Expose: The Journal of Expository Writing
Expose biannually shares a selection of noteworthy personal and critical essays that are created by students in College and Expository Writing courses at Purchase College.
Spring 2025
Awakening
“…live in the question.”
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This issue is the first to be entirely read and curated by an Expose Editorial Fellow, Alina Stepanov ’25. Alina advises first year writing students in a special essay for this issue, “After Rilke: Letter to a Young Writer,” that “constructing one’s voice through a discovery of the world through literature is essential because you can pierce through the loud noise this world creates, and you will be able see it clearly.”
The varied essays in this issue reflect students grappling with the themes of our time while nurturing their writing voices. Thank you, Alina, and thanks to all College Writing faculty for nominating student work for this issue. Special thanks as always to Professor Emily Sausen, Director of College Writing, and Professor Aviva Taubenfeld, Director of the School of Humanities, for sustaining Expose and supporting its mission and evolution.
Congratulations to this issue’s featured writers, Mia Balsamo, Juan Ignacio López Calderon, Djami Diallo, Anthony Diana, Quinn Dobrish, Ciara Eng, Olivia Geitman, Byron Hueca, George Humphreys, Desara Leka, Kilanys Martys Marrero, Langston Muller, Carter Offer, Evan Rosen, Mahalia Savage, Teagan Schier, Francisca Schmalz, Ilona Shaoul, Alina Stepanov, and Airianna Strickland, as well as to all nominees.
And, with the utmost gratitude to Omar Lawrence ’25 and Kate Wilson ’27 for creating original illustrations for the essays in this issue.
—Amy Beth Wright, Editor
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Journeys: Djami Diallo ’28 and George Humphreys ’28
“‘Look at the American. She can’t even speak a sentence of Fula, only English. Her mother raised them all to be American,” once said one of my aunties, assuming I didn’t understand her.…” Read more
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Meditations on People, Places, and Impermanence
“That empty feeling in your chest lasts longer than a day, and your mind wanders away from the present moment in which it is meant to exist. However, when you start to see people as experiences, that feeling in your chest goes away much faster…” Read more
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Weight Off My Shoulders
“In 2022, I was on the court of my high school gymnasium playing at the peak of my capabilities when tragedy struck. I was playing one of my favorite sports, volleyball, and when I leapt to smack the volleyball back onto the other court…” Read more
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Literary Analyses: Jamel Brinkley and Amy Tan
“In Amy Tan’s “Rules of the Game” and Jamel Brinkley’s “Everything the Mouth Eats,” cultural identity shapes the protagonists’ relationships with their families and defines their personal growth…” Read more
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The Power of Writing: “Swings”
“For as long as I can remember, words in the world just kind of jumped out at me. I don’t mean physical words that you can see, like the twenty-four-hour deli sign that reads “24-Hour Deli.” I mean words we can’t see, like the word “bright” when looking at the sun without proper eye protection…” Read more
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Conceiving Self-Identity Through the Eyes of an Impostor
“I was too Hispanic to blend in with Americans yet too American to fully connect with my Hispanic peers, never good enough to belong where I should have fit in…” Read more
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Reflections on the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series
“…especially coming from a background of little to no hardship; it’s inspired me to write beyond my own experiences, and to write as far outside of myself as I possibly can and really place myself into the characters and setting that I’m writing about.…” Read more
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Literary Analyses of Mario Alberto Zambrano’s Lóteria by Desara Leka ’25 and Airianna Strickland ’28
“Mario Alberto Zambrano’s novel Lotería, is narrated by Luz Castillo. A young girl grappling with her family’s unraveling, explores how chance, cultural traditions, and trauma converge to shape her sense of self. Through her interactions with the Lotería cards, Luz is forced to confront the fragments of her memory…” Read more
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Literary Analyses of “Girl,” “The Husband Stitch,” and “Help Me Find My Sister in the Land of the Dead”
“The story is told through the format of a Kickstarter campaign rather than a traditional narrative, and follows the relationship between two estranged sisters: Ursula and Olive…” Read more
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Reading Reverie: Three Personal Essays Connect Literature and Transformation
“I never imagined the careful consideration that went into a story that holds you captive, there’s almost a sort of magic. I’ve felt that magic when I write…” Read more
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Navigating Loss
“Aunt Aine was a ‘difficult woman’ according to my mom. They were too Irish for their own good and would go years without talking. I barely saw Aine, except for when my mom developed cancer. Somehow all their disagreements went out the window and she was stuck by my mom’s side…” Read more
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Literary Analyses of Alexander Weinstein’s Children of the New World
“‘Openness,’ a short story by Alexander Weinstein, takes place in the near-future, where people have the ability to share their thoughts, emotions, and memories using technology that gives them access to each other’s minds. The information is categorized into outer and inner layers…” Read more
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The Art of the Essay: Blink Twice
“He sits in his chair with his catheter draining his body of fluids, a human condition that has failed his body. His once vibrant blue eyes, now clouded by cataracts stare at me intensely as he tells a story going back many generations…” Read more
Faculty Essay
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After Rilke: Letter to a Young Writer
“Reading is like being one of the first people to see and ponder the very first photo of the Earth taken from outer space in 1947. Indeed, it sharpens your focus so that it can travel many distances and you can just see the world at a distance and in its entirety. Yet, I should point out that despite this, you only start to truly understand the world when you write…” Read more
