By Brooke Beaman

By Brooke Lilek *Chestnut: something repeated to the point of staleness; a trope Phoebe heard a knock on the front door and froze. An extreme reaction for someone who cannot sense death at her doorstep, but that’s Phoebe. She tensed before checking the peephole. She found no one out front though. Phoebe threw the deadbolt […]

By: Kylie Poling Dr. Deborah Mix, Professor of English at Ball State University, obtained her BA at Oglethorpe University, and her MA and PhD at Purdue University. Dr. Mix’s area of expertise relates to experimental writing, especially poetry. Her current published works include literature by Gertrude Stein, Toni Morrison, and many others, ranging in topics from […]

By: Fila’Sha Finley Have you ever wondered how The Hunger Games became so successful? The Public Relations Director has your answers! Executive Summary: The first annual Hunger Games will be implemented in Panem in a couple months and I am one of the reasons that the Hunger Games will be so successful. My name is […]

By: Sammy Bredar The book series Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard follows some dystopian stereotypes but takes the concept of a dystopian society in an entirely new direction by incorporating LGBT characters Evangeline Samos and Maven Calore into her world. Red Queen introduces readers to Mare, the protagonist of the series. Mare is a Red girl in […]

By: Ben Sapet It might seem like a stretch to call Hell, the realm of eternal torment, a “perfect place” but, in his epic poem Inferno, Dante (the 13th-century Italian poet) writes it as just that. Dante writes of taking a highly allegorical journey through Hell in order to meet his courtly love in heaven. The […]

By: Allison Akers “Do you really have to babysit me?” Ben slammed the door to his fluorescent orange sports car, watching as Lark slicked back his hair in the sun visor mirror. He had hoped the location alone would get Lark off his back. A dingy place called “Sam’s Diner” in the middle of nowhere-Oregon […]

By: Kylie Poling See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil. Thought to originate during the 17th century, this proverb has evolved to encompass several meanings, including a warning for those who remain ignorant to evil and even as a code of silence among groups. The phrase can be used in sinister, mysterious ways […]

By: Marlee Jacocks The existence of a prison within a utopian society seems entirely contradictory, yet prisons become a source of fascination for Anarres’ children in Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 novel The Dispossessed. The utopian society is portrayed through the eyes of Shevek, a physicist who lives onthe planet Anarres. In a flashback scene, Shevek reveals the details of “the prison scene” found in Le Guin’s ambiguous utopia. While learning about the history of […]

By: Leah Heim  Everyone should do one or two things they do not think they can do. Me, I met my match in Ball State’s Digital Literature Review.  When I first heard about the journal, I had four more wisdom teeth, thirteen more inches of hair, and a curriculum vitae smaller than my peanut of self-confidence. […]