Issue 32 (Spring 2024)

Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

At the beginning of this school year, the Isla Vista housing crisis threatened whether or not I would be able to continue living here. Of course, this would have been unimaginable, especially as an incoming senior. A good friend of mine had graduated already and I decided I would ask him if he knew who would be taking over his lease. I knew it was a long shot, but my luck was expiring day by day. His response was giddy and too good to be true, “It’s yours, dude!” He took The Catalyst with me during my sophomore year and continued to be a supportive peer both creatively and academically.

During fall of this academic year, I hosted our first launch event as the Editor-in-Chief. My nervousness was accompanied by a fear that I would not be able to do what I’d seen every other EIC do before me; successfully produce and execute our beloved magazine. I was lucky to have an amazing team on whom I would eventually learn to lean: Caden, Ellise, Tristan, Frances, Jessica, Nikita, Brian, and our two TAs, Henry and MariaCarolina. After the fall launch event, I was messaged by a student, an external submitter to our magazine, who invited me to another poetry event that was affiliated with our school. I was shy to attend at first, but I saw that The Catalyst was not the only creative hub for students at UCSB. I was sad to have only known about the Poet’s Club during my last year, as they are another gem of a community to get to know. The student who invited me is my current partner, and I am grateful for the love of literature we share.

If it is not already clear, The Catalyst has saved me in more ways than one. If you read the previous letters from both the fall and winter issue, you’ll understand that it has provided me with a safe space mentally and emotionally. I wasn’t sure if this school was the right fit for me because I did not know whether or not I could tend to my passions here, but The Catalyst nurtured and matured my love of reading and writing. My experiences with the magazine led me to my home and my person, and I believe there is a power in trusting the process as I did with this wonderful magazine. I leave with an excerpt of a poem that I stumbled upon not too long ago, “A Farewell” by Harriet Monroe:

Good-bye!—no, do not grieve that it is over,
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.
Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Yes, love and all.
Glad was the living—blessed be the dying.
Let the leaves fall

Kiana Perez Granados
Editor-In-Chief

Prose

Poetry

The Team