Welcome to Issue #1 of Under the Madness, a magazine for teens, by teens. When the editors first put our minds together over Zoom in the summer of 2021, we knew we wanted to establish a place where teens feel empowered to share their literary work with the world. With the tumultuous past few years that we have faced–the pandemic, political polarization, global warming, uncertainty, and unrest–we recognized how much our youth needs an emotional outlet. At Under the Madness, we urge young writers to submit and keep writing, no matter where, when, or what about. The magazine staff has been working collaboratively to present their first issue. The creative partnership between readers and editors was key to our issue coming together.
The youngest writer whose work appears in this issue is thirteen and the oldest is nineteen and attending college. Some authors reside a few pine-and-mountain covered miles away from the editors in New Hampshire, while others create in Georgia and Pennsylvania, in China and New Zealand. We are honored that for a few writers in this issue, it’s their first experience of publication: so two great firsts coincide, our first issue and their first publication!
Under the Madness hosted a Kick-Off Poetry Contest in December, granting us the opportunity to read a truly amazing group of poems from everyone that submitted. The contest winners, Falon Willow, Ellie DelSignore, and Carys Cox, wowed our staff and the contest judge with their deep and meaningful poems.
We have an array of unique and riveting works included in our inaugural issue. Here is a sneak peek of some of the featured pieces…
* Lilla Bozek says in “The Life and Times of a Houseplant,” “The green tendrils of the sprout you are cannot escape these terracotta confines, / Because the bus doesn’t stop in this botanical graveyard.
** In Rachel Leigh Pullino’s creative nonfiction piece, "Pink Velvet and Trepidation,” a mysterious backpack appears as a student struggles with a writing assignment.
*** Yirou (Cynthia) Wang in her poem “The Rational Mind,” speaks to the uncertain times we live in…: “Both directions are negative. / Five, six, seven, and Imaginary.”
***** Long live the long-lined intensity of Noah Chiles’ “A Place”: “Where ghosts merge with blades of grass, luminous blades, hands, branches, rivers, mud, mud, mud”!
****** Charlotte Prebble’s short story, “Robbery gone wrong,” will thrill you with its fast-paced and action-packed plot, as well as its surprise ending.
Stay tuned for upcoming virtual events at Under the Madness, including a workshop in writing creative nonfiction (where we’ll liberate the essay from the five-paragraph school essay!); a pandemic poetry workshop; and a publication panel. Don’t miss our Release Party for Issue #1!
We'll be posting information on events at the "Contest/Events" link. Follow us on Twitter @utmmagazine. Find us on Instagram @underthemadnessmagazine or on Facebook @UndertheMadnessMag. Sign up for our newsletter.
Rebecca Colby, Managing Editor
Alexandria Peary, Editor-in-Chief
February 2022
Image: "Open is Welcoming" by cogdogblog
