Letter From the Editors

By Zoë Scheuerman ’24 and Patrick Coy-Bjork ’24

Hello Macalester English family, and welcome back to a fresh year of The Words. We’re Zoe Scheuerman ‘24 (she/her) and Patrick Coy-Bjork ‘24 (he/they), and we’re your 2023-2024 senior Words editors! The two of us have been Words editors together for the past few years, and we’ve been senior editors at separate times, so we’re thrilled to finally combine our powers and tackle this role together. Between a roster of upcoming special events and the department’s new literary salon series, both of which you can read more about in this issue of The Words (wink wink nudge nudge), we can’t think of a better time to lead the newsletter. We’re so excited for what this year will bring to the English Department!

As we begin the semester, The Words welcomes both new and familiar faces back to the department. Zoe returns from study abroad, which, if you missed it last spring, you can read about here. A new Words editor, Ahlaam Abdulwali ‘25 (she/her) joins the team, and the Words team welcomes Birdie Keller ‘25 (she/they) and Chloe Moore ‘24 (they/them) back to the newsletter editor team! This is without mentioning the cohort of fresh faces joining the English Department student workers as office assistants, all of whom you can meet in this issue!

Of course, this year also brings new challenges, namely that we (Zoe and Patrick) can see post-grad life slinking ever closer. The dreaded “What are your plans for next year?” becomes harder and harder to dodge as graduation, in the words of William Butler Yeats, slouches toward Bethlehem. Curating The Words takes on a new meaning for us this year as our goal becomes not only to document department affairs, but also to set up the future senior editors up for success. With this in mind, we hope that you find this year of The Words to be, as well as informative and illuminating, also an act of love for the department we’ve called home during these last three years. Enjoy!