VOLUME 1: ISSUE 4
FALL 2022

Personal Essay

My So-Called Undocumented MFA Life

All images from Presença: We Are Here, a series of embroidered 16 x 20-inch photographs. Aline Mello, 2022.

IT’S SUMMER BREAK after the first year of my MFA at Ohio State. I am living with my stepfather and mother in their house about thirty minutes outside Atlanta. I am thirty-three, but when I’m at Mamãe’s house, I revert to thirteen. When I cook something, she sucks in air through her teeth. You made that this way? I was . . .

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