I see thousands of people every day: while walking to class, eating in the dining hall, sitting in enormous lectures, trying to find the last copy of a study-guide at the Co-op, going out, or doing anything else that makes up the Uconn experience. The life of a full-time student. What I don’t do is think about them. I don’t think about what they’ve experienced, what they can do, or really anything else. If it doesn’t involve my own needs or something that requires my immediate attention, you can guarantee that it’s not even on my back-burner.

So I’m glad we read so many submissions to the Long River Review and I’m glad every time we receive a new one. It’s like seeing something I’ve never seen before. Journalists, dead mothers, horseback riders, summertime groupies, foreign exchange students, studying abroad; they all show me something new.

On the Creative Nonfiction panel we’re only supposed to receive stories about something that’s happened and affected someone so profoundly that they felt the need to keep it, write it down, remember it forever. Even if it was an essay written for a class, when I read a new story I think, ‘Out of everything in the world, everything that’s happened to this person, this is what they need to say.’ To select a topic isn’t just like reaching into a bucket of marbles and pulling one out at random. Deciding what you’re going to write about is to make yourself vulnerable, because no matter what story you tell, whether it’s about your relationship with your dad or your relationship with a blueberry muffin, you’re revealing yourself.

Underneath it all, I see that while we have unique college experiences that make us individuals, we can all still relate to each other, no matter what classes we’re taking, who our parents are, where we were born, or what year we’re in. We’re all connected, and it makes me want to notice people, and maybe even ask their major.