Creative Prose – Graphos

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Help Us Reboot Graphos!

It’s been a hot minute since anything posted on this site. That’s because life has gotten its hooks into us and we’ve let the important things — like poetry, fiction, artwork, writing about writing, personal essays, and general expression imagination magic — slip away. You can help us. How? You can submit your artwork and Read More ...

Submission Guidelines

We invite you to share your creative expressions with us — poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, critical essay, drawings, paintings, photographs — so that we can publish them here. Contact Dr. Laurie MacDiarmid via email. Artists may submit: Upload each submission separately. (With the exception of poetry: If you’re submitting more than one poem, create a Read More ...

About Graphos

Graphos, a creative space maintained by and for undergraduate artists, is spearheaded by students at St. Norbert College, a Catholic, Norbertine, liberal arts institution founded in 1898 on the banks of the Fox River, in De Pere, Wisconsin. Some form of Graphos has been in existence since 1990, staffed by students and faculty, serving the Read More ...

Take Me Back/Chris Cornelius

Posted onDecember 17, 2022Leave a comment

Take me back to a place and time when the grass was short, and I could see through the woods in the backyard. The cows would keep the trees trimmed and the grass cut. The cows were tame, and the kids could play all day, in the woods behind the house. Skipping stones and hopping over the Read More …

Last Call/Rae Vickman

Posted onDecember 17, 2022Leave a comment

Ring, ring. “Welcome to the Dead Line, where we care about your last requests. How can I help you?” “What? You called me. What are you talking about?” “This is the Dead Line, your one phone call before the Afterlife. How can I help you?” “Afterlife — oh. Damn it.” “Yes. Please take a moment Read More …

More Than a Grave/Em von der Ruhr

Posted onDecember 17, 2022Leave a comment

Lord Nier and the Beast/Sarah von der Ruhr

Posted onDecember 17, 2022December 20, 2022Leave a comment

The first victim found still had her head; many of those who followed would not be so lucky. She was a shepherdess, tending her family’s flock on the rolling hills of the French countryside. One night, she failed to return home. When the other shepherds went out the next day, they found her with her Read More …

Lament of a Local Changeling/Sarah von der Ruhr

Posted onDecember 17, 2022December 20, 2022Leave a comment

I, unlike my loved ones, am not wholly convinced I am of this world. I look the part until I stare too long; I act the part, but there are gaps in the script; I trust the part, except when I feel the hum in the wild – tugging me towards something strange and familiar. Read More …

i live alone/Em von der Ruhr

Posted onDecember 17, 2022Leave a comment

I slip out of bed upon realization of my open curtains. The stale winter air that hovers undisturbed in the vacant void that is my bedroom feels hollow around my exposed ankles. I never wear socks to sleep, I just can’t muster the feeling of them against my scratchy sheets. It’s like dry skin catching Read More …

Alone with Yourself/Annika Morschauser

Posted onDecember 17, 2022December 20, 2022Leave a comment

The house was bursting with excitement. Footsteps thundered overhead while Enna sat on the couch, rapidly tapping her feet. She was beginning to be impatient, wishing that everyone would leave the house as soon as humanly possible. Her parents, Ted and Cecilia, were getting ready, running back and forth from their bathroom, getting dressed to Read More …

We Grow in Different Directions, Yet Our Roots Remain as One/Sarah Schepp

Posted onMay 31, 2022June 2, 2022Leave a comment

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.” F. Scott Fitzgerald “Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described – Read More …

Edo Sunset/Logan Stefl

Posted onMay 31, 2022June 6, 2022Leave a comment

The streets of Edo were bustling, as had become commonplace in the years after the civil war came to a close. The Sengoku Era of Japan had swallowed the country for nearly 150 years, in which countless warlords fought for power over the country, only to be thwarted again and again by someone younger, more Read More …

How Music Breaks Barriers/Klaus Beeck

Posted onMay 31, 2022June 1, 2022Leave a comment

As I sat in class, I could only focus on the time showing in the clock. 12:45, it read. I started to calculate how long I had left in class. Just 20 more minutes, I thought to myself. I was eager to get off the class onto recess after all, I felt like it had Read More …