In April, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of The Walldog, a new local online outlet. This is a critical arts project, one that focuses on the creation of cultural memory and imagination for the future.
“The Walldog reads public art, ghost signs, murals, textiles, protest aesthetics, and vernacular design as openings into potential histories and yet-to-be-imagined futures, creating space for stories obscured by dominant narratives of innovation and progress,” their About Us page states.
I’m not gonna lie, I don’t really understand all the words that they’re using or their implications (I was a Health major *eye roll*).
The people involved in the publication that I have had the fortune to work with before are amazing artists in their own rights—Hans Haryanto is an ongoing contributor to TCE who covers a variety of stories and most recently highlighted Dirty Work Studio; Haley Sheppard has both written with us and created comics of small, beautiful moments in the region; and Zack Mason worked as summer reporter in 2025, then wrote a regular creative fiction column until March of this year.
Shalaka Jadhav, editor (and mastermind and genius) behind this publication is a powerful force in the community. I have only known her a short time, but her work with both The Walldog and Dirty Work Studio is commendable.
Of course, there are more writers to whose work I am being introduced for the first time in The Walldog itself. Ioana Dragomir’s piece, “Speculative Fictions: Miles Rufelds’ ‘Salvage Archives’”, is a beautiful mixture of review and contemplation on the nature of “truth”. I have not had the chance to read everyone’s pieces, but the other writers—Mary Abdel-Malek Neil, Julie Hall and Nicole Beno—have pieces that I am excited to go over, as well.
I am showering this team with compliments and they are all well-deserved.
Recently, I have had some conversations with other writers, artists and friends about how the world seems completely meaningless. In this time of war and existential threats—when climate change and inflation and global politics and all sorts of problems seem to be coming to a terrifying climax—now, more than ever, we need to keep doing our work. We need to create and witness and record.
I will not lie, the despair and anxiety is catching up to me. While at The Walldog launch on Apr. 18, 2026 at Whoopsie Daisy Drinks, I was kinda sad. Like, pretty sad. Also, I lost my voice, so I couldn’t even talk to the people there even though I love talking, and so I had to leave early.
So, I was sad.
But in a moment, while listening to Haley play an original composition on the harp, I realized that I don’t really know what is going to happen and I don’t really know all the people in the room all that well, but I am really glad they exist.
There was a sense of community which fostered a desire to learn and grow (it was Haley’s first time performing with the harp!). Everyone present was part of something creative and constructive. Moreover, they were participating in a celebration of that creative process and of the artists themselves.
I don’t mean to be that annoying, pretentious writer telling you that what I do is “really important actually, don’t you know? Yeah, doctors save lives, but I save souls,” because that would be annoying and pretentious.
But as I was sitting there and as I was thinking back to the launch party, I knew that it was meaningful. I didn’t know why and, as mentioned before, I was falling into a pattern of pessimism which did not align with my experience. If the evidence is not matching the hypothesis, one must consider why and if there are other, potentially more accurate hypotheses.
Currently, I think it is important to create because humans need to create and because we need to tell our stories, somehow. We need to express ourselves, to witness, to document, to regulate, to connect, to communicate, to hope that someone else, in a different time and a different world, will look at the pieces we leave of ourselves and understand who we are.
For this moment, we are the creators and readers, but we will eventually join the dead who can no longer create or edit. When that happens, others will depend on traces and memories to know us.
And if we don’t speak for ourselves, others can rewrite or forget our stories as they please.
We must also create art for ourselves—so that we don’t forget what we have been through or repeat mistakes because we have forgotten the lessons. And the greatest mistake we must avoid is that of losing hope.
Reader, you are all I have.
That you know I was sitting at the table, listening to the harp, pulling myself out of existential despair makes that moment less lonely. Knowing I can write about something even when I am going through it alone promises a witness, a sympathetic stranger.
I am, of course, terrified as everyone is. I feel the dread of systemic decay and the helplessness against the Powers That Be.
But I am writing this for you, you are understanding parts of me. That is enough.
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