Other Arts and Humanities Commons^™

2026 Persimmon Creek - Full Journal, Beth Keefauver, Wayne C. Robbins

Persimmon Creek

Dear Readers: Literary journals are a common component of colleges and universities spanning across many continents. As many students experience the drastic transition from childhood to independence, emotions can feel overwhelming, and life can quickly become flooded with anxiety. Writing is an outlet for many; a place humanity turns to as a form of secure therapy.

In William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, Berowne muses, “Never durst poet touch a pen to write until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs” (Act 4, Scene 3).

Without emotion, writing has no depth. The words on the page might seem eloquent, but the …

Meet Phoenix, Feng Jiang

Persimmon Creek

One act play

Roadkill, Kristi S. Miller

Persimmon Creek

Dear Beth Keefauver,

Thank you for considering my short story “Roadkill,” a 3371-word short story, for inclusion in Persimmon Creek. Below is my biography:

“Could you kill someone?” is Kristi Miller’s favorite question. It divides the keepers from the bores, and she can’t tolerate boredom. After growing tired of being a molecular biologist, she moved to Western North Carolina to teach kayaking and live in a van down by the river. Now she’s a professor of nursing. Her husband supports her need for drama – when their biological daughter was almost two, they adopted a sibling group of three. If …

Moths In The Closet, Brandi E. Shuler

Persimmon Creek

a Work of Flash Fiction
This is a personal reflection about clothing and what makes something important. Why do people hold onto things in a world where replacing them would be so easy?

Built To Last, Jack Andrew Hines

Persimmon Creek

A young man embarks on a career as a carpenter in South Carolina's Lowcountry. He falls under the tutelage of a heavy drinking master carpenter and, together, they strive to master their craft while holding onto their pride in an environment where their culture is being degraded and appropriated.

Palace, Kelis D. Rodgers

Persimmon Creek

A poem written about a fallen empire.

Happy New Year, Delaney Brown

Persimmon Creek

"Happy New Year," following the poetic style of writers like Kaveh Akbar and Richard Siken, uses freestyle form and interpretive spacing to convey its narrative. The work explores the emotional recoil of a badly ended relationship and the self-doubt that often lingers when one questions their own actions and decisions.

Gravity Squared, Delaney Brown

Persimmon Creek

"Gravity Squared" explores cyclical themes of growth and spirituality. Inspired by Victoria Chang's The Trees Witness Everything, this poem loosely follows the tanka style of alternating 5 and 7-syllable lines.

The Echoes Of Anguish, Karis Del Toro

Persimmon Creek

This is a poem written about the self-inflicted, internal anguish that we feel and carry from pass regrets.

Homeplace, Monica P. Greene

Persimmon Creek

Poetry - home, peace, mountains, rest, belonging

Shimmer Methodology: May 2026 Cultural Studies Association Of Australasia, Lola Montgomery

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This webinar presents an overview of the contemporary state of creative-practice research and autotheory before introducing Shimmer, an emerging methodological framework developed through creative practice, postgraduate supervision, and reflective inquiry. The presentation argues that while creative-practice research has successfully established creative work as a legitimate form of knowledge production, and autotheory has legitimised lived experience as theoretical material, both traditions leave relatively under-theorised the embodied moment through which insight first emerges.

The significance of the work lies in its contribution to ongoing debates around embodiment, affect, intuition, and knowledge production within creative-practice research. Shimmer proposes a language for understanding …

Comment Sections As Counterpublics; Negotiating Public Discourse In Indonesia’S Digital Media Sphere, Leon Woltermann

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article examines the potential of YouTube comment sections as spaces of commoning in Indonesia’s digital media sphere. Drawing on the concept of counterpublics – that is, parallel discursive arenas where marginalized groups circulate counter discourses and voice their interests – it explores how users negotiate access to the digital public sphere and oppose dominant narratives. The article employs a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative and qualitative methods into the analysis of the data, to investigate both the structural features (based on comment metadata) and the discursive content of comments. I argue that the comment sections’ dynamic, non-binding structure facilitates open …

Staging The Commons Through The “Padha Nonton” Song; Youtube, Community Engagement, And Gandrung Cultural Practice, Intan Mustika Sari

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study examines how the Gandrung accompaniment song “Padha nonton” participates in processes of digital cultural sharing when circulated on YouTube. It employs a qualitative interpretive method within a netno‑pragmatic framework to analyse audience engagement as a culturally informed social practice. The findings show that the song’s linguistic features convey cultural scripts of invitation, togetherness, and communal spectatorship, reflecting the role of the Gandrung tradition in shaping shared social relationships and cultural values. Furthermore, the study identifies three interrelated processes: re-medialization, re-experiencing, and re-conception through which the performance extends beyond its original ritual context and becomes a shared …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Living Heritage, Resilience And Ethically Informed Infrastructures In Malawi, Martha B. Lerski, Frank Puluputu Mwale

Publications and Research

Rooted in a rural community’s needs, this paper explores how historically, and ethically informed infrastructures can support community engagement towards identification, documentation, and dissemination of local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge relating to climate change. The paper examines climate adaptation and sustainability issues through the lenses of community organizing and Library & Information Science best practices. It draws on a growing body of literature identifying a role for expanded epistemological and subject discipline perspectives. While the impacts of climate on material culture are increasingly recognized, intangible, and biocultural heritage have not received as much attention. Living heritage traditions and knowledge systems …

Commercial Pressures And Editorial Independence: Egyptian Journalists' Perceptions Of Advertiser Influence In Contemporary Media, Mohamed Ahmed Salem

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the complex interplay between commercial imperatives and editorial autonomy in Egypt’s contemporary media landscape, focusing on journalists’ perceptions of advertising influence. Drawing on Cognitive Dissonance Theory (CDT) and informed by Political Economy and Institutional Theory, the study investigates how Egyptian journalists navigate ethical tensions arising from advertiser demands—both state-linked and private—within a hybrid media system marked by economic precarity, political control, and digital disruption. Through 20 in-depth interviews with journalists, alongside insights from PR professionals, media managers, and academic experts, the research reveals a pervasive erosion of the editorial-commercial boundary. Journalists report widespread self-censorship, blurred content labelling, …

2025 Persimmon Creek - Full Journal, Beth Keefauver, Wayne C. Robbins

Persimmon Creek

Persimmon Creek runs through the Susan B. Jacobs Arboretum, an oasis of nature in the center of our dynamic and thriving campus community at the University of South Carolina Upstate. My colleague Wayne Robbins and I were recently tasked with bringing back the student-edited literary journal formerly known as Writer’s Inc. Dr. Marilyn Knight stood at the helm of Writer’s Inc. for nearly twenty years, and when she retired, the journal left with her. We thought it would be an opportune time to pay homage to the legacy of Writer’s Inc. by renaming and reimagining our home department’s literary journal. …

When The Siren Sounds, Madelynn H. Morgan

Persimmon Creek

Growing up being the daughter of a fire fighter was not easy. I had a very absent father growing up, and this was due to his work in the fire service. Through this reflective essay, I discuss what growing up as a first-response family was like, and how it has shaped me into the adult I am becoming.

The Madonna - Whore Complex, Rhiya S. Ashman

Persimmon Creek

In this work, I wanted to explore the literature/media trope of the Madonna/Whore complex, specifically when it comes to Black women in media. The Madonna Whore complexes illustrate how women are often written into one of two extremes - they are either extremely pure, innocent, and childlike (The Madonna), or they are sexual, rebellious, and seductive (The Whore). The piece is full of symbolism, including the materials used to make it. I wanted to illustrate these extreme yet two dimensional ways these women were portrayed by creating them in flat paper, with no faces, to show how they are still …

Wulver In Appalachia, Wylan Blair

Persimmon Creek

A poem about a mysterious figure who comes to the aid of a mountain community.

Glimpses Of Myself In The Underground, Madelynn H. Morgan

Persimmon Creek

Through poetry, a older teenager reflects on a place that has made her who she is. She sees ghosts of her past self in every wall of this place, and it makes her feel oddly sentimental. She realizes how far she has come and how much has changed, and begins to understand how ever fleeting any given moment in time is.

Dodo, Lyxia C. Vue

Persimmon Creek

A short poem about the extinct animal known as the Dodo Bird.

The Stereo Skips, Maryssa H. Mckinney

Persimmon Creek

"The Stereo Skips" is a reflective poem that captures the chaotic and emotional experiences of a child navigating family struggles and religious expectations on a typical Sunday morning growing up in their household. Through the recurring image of a skipping stereo, the poem emphasizes the dissonance between external appearances and internal turmoil, as the child reflects on their relationship with God, the absence of their father, and the contradictions in their family life. The stereo's skips serve as a metaphor for the interruptions and unresolved emotions in the speaker's world.

Tsenacommacah, Wylan Blair

Persimmon Creek

This poem is about the area that was once called Tsenacommacah, the Powhatan people, and the horrors of the centuries that followed 1607.

Ode To A Carolina Cotton Mill, Joshua S. Lanier

Persimmon Creek

Ode to a Carolina Cotton Mill is a poem about the lives of generations of textile workers who left the farm in search of a better life for their families. THe poem is somewhat autobiographical, as my family had worked in the cotton mill for many generations.

Whiplash, Jillian M. Canady

Persimmon Creek

Whiplash is an abstract poem that emphasizes emotion and imagery over narrative clarity. Through the juxtaposition of a moth and a neon sign, it delves into themes of struggle and transience, blending surreal elements—sickly slouching figures, flickering candles, and woven snakes—to create a landscape of sorrow and light. With fragmented language and rhythmic shifts, the poem invites deep engagement and personal interpretation, culminating in a sensation of rapid motion and transformation, challenging readers to find meaning within its evocative chaos.

The Man In The Frame, Joshua Holt

Persimmon Creek

The Man in the Frame - Poetry by Joshua Holt

Clicky Pen, Allison E. Potter

Persimmon Creek

This is a poem about a clicky pen, an inanimate object that I gave life to. It is an original work that I submitted as homework for my Poetry Class.

Kabul, A Memory Bittersweet, Medina Z. Mayar

Persimmon Creek

A free verse poem.

Girls Are Coming Out Of The Woods (Title Taken From Tishani Doshi), Jillian Canady

Persimmon Creek

This evocative haiku, inspired by Tishani Doshi’s poem, Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, beautifully captures the essence of resilience and emergence. It portrays women as powerful forces, symbolized by roaring fires and vibrant sunsets, evoking warmth and intensity. The detail of "pink painted toes" adds a playful yet bold touch, blending femininity with strength. This concise piece invites readers to reflect on the dynamic spirit of women stepping into their own, embodying both elegance and fierce determination.