Favorites Winter 2026: A Magazine for the ‘Literary Weird,’ An Exhibit About Desire, and a Tea-Scented Candle

Poetry

“Smith absolutely shaped me as a writer and as a teacher,” says Laura Passin ’01, a published poet who teaches literature at an all-girls high school near Denver. “The Boutelle-Day Poetry Center opened my first year at Smith and was an integral part of my time there, shaping my view of what poetry is and introducing me to so many living poets.” Passin says her new collection of poetry, We the Destroyers (Riot in Your Throat, 2025), was influenced by the air of uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. “I wanted to write a book of poems reckoning with the human capacity for destruction and our subsequent grief at our own actions,” she says. “At readings and events, people have been vocal and articulate about how these poems speak to their lives and help them make sense of the time we live in.”

Read ‘We the Destroyers’

Exhibits

On view at the Smith College Museum of Art through March 29, Fresh Perspectives celebrates the 25th anniversary of Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism. The student-curated exhibit pairs essays from the Smith-based journal’s October 2025 issue with art from the museum. “We hope these unlikely pairings inspire a fresh perspective on how we view and synthesize art and how art can collaborate between mediums,” says Virginia Cornett ’27, who proposed the exhibit and worked on it with fellow curators Nora Jones ’28, Charlotte Kaczmarek ’25, Stella Maze ’27, Zoey Ochieng ’28, Linh Tran ’27, Ella Wang ’28, and Vivian Weissman ’28. “Fresh Perspectives showcases Smith students’ exceptional talents and Meridians contributors’ innovative brilliance as intersectional feminist knowledge producers,” says Meridians editor Ginetta Candelario ’90.

[“A Word Made Flesh (Front)” by Lesley Dill]

See ‘Fresh Perspectives’

Magazines

An analytical chemist by day, Sophia Carroll ’15 is also the co-founder of M E N A C E, an online literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, art, and other works about all things dark, transgressive, and gross. The magazine’s third issue drops in April. “Part of the fun of running M E N A C E is getting to chat about a particular piece—what’s working, what’s not,” Carroll says. “Unlike a lot of mags, we’re always open for submissions and don’t charge any reading fees.” Carroll is also the author of the chapbook I think we should be louder at Dyke March (Bottlecap Press, 2025) and is working on a memoir about caring for her partner through his chronic illness.

Read ‘M E N A C E’

Fiction

Epic and Lovely (West Virginia University Press, 2025) by Mo Daviau ’98 is an original tale of mortality that follows Nina, a newly divorced woman living out her final days in Los Angeles. Nina has a life expectancy of only 40 years due to having A12 fibrillin deficiency syndrome, a fictional, accelerated version of Marfan syndrome—a genetic condition affecting the body’s connective tissue. While in California, she joins a support group for those with her disorder and falls in love with another member. The book is written as Nina’s deathbed letter, sharing elation and dismay regarding the ups and downs of Nina’s life.

Read ‘Epic and Lovely’

Exhibits

Comprising works from the 13th to 15th centuries, Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages is on display through March 29 at The Met Cloisters in New York City. The exhibit seeks to challenge ideas of love, identity, and kinship, according to the museum. Spectrum of Desire was overseen by longtime Met curator Melanie Holcomb ’85. “Early in my career, I discovered a strange and beautiful painting of Saint Jerome wearing a dress,” Holcomb says of the patron saint and Christian scholar. “That got the wheels slowly turning. For a topic like this, I needed to feel that institutional support and public receptiveness would all align. We have been thrilled by the reception. Someone I know remarked that the exhibit provides an adult space to talk in an adult way about the potent topic of desire.”

[“Water Pitcher in the Form of Aristotle and Phyllis” courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art]

See ‘Spectrum of Desire’

Nonfiction

An interior designer whose work has been featured in Architectural Digest and The New York Times, Young Huh ’91 will have her debut book—A Mood, A Thought, A Feeling: Interiors—released in March. “I had always dreamed of doing a book but thought it was just a fantasy until publisher Rizzoli reached out,” she says. “I launched my firm in 2007, and I have been working on the book for four years!” Loaded with images of homes Huh has worked on, the 256-page book opens with a foreword by celebrity couple Jonathan Scott (HGTV’s Property Brothers) and Zooey Deschanel (Fox’s New Girl). It also pays homage to Huh’s alma mater. “I talk about how important Smith was to me,” she says. “The beauty of the campus and the rigor of my education gave me the rich foundation to do what I do today.”

[Photograph by Simbarashe Cha]

Read ‘A Mood, A Thought, A Feeling: Interiors’

Crafting

Katie McGowan Hoffman ’03 began knitting in the third grade but says she didn’t really pick it up “with gusto” until five years ago. “I joined a Facebook group called Smith Stitchers and it reenergized my interest in knitting, learning new techniques, and being part of an already vibrant knitting and crochet community that was always at Smith,” she says. In 2025, Hoffman opened Scout & Skein, a yarn store in Houston’s arts district. “I decided to start with e-commerce first to reduce my overhead and build up to a brick-and-mortar store,” she says. “When we had our grand opening, it felt like the whole Houston fiber community came out.” Scout & Skein sells approximately 30 brands of yarn, plus books, tools, and miscellaneous gifts.

[Photograph by Gale Zucker]

Get crafting supplies at Scout & Skein

Magazines

Emma Cornwell ’13’s In Sickness & In Health zine explores the day-to-day routines, challenges, and joys of life with a personal care assistant. “I am a wheelchair-using disabled hard femme lesbian with a rare neuro-muscular disease,” Cornwell says. “My zines, writing, and art are about and informed by a desire to explore these experiences of the world as well as to create connection through them.” She often collaborates with other artists, and her Vomit Zine: Musings on Illness & the Art of Throwing Up is a compilation of people’s “grossest, most magical” stories of upchucking. “Some people are so excited to come across my zines, so excited to see themselves or their relationships or their story represented in the world,” Cornwell says. She sells her zines along with humorous stickers—cat barf art, anyone?—paper dolls, and more online.

Get Cornwell’s zines and stickers

Music

A program for upcoming artists opened the door for Lily Lothrop ’21 to record her debut EP, This Is What I Can Do, a six-track release that tackles what it’s like to feel lost and doubt yourself. “Plaid Dog Recording in Waltham, Massachusetts, accepted my application, and we raised $11,500 through a crowdfunding campaign to go toward my EP,” Lothrop says. “I’ve heard from people I love and even strangers saying one of my songs resonated with them. That’s the best.” A classically trained soprano who made her operatic debut in 2018, Lothrop is now focused on her dream of becoming a successful singer-songwriter. “This year I hope to go on a little tour, maybe open for other small artists I admire,” she says. “2025 was the year of proving to myself I can do it. 2026 is my year of expansion.”

[Photograph by Mary Rozell]

Hear ‘This Is What I Can Do’

Fiction

Beverly Cooper Pierce ’70’s debut novel, The Rowans (Winter Island Press, 2025), is the product of seven years of research and writing. Inspired by the lives of her 17th- and 18th-century Massachusetts family members, the book is a work of both magical realism and historical fiction. “Writing this became my third career after three decades as an academic librarian and two decades in integrative nursing,” Pierce says. “I never could have conceived of—let alone realized—this book meeting such a warm response.” Set in pre–American Revolution times, The Rowans is about a woman named Tamsin Bennett who, after the loss of her father, decides to carry on in secret the healing work of her ancestors.

Read ‘The Rowans’

Home Goods

In celebration of Smith’s 150th anniversary, a limited-edition candle called Grécourt Glow was launched in 2025. The production of the candle was led by Megan Young ’07, who works in Smith’s Office of Communications and Marketing. The candle’s scent is inspired by the college’s official Grécourt Green tea—another product Young pitched and oversaw. “I enjoy smelling the scent of the tea sachets and the aroma when the tea is brewing nearly as much as I enjoy drinking it,” she says. “It made me think, ‘I wish my whole house smelled like this!’ And so the idea for a candle was born.” Grécourt Glow delivers scents of green tea, lavender, and peach.

Get the Grécourt Glow candle

Podcasts

Launched in 2020, Vedge Your Best is a podcast by Michele Peszke Olender ’83 that supports listeners in moving toward plant-based and vegan lifestyles. The weekly program has featured many guests over the years, including cookbook author Terry Walters and PLNT Burger restaurant chain co-founder Jonah Goldman. “I do not discuss weight loss,” Olender says. “Instead, I focus on the obstacles and the solutions that exist so that, as much as possible, listeners can look for nutrition, entertainment, joy, community, travel, and traditions without requiring an animal to die or poorly paid and treated humans to work in confined food lots and slaughterhouses.” Vedge Your Best reached its 280th episode in 2026.

Hear the ‘Vedge Your Best’ Podcast