English major Garrett Finn Publishes Piece on Betrayal

It’s always important for students to consider ways in which the things they learn in one class can be applied in other contexts; it’s also important for students to begin expanding the audience for what they’re writing beyond a given professor and beyond a given class.

We always love it when our students find an outlet for their voice in the wider publishing world, and Dr. Devet’s courses in advanced composition in particular have emerged as strong laboratories for professional publication. The English Department is eager to congratulate Garrett Finn on the recent publication of his recent piece “The Stomp-Constellation Effect” in Cahoots, an online literary magazine whose manifesto states that “We are readers and writers; confident amateurs and skittish professionals; seasoned poets and wannabe novelists; wordy philosophers and recovering English majors.”

In “The Stomp-Constellation Effect,” which Garrett developed as a personal voice essay in Dr. Devet’s course in advanced composition, Finn writes of love and loss; of the complexities of love at once cherished and betrayed. The theme, of course, is universal, but its treatment–situated in coastal tide-pools among bioluminescent phytoplankton and a lingering love whose spark has long been spent–is refreshingly novel.

Here’s a brief glimpse of the opening scene:

Blue sparks lit up in the sand whenever I put my foot down,” the piece begins. “They lined the banks of the moonlit tidepools, flaring to life whenever disturbed. It was a clear night, and the bioluminescent phytoplankton in the sand turned the beach into a mirror, reflecting the stars at each footfall. They lit up on the water’s surface around our legs while we waded through the tidepools looking for blue crabs. After I had filled my bucket with aggressive little crabs, the blue sparks followed me out of the tidepool and then along the water’s edge. A woman walked next to me, the woman I wouldn’t let myself love. Born in the ocean adjacent the tidepool, she had sea-green eyes, smooth skin touched by the sun, and streaming dark-golden hair.

Read more at Cahoots!