“Mosaic” Gears up for a New Issue

Lorah Murphy '24 reads last semester's issue of "Mosaic". Source: Cassandra Arencibia '24

As the spring semester begins, “Mosaic,” Marist’s art and literary magazine, prepares for a new issue to showcase student talent. Established in 1961 as “Literary Quarterly” and renamed “Mosaic” in 1962, the magazine has not only remained part of campus life, but it has changed dramatically. According to Lauren Lagasse ’25, not only has the team grown to include seven editors, three cover designers, a social media team and a committee designated to plan the launch party, but just last semester “Mosaic” was chartered as a club. After having a long hiatus between 2018 and 2020, partially due to Covid, “Mosaic” has made a strong comeback.

Kirsten Mattern ‘24 has been a social media coordinator for “Mosaic” since the spring of 2021. Her job primarily includes advertising the issue, providing information for others on how to submit their work and featuring the work of other students from previous issues. Mattern also contributes her own pieces to “Mosaic” by pulling inspiration from a mix of “personal experiences with more abstract concepts… symbols in songs and numerical values,” which she finds meaningful. After learning about “Mosaic” in her creative writing club, she has been submitting since the magazine started up again in the spring of 2021.

Poetry editor, Lorah Murphy ‘24, said her goal is to “[give] as accurate a cross section of the Marist community’s poetry as possible.” She has submitted her own poetry to “Mosaic,” albeit when she was not the editor. Murphy said she finally gained the confidence to submit in her sophomore year and her work was selected. Murphy finds the best place for inspiration comes from “reading and observing and watching the world around [her]...[she loves] writing about art, or people’s unseen beauty or all those little human things…”

Jeremy Skeele ‘23, contributor and first-place prize winner of last semester’s fiction section, highlighted his main source of inspiration as “simple and mundane things in life and trying to see what story can be told.” Skeele discovered “Mosaic” his freshman year, but had never submitted his own work. During the fall of 2021, after seeing the Instagram posts, Skeele finally decided to publish his own work, which he said is “a really amazing feeling of seeing something [he] wrote physically printed in a book format.”

“Mosaic” hopes to solidify their brand and expand their involvement on campus. After the success of last semester's “Fontaine Fest,” which was a combined launch party for “Mosaic,” the SLA literary arts dessert competition and the Story Slam competition, Lagasse said that such a collaboration is something they are interested in repeating again. As the new issue approaches, keep an eye out for posters around campus or Instagram posts (which can be found @maristmosaic) for advertisements on how to submit your own poetry, fiction, nonfiction and art. In the meantime, check out the fall 2022 issue of “Mosaic” by grabbing a copy in Fontaine or clicking the link in @maristmosaic’s bio on Instagram.