I. PAST Drugs & Religion In Kindergarten, all I wanted for my birthday was a statue of Mary. I loved the Blessed Virgin—her serenity, her kindness, her impossibly peaceful affect. I aspired to be like her. Whenever Mrs. Hogan or Ms. Smith taught the class stories from the Bible in which Mary starred, distraction became […]
May 2022 Edition
Welcome to Shoeleather Magazine! We publish timely longform work by Honors students at NYU Journalism.
The Voices of Personalized Medicine
Mila Virginia Makovec was born in Boulder, Colorado on November 5th of 2010, a happy, healthy child. She was unusually strong; her dad remembers that, just thirty minutes into life outside the womb, she grasped his finger so tightly he could almost pick her up off the bed. For the first three years of her […]
Uprooting the Family Tree
*Four people in this story have their names removed. Their pseudonyms are Lucille, Pierre, Jean Paul, and Jacqueline.* In Louisiana, people are buried above the ground. The land is swampy, waterlogged, and during heavy flooding, caskets can float to the surface, long-dead ancestors popping back up to remind you who you came from. Disturbing the […]
One Foot in the Dungeon, One Foot on Campus
As a 21-year-old student and novice dominatrix, Helena seems to do it all. She manages men’s egos and sexual satisfaction, maintains her Ivy League scholarship, and upholds a New York City social life that makes it all worth it. She looks like every other girl on campus who wears mini skirts and sends think pieces […]