Floodwall Magazine

Fall 2024

Introduction

Fall 2024 Print Issue

We’re thrilled to reveal volume two, issue ten of Floodwall, the University of North Dakota’s student-run literary magazine! Somehow December is upon us, though we’re not quite sure where the time went. Despite the seemingly instantaneous jump to Floodwall 2.10’s launch, we could not be more grateful for the incredible student, faculty, and staff support we’ve seen. Floodwall’s reputation as a community-first magazine representative of the current UND student body is one that both precedes its name and embodies it; without the unwavering support of our contributors, volunteers, and readers, Floodwall would not be Floodwall. This issue continues to reveal its support beam by beam, brick by brick, the closer we look. At the center of it all is you, dear reader. Thank you for being here.

In something of a change from last semester’s issue, we’ve had a cautiously precedented semester here at Floodwall. We’ve grown our team to include a second co-advisor, Dr. Courtney Kersten, and her dedication and respect for the home we have in Floodwall is inspiring. We’ve also watched our creative submissions explore different mediums, formats, and content. But perhaps most importantly, we’ve borne witness to our contributors’ most vulnerable conversations, emotions, and ideas. With each intimate submission, our community—our flood wall—grows stronger and more resilient.

As we move toward a winter break projected to be ice-cold, we hope you’ll spend a bit of time on our newest issue. On the cover, Robert Moore Jr.’s out-of-this-world image “IC434 Total Sum,” from the Nights Alone in the Cold and Dark art and photography collection, portrays the inspiringly vast and ethereal colors and sounds of space. With each individual star, lightyears away, Moore’s image replaces fear and unmasks the comfort in insignificance and the unknown. As you turn the page, you’ll explore it all—known and unknown, love and mystery, pain and beauty. The importance of found family, and the complicated agony of blood. Multiple autobiographies as they twist and dance with one another. Love and loss and their permanent contract. Hand-crafted lineages and their magic, power, and life.

As always, it’s a gift to hold these stories for our contributors in every format—fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art and photography. We’re honored to bear their trust, and for the dedication of our volunteer team members who worked tirelessly to develop this issue. And our deepest thanks to you, reader, for joining us in this ever-changing, unending, and unknown world to find comfort in the insignificance—to find comfort in each other, in the significance we’ve created. Thank you.

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the Floodwall team on the masthead for this issue. There, you’ll find the names of our co-advisors, section editors, volunteer readers, chief copyeditors, copyeditors, layout and design workers, and proofreaders. We’re so grateful to have found a family in our team. They deserve the world.