Three Jefferson High graduates are into “Twisted Ink.” The literary journal of the University of Montana Western at Dillon, “Twisted Ink” publishes the works of UMW students and community members.
Behind the latest issue, released this spring, was Jefferson High grad Jared Probert. Leading the staff as the journal’s president this year, Probert spent the past four years working with the “Twisted Ink” staff. An English major who hopes to find a career as an editor and writer, Probert was on the “Panther Press” staff while at JHS. Probert recently graduated magna cum laude with honors from UMW.
Another former “Panther Press” writer, Nathan Eury is finishing up his junior year at UMW and was co-editor-in-chief with Probert. He was also dubbed the “Chief of Morale” at “Twisted Ink” this year. A Modern History and Professional Communications major at UMW, Eury intends to pursue a career in international relations.
Yet one more JHS grad and former “Panther Press” staffer, Ashley Makowski, was entangled with the recent release of “Twisted Ink.” A UMW graduate, Makowski writes for the UMW News Bureau and announced the call for submissions to the latest issue.
In an editor’s note opening the issue, Eury wrote, “It is our hope that this print journal continues as an annual tradition and that our efforts will continue to garner interest in and support for our club as well as the arts in general on this campus and within the greater Dillon community.”
Within the covers readers are treated to a fiction piece by Eury titled “The Lights Are Going Out.” Focused on a woman on a porch, the story delves into her memories of Eastern Europe.
“She remembers the lights of the cities below her plane when she fled, the sporadic orange plumes of explosions marking the departure of more souls, the extinguishing of more of civilization’s luminance,” reads one sentence in the riveting tale.
“Glimpse,” a poem by Probert, artfully captures a passing memory, frozen in time but still filled with motion. It speaks of “characters in the play who never walk onstage friends from forever ago caught forever.”
Fiction, non-fiction and poetry all fill the pages of the literary journal. Selections by both Eury and Probert, as well as other authors included in the journal, can be found online at twistedink.me.
