Under Construction
Every year since 1968, students at North Hennepin Community College have collaborated to produce the award-winning literary journal Under Construction. Its pages have typically portrayed a breadth of human experience, but in recent years, as the student population has become more diverse and international and enrollment of both older, returning students and PSEO students has grown, this range has increased dramatically.
If you wish to submit your work, you can email your work directly to the Under Construction editorial board (underconstruction@nhcc.edu). Please send no more than four poems, and please send no more than four works of art. Fiction and nonfiction submissions should be limited to 12 double-spaced pages (12 pt. font). If you have questions, please reach out directly to faculty editor, Haley Lasché, at (haley.lasche@nhcc.edu).
Submit your work by March 4, 2025. Work submitted after that deadline will be considered for the 2026 issue of Under Construction. If you submit after March 4, 2025, please include at least one alternate email address where we can reach you.
Students who submit either a short prose piece (500 words) and/or three poems before February 18, 2024 are eligible to apply for the Vicky and John Lettman Endowed Scholarship. You can read more about this Creative Writing Scholarship and how to apply on the Scholarships page.
Under Construction Issue 56
Letter from the Editors
Dear Reader,
It is our great pleasure to present you with this 56th Issue of Under Construction: A Literary Magazine.
This issue is part of a long history of publishing at NHCC. Our campus literary magazine was first conceived in 1969 through the Creative Writing Club, led by English faculty member, Vicky Lettmann. Over the course of the pandemic, our literary community—like many other communities—lost the strength and connection we’ve enjoyed for these five decades. However, this year, a group of dedicated students (some of whom were part of the Magazine Workshop class) resurrected the Creative Writing Club to support the strong literary community that used to be, making it a place of connection and inspiration once again. We were honored to have Vicky Lettman join us to celebrate this new strength at Under Construction’s second annual Open Mic! It was wonderful to hear some of her poems and be able share current student voices with her, voices we hope you will get to know and love in the following pages.
As the Magazine Workshop class was putting this issue together, we had many discussions about what topics and styles we wanted to share. Our guiding principle was to share the widest range of voices we could. And to let those voices stand strong on their own. We wanted to preserve the voices of NHCC students as they revealed their experiences and their dreams through their art. And we wanted to show how NHCC students’ dreams and experiences were positioned in the historical context of 2024. We wanted to show the important roles fantasy, horror, fable, romance, and realism played in the lives and minds of our student body. We wanted to show the need for truth-telling, the need for catharsis, the need for entertainment, and the need for love. We wanted this publication to represent the full community that our beautiful campus holds. We were able to do so with the help of illustrator Emily Kashirsky.
In addition to our talented student writings and illustrations, we also wanted to share some of our deep questions. In April 2024, thanks to faculty member Kelly Lundquist, we were able to host a book club event to talk about Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong. The readers of her essay collection joined our Magazine Workshop class to discuss the major questions raised by this new book. Then, during her visit to our campus, Cathy Park Hong met with the editors of Under Construction. They asked her our most important questions. Her profound answers can be found here in this issue!
Finally, this year, we’ve had an incredible challenge of bringing our literary magazine into the 21 century and publishing it online (a process we’ve been working on since 2021). There were so many intricate choices that we as an editorial board worked through together as we took this first step online.
To that end, we offer our biggest “thank you” to the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Academic Foundations, Heidie Lish. It is impossible to concisely describe the complicated nature of bringing Under Construction online, but without a doubt, we could not have done it without her creative thinking and commitment to this project. Thank you, Heidie! Thank you so much!
We hope everyone enjoys this issue. And we hope NHCC students from Fall ’24 and Spring ’25 consider sharing their own creative works in Under Construction Issue 57 (and maybe become editors in the Magazine Workshop class) too!
Sincerely,
The Under Construction, Issue 56 Editorial Board:
Sam Anderson, Noah Drake, Alicia Everett, Emma Houston, Emily Kashirsky, Hanin Moussa, Wealth Ndego, Branden Sloan, Marlee Swanson, and Ben Tuffour
And Faculty Editor: Haley Lasché