trees are bursting with pink and white blossoms and the city is bustling as parks fill with folks soaking up the sun. This is traditionally a time of rebirth.
But to be reborn, to envision a better world, we must acknowledge the grief and loss each of us carries into the new season.
Many of us have experienced unimaginable loss. All of us have been witness to unimaginable horror. The writing and art in our 47th issue does not attempt to offer solace. Instead these works reflect on just how inextricable each individual’s disposition is from our shared concerns and responsibilities as a universal family. The work in this issue asks us: How can we move forward when there is so much work to be done in the present? How can we keep our fellow human beings safe?
Like letting one’s thoughts wander on a long, springtime walk, these works ask us to ruminate. So we do. We hope you will too.
Teneor votis.
Edgar Baker is an artist from Nashville, TN and currently attends college at Eckerd in St. Petersburg, FL. His art has been featured at auction in Nashville, with all proceeds going towards a local LGBTQ+ youth group. Edgar enjoys creating art that engages with his own identities, focusing particularly on depicting transgender and disabled bodies. He has worked with digital art, acrylic paints, as well as digital and film photography. He hopes to pursue an MFA so that he may become an art professor, but until then, you can find more of his art on Instagram under the handle bi0hazart.
foreword by melissa pavlik
The writing shared here by students enrolled in Lewis University’s Prison Education Program offers a taste of the thinking and learning happening in their classroom in the academic program building at Sheridan Correctional Center. The individuals represented have committed to be part of a first cohort to pursue a degree through an accelerated undergraduate program that affords limited contact hours with and avenues of support from university representatives (when compared to availability of resources on the outside). Yet, the work these writers on the inside produce continues to educate and astound, making a case for how necessary it is to amplify their voices. We are grateful for the space the Folio team has provided in this issue and welcome this opportunity to further connections between writers and readers inside and out, in spite of the physical barriers between us.
Melissa Pavlik (she/her) teaches writing as an adjunct instructor in Lewis University’s Prison Education Program. She is also the writing center director and associate professor at North Park University and a co-editor of Feather Bricks, a bimonthly magazine produced by and for writers and tutors impacted by Illinois’ criminal legal system.