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The Brown University All-Star Team

October 21, 2022
Gabby Sartori

Now, if you thought I was going to begin this piece by gushing over John Krasinski and Emma Watson, you’re sadly mistaken (though they do have responsibility for resurrecting gen z). Am I about to honor my favorite teacher? Lunch Lady? Well, sadly Gale has left her Blue Room legacy behind. No, none of that. I’m talking about the unsung heroes here at Brown University. Whether you yourself have encountered them or not, allow me to introduce you to the all-star roster of people that make sure students around here really get the full college experience. The Bracelet Guy Listen, I’m sure he has a name, but we ALL know who I’m talking about. I like to think this guy owns the tiny spot in front of the bookstore on Thayer Street. No sir, I don’t want your jewelry. He asked me that yesterday, the day before that, the day before that, a year before that, oh and the year before that one. Honestly, I think he even asked my dad on my visit four years back. There he is perched on the street like he owns it. Some may mistake him for the town mayor if you didn’t know ours. Wait—I don’t even know ours. What’s really weird about this guy is that he probably knows more about your life than you think. I mean, he was there the day you purchased your first shirt from the bookstore and he’s always there when you’re in a rush because you’re late for class. I’m almost positive he’s had the honor of being your first “good morning” greeting on your walk of shame after a Friday night (apologies for personal PTSD I may have caused you.) He eavesdrops on your conversations when catching up with your mom on the phone, and waves to you when you’re trying to say hey to your friend behind him on the walk by. He patiently waits for you to cross ongoing traffic at the intersection where cars have the right-of-way but you try playing your own rendition of Crossy Road anyways. He’s the only obstacle on campus, but what’s most important to know is that he’s always there and always will be. Carl Carl is honestly one of those people you remember from a party the night before, and when you see them in broad daylight, it seems so out of place that you almost feel like you’re dreaming. The only thing different is that Carl is very real. Carl is extremely unpredictable and a one of a kind breed. Now, what do I mean by this? Well, have you ever been encountered by an old man in the middle of a sporting event, serenading you with a guitar solo? Yea—didn’t think so. Standing at a generous 5’6” with his New Balance grandpa shoes to compliment his platinum white hair, he is wandering all around this campus and I hope to God you’re lucky enough to encounter him for yourself. Carl might be the hidden gem this school has to offer. If I were ever tasked with giving a campus tour, I would play the biggest game of “Where’s Waldo” in order to find him and help advertise Brown to the group. Carl is famous for his presence at any Brown home sporting event, flaunting his rugby shirt he claims was the “original” jersey he sported during his time at Brown. For context, Carl is a proud, and I mean PROUD class of ‘76 member. He leads the student section, heckles referees, and rallies the troops regardless of what the scoreboard says. I highly recommend going to a sporting event to find Carl. If you’re lucky enough, he may offer up one of his beers in a 12-pack from Metro Mart. The Airsoft Snipers If you go to Brown, Department of Public Safety has definitely slid into your email inbox to tell you of the sniper sightings. And if you have no idea what or whom I’m talking about, consider me your DPS notification. Late night walks around campus on a weekday almost feel like you’re in a warzone. I know campus safety walk exists, but would you rather have Mommy hold your hand and take you from class to class or take the bullet like a champ and show off your battle wounds? You know what they say: No guts, no glory. At least I can say that all the stranger danger talks at school warning you about the creepy van slowly driving next to you are finally being put to good use. That damn walk past Benevolent Street is where the car lurks in the shadows. If you have headphones in, are walking at a slow pace, or just simply look like a vulnerable target, you my friend are the next one on the chopping block. I think it’s safe to say I fit these qualifications pretty easily, considering I’m three for three when walking to and from the east side of campus. Twice I’ve been struck in the thigh, and once they fired a money shot at my head, but luckily I was wearing a hat. You’re probably wondering why the snipers made this list. Though no positive impacts spur from their existence, they long to humble the students who may very well need to be knocked down a couple notches. Maybe I’m one of them? Naked. Donut. Runners. To put it plainly, it’s one of those “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type situations. Should I whip my phone out and take a video? Well, if your friends from home ask what it’s like to attend an Ivy League school, how on Earth are you going to have proof without video evidence? But on the other hand, if your camera is out for too long I guarantee you you’re gonna be deemed a “pervert.” So what exactly is the naked donut run? Well, it starts during the long-feared late nights of Reading Period, triggering the mass movement of stressed future leaders of our world to campus libraries. This of course would involve students who lug multiple textbooks to their carrels for all-nighters and early morning cram sessions. But the libraries also draw the naked lurkers of the night to offer a sweet treat to those in need. Secret until moments before it occurs, the Naked Donut Run has long been a source of excitement, intrigue and mystique for stressed students in libraries across campus. The special day is usually on the last night of Reading Period. During the run, participants deliver donuts all over campus, from the Rockefeller Library to the Sciences Library to the Center for Information Technology. Once inside the libraries, all chaos ensues. A couple hundred or so runners disrobe and hand out doughnuts in the nude. Best part about it? They literally will go up to you offering a donut, and stay there until you take one. Thanks to the Naked Donut Runners, Brown is a place where nudity isn’t stigmatized or judged, and there is always a positive reaction from viewers of the “student body” (both literally and figuratively). Honorable Mentions V-Dub Backdoor: Don’t lie, if you run out of meal swipes or need to food shop off meal plan, this door is your best friend. “Mike”: He is the “Mr. Monopoly” of Thayer Street. To clear all misconceptions, he DOES NOT own Mike’s Calzones. However, he is the one behind your drunchies and hangover resurrections while owning Chinatown, East Side Pockets, and Baja’s. Archibald Basement: There’s nothing better than getting an indoor swimming pool from a natural disaster, right? Say it to the 37 displaced first-years whose rooms flooded this year. MoChamp Deer: I really do think this was God’s way of punishing the procrastinators trying to study the night before exams. Leave it to the MoChamp Deer to barge into the coziest study room on campus and wreak havoc as it trapped itself in the main vestibule. No animals were hurt, don’t worry. Hazeltine: I know in the way beginning I said I wouldn’t mention teachers, but when you see the 90 year old legend on a bicycle beating you to class, you know you’re at Brown.

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A Table of Our Own

Lucy Kaplan
November 12, 2025

A Table of Our Own I arrange tea candles on the tablecloth, makeshift and patterned by stains that bleed into the florals. A relic of our parents’ generation, the textile is only thick enough to disguise the aged wood it envelopes when folded twice over itself. Tonight, it bares the weight of the six hours I spent cooking. We have first une salade niçoise served with lightly candied brussel sprouts. A crested hill of layered caprese follows, sliced baguette flowering its perimeter. Guests arrive in waves. Three are early and two are insultingly late, forgiven for the gossip they bring to the table. She told me he didn’t even wave when he saw her the morning after. Friends present gifts of crisp grapes, whimsical confections, bottles they pray aren’t too sweet. As we find our seats, I wonder: is this the dinner party of our parents’ generation or a reincarnation of our childhood birthday celebrations? It seems to me as if every young adult loves a dinner party. A gathering classy enough to warrant dressing with inspiration, but intimate enough to speak without reservation. Maybe it’s the breaking of bread, a practice reportedly powerful enough to have united the Democrats and the Federalists, the Wampanoag and the colonists. But just as those narratives are not simple truths, neither is the elation of our careful gatherings. Dining together can be as unpleasant as it is festive. Generations of meals have been the source of unassailable tension: reunions made unpalatable by parental bickering and younger brothers smacking their gravy-smeared lips. In attendance are the people we love—though perhaps do not always like. Our dinner parties, however, are distinct in their autonomy of choice. In childhood, parents managed the grunt work, pitching fairy-lit tents in the living room, ordering pizza to satiate the crowd. Now, we find ourselves left to our own devices. We create countless lists in the name of adulthood. Dinner 07.13 Invite list: Yeses, nos, maybe-sos. A back-up list if someone falls through; empty chairs thrill no one. Invitation draft: Dearest friends, you have been chosen. Dress appropriately. Menu: Parmesan crisped yams, miso butter gnocchi, flank steak. Made to impress. Shopping list: Chicory root, sardines, brie. The cheapest available. Setting the table, I think about generations past. Decades prior, someone else a few years older must have stood in this kitchen—a local career politician or an established dermatologist. He too was expecting visitors, but with not nearly as much anticipation. He knew the procedure by rote—when to serve the second course, when to slyly refill his neighbor’s wine glass. He could identify a false laugh and ease a lapse in conversation without skipping a beat. The guests were familiar, practiced in leaving their shoes at the front door. I can almost place my childhood self into the scene: sunken into the corner chair, across from the man in the ugly scarf. Last time I saw you, I could have fit you in my briefcase! Why do middle-aged academics delight in making middle-schoolers feel small? Our guests are poles apart, far closer in affect to the children our parents once invited to summer movie nights on our behalf. They stumble at the formalities. Someone might forego the formal dress code for a sloppy pair of basketball shorts; we will say nothing but stare as he meticulously covers his lap with a napkin. Dock one point. Someone else might bring a new boyfriend with no notice; we will feign placidity as he pulls an extra seat between a pair of best friends longing to catch up. Dock two points, maybe even three. But what we lack in finesse we make up for in forgiveness. Friendship is a delicate thing—we know some faux pas are best granted a silent pardon. Warm light washes down our nerves as the feast begins. Some go all-in, stacking their plates with mismatched goodies brought by unpracticed guests. (Was this supposed to be a potluck? No one quite got the story straight.) Others graze, arms extending clumsily across the table to pluck an olive, a “pardon my reach” carefully uttered. We take an unspoken pride in our maturity, remembering our pleases and thank-yous so far from the oversight of our elders. The night then goes one of two ways. The clinking of cutlery might crescendo at half-past nine. Replacing it will be an awkwardness which we bear with guilt. If the spark of enlightened conversation never catches fire, we are left with a table full of friends-turned-family-turned-strangers. We might have worn the badges we found in our parents’ closets with too much assurance. Cause of death: an indulgence of formality and poverty of wine. One can only pretend that they don’t want to talk about sex for so long. Tonight, however, we evade a tragedy of the commons. The now unlit candles go unnoticed, puttering out one after the other; as the tablecloth dims, our momentum only swells. Half of the crowd is debating the merits of Machiavelli, the other half the audacity of a kid we knew from high school. The catch is, it doesn’t really matter. Everyone is full and no one wants to leave. Someone reveals an expensively curated box of chocolates from a rumpled tote they had carefully hidden beneath the table. We pass it counterclockwise, excitedly snagging the sweet recommended by the person before. I bite down and my mouth bursts with nostalgia. A buttery shortbread, laced with silky caramel and enrobed in milk chocolate—a Twix bar by another name. I watch my friends bite into rebranded versions of their own childhood favorites: Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy. Are they too thinking about Halloweens past? How we zealously provoked territorial disputes over the mounds of sweets poured onto my living room floor. It feels no different than how we tonight bicker over who deserves the final drops from the bottle. Across the table sits the girl who watched me blow out purple candles on my eleventh birthday. She wore different glasses back then, thicker frames that obscured the brilliant eyes that now lock with mine. I watch her fingers toy with the stem of a glass as she chews her grown-up Kit Kat. To love her is to peer through a foggy window. If I squint, I can piece together the blurry outlines of our past: the pizza parties, the Halloween spats, the movie nights we spent wrapped in blankets on the porch. Then a new image clears—decades of future soirees coming into view. I am elated to see that the future unfolds not at our parents’ tables, but around a table of our own.

Zia Felicetta: A Portrait

Luca Raffa
November 12, 2025

I parked in her empty driveway and approached the proud house with stubborn orange bricks. The black railing guiding me to the door ailed with rust, though the white paint on the house was fresh as the snow. It was dim, the sun obscured in this dull December sadness, and the icy lake winds caused the lampposts to shiver with doubt. I rang the little doorbell and peered around. The short bungalows huddled close together to keep warm from the snow. Darkness was beginning to blanket the neighborhood. Suddenly, a faint light flickered on from inside. I peeked through the doorframe glass with a smile and watched as a figure hurried towards me. The door opened. Zia Felicetta greeted me with a tender hug and the touch of her delicate cheeks on each of mine. Her demeanor was elusive, her faint smile always uncertain below her serious eyes––sad, dry eyes which caved into her head and cast shadows. The wrinkles on her cheeks and on her forehead revealed the scars of time, though her small diamond earrings restored some dormant youth still hiding within her. Black strands like needles freckled the white hay that crowned her head. Zia waddled towards the kitchen, and her plump body disappeared into the dark. A nativity scene of plastic figurines emerged in the corner. Zia had been a widow for over forty years and was the last and only surviving of five loving sisters and their husbands. Across the walls, these ghosts gawked at me, black and white, through the frames: Zia’s husband holding her tight in her wedding dress; her sisters––Carmella, Roquina, Peppinella, and Maria, my grandmother––through the years at her wedding, and at their weddings, and at their children’s weddings; her nephews and nieces who died as infants; the only surviving photograph of her mother Vittoria, the woman she watched die as an infant, wearing a dirt-caked shirt, a shoddy headscarf, and a faint smile; her father as a young man with a black coppola hat and a black mustache; and the same man with a bushy grey mustache and slicked back hair. Hovering higher on the walls were images of saints, Gesù, crucifixes, and a collection of memoriam cards she gathered over years from funerals. She even framed a photograph of Montoleone di Puglia, the town she left behind: a cluster of orange shingles, brown bricks, and white concrete sleeping on a hill and surrounded by green planes and wildflowers. Zia returned holding a ready plate of cookies wrapped in tinfoil, the wrinkly fat drooping from her arms from the weight of the plate. She invited me to sit at the table and offered me an espresso which I knew I could never refuse. She vanished again into the kitchen, and in the silence of her home I could hear the clanking as she fed the cafetera the espresso grinds and placed it on the stove. When she returned to the dining room table, she unwrapped the cold cookies. She enjoyed making food and freezing it for an infrequent visitor. She put a hard candy into her mouth that reeked of licorice, anise, and fennel and began to suck. The hot espresso breathed life into us and kindled conversation. She was simple, of little words, knowing only how to talk about her food, her family, her garden, or God. She had no preferences, few opinions. She paused a lot and would watch me. She was a patient woman, watching intently and listening as I sipped on my bitter espresso. When she began to speak, the movement of her firm jaw and soft lips came together in a symphony of schwas. Soon, it was time for me to depart and return Zia to her solitude. Her frail pleas asking me to stay surrendered to my guilty resoluteness, and she disappeared into the basement for one last parting gift. As I waited for her before the door, I glanced at the frames on the wall again. I started to wonder if Zia ever talked to these ghosts––after all, she was a spiritual woman. Zia emerged from the staircase and brought me more cookies in tinfoil and a panettone to remember her by. She embraced me and kissed each cheek, speaking to me I love you in her unsteady English. I said goodbye. She waited alone in the frame of the door. The cold followed her inside. I thought about how she might become a photograph someday, and my heart sank.

A Few Impressions

Juliet Corwin
November 6, 2025

– CT, left wrist – I drove to Connecticut to get my first tattoo. The studio, smaller than its parking lot, was tucked away in a gray fold of Stamford. It had been a drizzly morning, and clouds sighed as I walked to the entrance. Timidly, I leaned against the door so it wouldn’t slam shut and scanned the space for a pair of eyes to meet mine. It was my first time inside a tattoo studio, and it showed. Two feet in front of me, a woman lay on her side in a shirt, underwear, and Doc Martens. She chatted with her artist, who hunched over a spread of ink covering the woman’s thigh. The walls were covered in overlapping sketches and prints. Sitting by the only other station in the room was a large man with a permanent frown and huge biceps. I gathered that he would be my artist, and moved toward him. His frown deepened when he saw me. He spoke in short sentences, his voice low and quiet. I showed him the tattoo I wanted and presented my wrist to draw on. Opting for a purple marker, he splashed the design onto my skin way too big. I asked if he could make it any smaller. His eyebrows lifted, but he rubbed away the first drawing and drew it again, a bit smaller. I looked at him pleadingly, too nervous to ask him to change it again. He took the hint and resized it once more. It was tiny, barely a quarter of an inch in height and width. I smiled, and his mouth flattened into a straight line. He prepped the ink and the tattoo gun, and didn’t wear gloves. It took about five minutes to ink the design using the thinnest needle he had. He wiped the excess ink and a few drops of blood from my skin, and I could see the little lines now adorning my wrist. It was perfect. He explained to me that he typically asked clients to pay upwards of $100, but for this he wouldn’t charge more than $40. I paid him $60 and thanked him again. He nodded and pressed one of his sketches into my hand. I had been admiring it while the needle dragged along my skin. It was full of color and soft lines, a warm swirl of tones. As I stepped out the door, I saw that the woman getting the leg tattoo was now eating takeout with her artist. I walked back to my car, watching the clouds inch lower. My wrist stung as I spun the steering wheel home. – MA, right ear – For one of my later tattoos, I filled out an online appointment form for a studio in my hometown in Western Massachusetts. I got matched with an artist named Ian. The space was big, with a lower level for tattoos and an upper level for piercings. There was a waiting area with high ceilings and tons of plants. Ian emerged from his studio and greeted me with a warmth I trusted. He was bald with a long, white beard and eyes that crinkled when he spoke. Ushering me into his studio, he told me to hop up on the table and rolled his chair over to join me. The design I had chosen was simple, and I wanted it to sit behind my ear. He used a disposable razor to shave the edge of my hairline. As the blade scraped at my scalp, we chatted about tattoos I’d gotten in the past. We sized down from the first print he had made, and then he carefully peeled a purple outline onto my skin. He handed me a small mirror that reflected into a big mirror on the wall so that I could see the placement. I told him I liked it. He instructed me to stretch one arm out past my head and rest my cheek on it, lying on my side. The tattoo took forty minutes to ink, and he spoke the whole time. He asked me about myself, about school, about the tattoo’s meaning. I tried to answer in a calm and steady voice despite the pulsating needle bouncing against my skull. Several times he praised my composure, saying that most clients who got tattooed behind their ears can’t sit very well. It wasn’t hard to understand why. When he was done, he told me to take my time getting up. I ignored his advice, pushing up fast and immediately regretting my choice. The sudden absence of vibration on my head left my vision blurry, and I felt lightheaded as I walked back to the waiting area to pay. The person at the register was bubbly and asked loudly if I loved my new ink. I did, and told them so, paid and tipped Ian. I walked out onto the streets of my childhood, my new ink still buzzing quietly. – MN, right hip – My favorite tattoo was inked in Minnesota. A cold Thursday night in December, I arrived at a brightly lit studio in Minneapolis. I was a few minutes early, and sat on a very hard bench in the waiting area. My artist was finishing up with another client, so I pored over the design I’d asked for again. The appointment didn’t start for another forty minutes. When my artist finally came over and said she was ready for me, she seemed annoyed. I showed her the design and she scowled at me, snatching up her iPad and scribbling. She asked me if I had drawn it myself, which I had. After some more silent drawing, she held the iPad toward me. She had taken my (admittedly unskilled) design and created a much better tattoo. Her lines were clean, the shape gentle. I thanked her, she sighed. I wanted the tattoo on my hip, but because of the weather I’d worn sweatpants over my shorts. She rolled her eyes as I took off my sweatpants, pointing out that I could keep one of the legs on if I wanted to. I took the suggestion. When we sized the tattoo, she gave me three options. I picked the middle one, and she placed the outline on my hip. I walked, half-sweatpantsed, to the mirror and watched how the design moved with me. I loved it. I got up onto the table, lying on my side as she instructed. She inked in silence, except for a frustrated question about whether I was holding my breath. I had been, without realizing it, and tried to slowly exhale without annoying her further. When it was finished, my new ink looked delicate and natural on my skin. It is still the best tattoo I have. I carefully pulled the leg of my sweatpants back on over the wrapped ink. As I walked back into the Minnesota snow, my hip pinched with each step.

Two-Day Trip Home

Elaine Rand
November 6, 2025

There’s a new fence in the yard where the trellis once kissed the ground, a padlock on the gate in the alley left by an admirer or a forgetful biker. The front door of the house is newly painted navy blue, but the latch still sticks. An assortment of sunscreen bottles, displaced from the back porch, live in the garage alongside the dead dog’s bed, which has been inherited by my parents’ new one. Sunscreen spread on skin, bug spray interrupted by the sound of barking. I throw the puppy a ball, and she runs around the periphery of the yard, still chasing something invisible long after she has caught it in her mouth. Once, we pitched a tent here, but the pea popped up beneath my back. The tent’s been lost for a decade now. Dirt on the lawn chairs, dirt under fingernails, plastic sacks of mulch stacked tall. A smear of Indiana soil on the back steps to be powerwashed come next year. Inside the house, hairballs nestle in the gap between the refrigerator and the linoleum. The countertop is home to packets of tuna, a plastic Brita pitcher covered in hard water film, recalled pistachios yet to be thrown away. On the wall hangs the prim calendar, which still reads “March” in June. On the floor, WD-40 and Clorox wipes share real estate with cans of wet food and salmon dog treats for brain health. I can hear the nettles rattling outside. They’re strewn along the berm so the puppy can’t romp without getting her short legs caught. Through the window, there’s the redbud that sprouted where the garden patch used to be, more tenacious than the tomatoes. It towers over the ghosts of withered vines, the home-farming love fest brief and barely remembered. There is honor in an intact ear, one without the cartilage pierced—my mother said so long ago. But is there honor in an ear that burns? Both of mine turn bright when someone’s grandma asks me if I’m single. She showed my picture to her son. Lucky that breathing fire with a closed mouth leaves the tongue’s flames extinguished. I smile and deflect, teeth thick with ash. Tomorrow, I will drive away, “Wide Open Spaces” on the stereo. No flat land precipice to fall from anymore. The voices haven’t changed. No new timbres, no unexpected inflections, only the occasional quiet indignity. My shadow informs the conversations. Hello to the teenage neighbor I babysat when she was three and I was 12. Hello to my best friend’s brother, who has forgotten my name. Hello to the photo of great-aunts Elaine and Madeline on the mantle. Goodbye to the swimming pool by my elementary school; I used to leap into the water again and again. Goodbye to the cornfield, razed to build a strip mall, and the strip mall, minced and bulldozed to make room for a high rise. Goodbye to the uncertainty that once roiled inside me in the neighborhood where I used to live. I’ve juiced every drop I can from this place. When I take a sip, I taste only the dregs. Two days ago, I boiled soba noodles and cut hot peppers and cilantro for lunch, snapping carrots in half as men sprayed the dead trees outside with red paint and ran the chainsaw. Today, the radio on the porch plays a couple seconds ahead of the one in the living room, the sponsorship message echoing as it sings: “Committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.”

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