By Kylie Nguyen the best time of the year is right before summer. sprinkles of rain here and there. clouds clearing up before breaking out into streaks of sunlight. as i roll a ripe strawberry between the tips of my fingers, my eyes drag alongside its curvature. admiring each and every dip of this locally grown fruit, i admire its dimples and the way they nest dozens of seeds ones that jam themselves in between your teeth. “boo!” the sudden burst of sound causes me to violent

By Avani Thakkar Ghee /guh-e/ 1. Put butter in a pot on low heat. 2. Watch it bubble until it gets the smell. 3. Yellowish color it will be. 4. Cool it. 5. Strain it. Your Auntie Banu uses the gunk for a dish she mixes with flour. I hear the clang of the shopping carts before I see them. I flinch away from the sound of metal and clutch my basket tightly as people rush past me. The air conditioning blows down hard on my bare arms and I shiver a little. I pull my body tighter a

By Kaylin Bayek in the valley, springtime beckons the beauty of flowers flourishing in clusters across acres of beauty & budding blossoms in the valley, summer seeps in with the taste of melon melting on my tongue. tart & tangy. jellyfish sway to the calm. the ebbs and flows of the vast expanse there is so much ahead of me. nights are filled with stars as they dance gracefully, in tandem with the creatures of the night in the valley, autumn arrives heaps of leaves paint the o

By Megan Jun I love the way your eyes are slanted They remind me of blades of grass They’re so adorably small I love the way your nose is round It’s like a cute little piglet’s So bouncy! I love your language Ni hao! It’s not that? Oh, they sound so similar You can’t blame me for thinking they’re the same I love your food I eat sushi all the time Sushi is Japanese? Are you not Japanese? But you look like it I love your accent It’s so exotic You’re so good at English For someo

By Nicole Chang In the morning, Oscar rises earlier than me and rustles around in my kitchen pantry to make us each a fried egg. I pretend to sleep so that I can lay in bed for a little longer, the heat of his body leaving a shadow of warmth that I savor in these unending winter months. It’s fun to observe people when they don’t know they’re being watched. He’s just in his boxers, whistling faintly to himself. His torso is long and it vees in nicely at the waist; something ab

By Kocheng Lin Under the streetlight, which only sharpened the darkness surrounding us, I wasn’t looking into her eyes. Instead, I was feeling the flower blooming in my mouth. I was thrown into panic and blown into pieces. I was recollecting and recounting my life up to now… 1… In grade 9, I was still struggling to turn thoughts into words, not to mention projecting my voice. But one morning, the teacher called up the new transfer student, Carla, with straight dark hair fall

By Phoenix Mcdaniel Design/Cover art by Mackenzie Abeleda She inched toward the venue, slowly A caterpillar is what she was Surely, she was beautiful in her own right Yet, still, something about her was sluggish and weighty As if the many segments along her thorax and abdomen contained the world The world and all the multiplicities of her being The weight of it all The fatigue of it all The pain of it all Surely, she was beautiful in her own right Yet, still, something ab

By Natalia Hwang Design/Cover art by Mackenzie Abeleda

By Anna Bird-Pollan my favorite pair of shoes are falling apart, again. they last fell apart the summer before my senior year of high school. this time, they’re falling apart before i even reach the summer before my senior year. they’re falling apart, again. they last fell apart the summer after the worst year of my life. this time, they’re falling apart during the worst months i’ve had in a long time. they’re falling apart, again. they last fell apart when it was all i cou

Camila De La Cerda, poetry, 2024 "My writing seeks to express the hidden emotions and turmoil within love and losing oneself within these romances. I seek to create a poems filled with conflict and showcase what it is to be human in my poetry by showing the idealization of those around us created by the human mind." The trees stay still but the leaves dangle on its spine Her steps are crunchy yet hollow as she drags herself down the obscure path Crackling, whistling, crickets

Maya Garcia, illustration, 2024 "I wanted to represent the ephemeral nature of life in a fun but grotesque way. With the Being represented “Becoming” whatever they choose."

Annika Ancheta, fiction, 2024 "There's a sort of comfort that comes with talking about your own filth. I decided to write about mine—a filth that accumulated over the loneliest period of all our lives." INT. ??? - ??? Scarlet. Bleeding into the ground. A puddle of filth gathering at hangnailed toes. The floor is splotchy with dirt and dust, a pair of long thin ankles connected to elongated feet dipping into a dark puddle on the floor. A hand with untrimmed nails picks at the

Ariana Semsarha, illustration, 2024 "In a very tender, human way, I just want to make work that feels personal and already lived through. Everyone has a story to tell, and connecting with each other over those stories is probably one of my favorite aspects of being a person."

Rafi Overton, fiction, 2024 "My short story employs a dream-within-a-dream to iteratively strip down an older sibling's rage and shame and confusion and discover his loving vulnerability and fear for his younger sister. Through the protective ethereality that dreaming provides, I grapple with the dangers we face in romance and how we can give grace to imperfect people." Her fingers curled around mine impassively, and I knew it was the last time. In my palm, a cowrie shell, i

Asmita Majumdar, illustration, 2024 "With this piece, I wanted to capture the feeling of being consciously stuck in your own head in and in a certain state of mind but not being able to move on from it."

Dave Vo, digital collage, 2024 "After we classify the world, what next?"

Dave Vo, digital collage, 2023 "Hazy as the bright void you’re diving toward, the walls once supporting your back began to droop, stretch, and contort deeper down. An incoherent letterform zips by, urging you to follow it into the hypnotizing expanse with the promise of a canvas of limitless play the size of the universe."

Vidhi Oswal, photography, 2023

Alex Farrow, creative fiction, 2023 [Forward: On the Publication of a Manuscript and its Correspondences] Novus magazine is a small campus publication dedicated to representing in earnest the creative voices of our campus, publishing forward, clear, stylized, and innovative works. Our team had received a submission by a formerly notable local campus writer, and had rejected it on the basis of style, versification, and what our editorial team deemed non-conductive sentiment. A