Author Archives: Gandy Dancer Staff

by | May 4, 2018 · 11:16 am

Are Writers Selfish?

Posted by Grace Gilbert, GD Creative Non-Fiction Section Head for 6.2

“Poetry is always about my life. It’s a way to express how I feel,” sixteen-year-old Grace muses dramatically, holding her doodle-laden spiral notebook close to her chest after third period study hall. Sixteen-year-old Grace has been utterly heartbroken approximately 2.7 times. She is assured that she has never been, and will never be, “seen” (whatever that means). She is still too embarrassed to buy maxi pads at the supermarket, but thinks she really knows the world for what it is. She wants to share this with you. Sixteen-year-old Grace un-ironically likes the Dave Matthews Band. She eats triple cheese Lunchables on the bus ride home from school, and as she stares out the window, she pretends she’s in an indie film, preferably starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as her boyishly awkward but spellbound love interest. Sixteen-year-old Grace makes sure to document all of these things with an unmatched melodramatic flair, always with a mechanical pencil that she probably borrowed from Lexi during Algebra II and never returned. Continue reading →

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by | May 1, 2018 · 9:59 am

College Decision Day

Posted by Kaitlin Pfundstein, GD Creative Non-Fiction Reader for 6.2 

With May 1 rapidly approaching, high school seniors across the nation are making what feels like one of the most important decisions of their lives so far. Choosing what college you will attend is one of the first major decisions a young adult makes autonomously, and the process can be daunting to say the least.  Each school offers different programs and opportunities for students to advance their learning both inside and outside the classroom; SUNY Geneseo is no exception to this rule. Continue reading →

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by | April 28, 2018 · 1:56 pm

The Top Five LGBTQ+ Movie Adaptations

Posted by Jenelle Piatt, GD Poetry Reader for 6.2 

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by | April 25, 2018 · 11:38 am

Write What You Eat

Posted by Sophie Boka, GD Creative Non-Fiction Reader for 6.2 

While writing on Maryse Condé’s novel Victoire: les saveurs et les mots, it’s hard not to recall the tried-and-true cliché, “you are what you eat,” observing how the phrase extends from the literal bites we impale with our forks to our various forms of literary self-expression. The French title of Condé’s novel literally translates into the English “Victoire: the flavors and the words,” signaling how connected our taste is to language, each, arguably, serving to construct bits of the identity that defines who we are: the “you” who is what you eat. Whether through a poem, essay, or graphic novel, food appears peppered within every genre, yet, quite often, it goes unnoticed, without adequate attention given to its delicious literary functions. Eager to uncover food’s power within our own publication, with eyes, perhaps, bigger than my stomach, I decided to take a look at a few pieces published in past issues of Gandy to see just how intertwined the food that enters our mouths can be with the words that leave them. Continue reading →

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by | April 23, 2018 · 4:42 pm

10 Children’s Books Everyone Should Know

Posted by Deagan Voorheis, GD Fiction Reader for 6.2

As a Childhood Education Major, I spend a lot of time with children, and with books. As I spend more and more time reading books with kiddos, I also reminisce on the days when I would read with my parents and my teachers. Here are 10 books that both my best friends and I loved reading as children: Continue reading →

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by | · 11:36 am

Following the Golden Thread to Cats in a Bag: An Interview with Poet, Adjunct Professor, & Geneseo Alum Albert Abonado

Posted by Joohee Park, GD Poetry Reader for issue 6.1

College is often described as the time to take risks and step outside our comfort zones and usual circles, but it is also a time of burgeoning anxiety about the looming, unpredictable future.

Confronted with the question of what to do with our lives, we may wonder how to trust our own instincts. Often, this uncertainty can manifest itself in one’s writing as self-editing, self-censoring even before one has confronted the page. In this interview, I pose some questions or anxieties we may have as budding writers and participants in the literary world in the context of poetry. Continue reading →

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by | April 21, 2018 · 3:33 pm

University of Pennsylvania’s Literary Magazine Penn Appétit

Posted by Cameron Rustay, GD Poetry Reader for 6.2 

After reading through Gandy Dancer 6.1 and looking at submissions for the upcoming issue, I started researching and pawing through other schools’ literary journals and magazines. I looked through a few schools and didn’t really find anything that was too far removed from Gandy’s concept– that was until the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Appétit came up in the search results. Given the title, you can probably guess that the magazine is about food, but what the title doesn’t show is that the magazine looks and reads like an embodiment of Martha Stewart because it’s so poised. It’s bright, and the pictures would bring Keith Walters to shame, and the articles are easily digestible. I felt like I had to read it while sipping a dry Merlot in a Michelin star French restaurant. I mean, the online issues even have that fancy page flip like you’re reading a real book; it doesn’t get classier than that. Continue reading →

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by | April 20, 2018 · 12:00 pm

National Book Review Month: An Interview with Heather Molzon

Posted by Grace Rowan, GD Creative Non-Fiction Reader for 6.2 

During the month of February, love is in the air. At SUNY Geneseo, the love of books and the art of reviewing is celebrated through the English Department’s third annual National Book Review Month (NaRMo). Readers can submit reviews of their favorite books to the NaRMo website: www.narmo.milne-library.org. The website provides five easy steps to writing a book review and how to submit the review once completed. NaRMo is accepting reviews from a variety of genres including Children’s Books, Drama, Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry.

To learn more about NaRMo and why book reviews are a great asset to not only the Geneseo literary community, but also the campus community, I interviewed the Coordinator and Student Chair of NaRMo here at SUNY Geneseo, Heather Molzon. Heather Molzon is a senior Creative Writing major with a Communication minor. Continue reading →

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by | April 11, 2018 · 11:42 am

Shara McCallum’s Madwoman: an Exploration of Female Identity, Race, and Strength

Posted by Arianna Miller, GD Co-Poetry Section Head for 6.2

Shara McCallum was this semester’s visiting poet at SUNY Geneseo.  I had not only the pleasure of sitting down for lunch with McCallum, both also of reading her diverse collection, Madwoman.  Madwoman spans across what it means to be a woman, to have the privilege of being a black woman who appears white, and to accept being the daughter of a schizophrenic, all with the underlying presence of her Jamaican heritage.    Continue reading →

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by | April 9, 2018 · 12:06 pm

A Review of Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, and a reflection on the relationship between art and story

Posted by Francesco Bruno, GD Fiction Co-Section Head for 6.2 

I invite you to refute the old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover,” and contemplate the paperback edition of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, published in 2011 by Alfred A Knopf. The cover shows a colorful menagerie of bodies in manifold contortions and postures. The translucent figures overlap and blend with each other, but no single figure grabs a central focus. The book’s title is laid over this image (again, the font is translucent) and the cluster of bodies is put into focus by a background of stark white space. The cover suggests not cacophony but polyphony, its narratives not shouting over one another but offering a variety of perspectives and lenses through which readers can continuously re-interpret the cover. Continue reading →

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