We are thrilled to publish this book in commemoration of the sixth annual Celebration of Student Writing at Indiana University East. From first-year writing students like Brent Keith and Lucy Vogel to graduate students like Jason Reimund, this year’s volume showcases the variety and depth of the writing circulating around our campus. Moreover, this volume evidences how much those of us who teach at Indiana University East value and enjoy the work of student writers. Every student included in this volume was individually nominated by a faculty member. This year we had more students nominated than ever before, and we had more students who accepted the invitation to publish in the pressbook than ever before. As always, we are delighted that this book celebrates the connections between teachers and students. We celebrate that teacher’s words of appreciation, which often appear privately in the margins of a paper, can be shared here with a public audience.

Our keynote this year is Yalie Saweda Kamara, the current poet laureate of Cincinnati, who edited a marvelous anthology titled What You Need to Know about Me: Young Writers on Their Experiences of Immigration (Hawkins Project, 2021). As we are celebrating the work of student writers at Indiana University East, it seems especially fitting that our occasion can be marked by a keynote from a poet who has experience bringing young writers together and creating space for them to share their stories. Stories of immigration are often relayed by journalists, politicians, and pundits. We celebrate the opportunity to hear from the young writers directly. In particular, we celebrate the contributor María Ocon Murillo, who was born in Nicaragua and currently resides in Indiana, and we thank her for offering a reading of her essay “A New Beginning” for our volume.

Many thanks to Dean Daren Snider of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, who has believed in this event from the beginning and continues to support it in a big way. Thanks to Dean Karen Clark of the School of Nursing, who helped to bring Dr. Kamara to campus. Thanks to Oleyemi Mahoney and the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, as well as the Library Foundation and Mindful Explorations, for their financial support of this event. Thanks to fellow editor, Kristie Marcum, and to the many people who helped edit this text, including Rena Holcomb, Jackie Kauza, Laverne Nishihara, Tanya Perkins, and Angie Smibert. Thanks to the marketing and events team. And thanks most of all to the students who continue to write for us, every day, and who make this community possible.