About Us

In the days of my youth, in the days of my youth,
I lay in West Twelfth Street, writhing with Truth.
E.B. White

12th Street: Journal of Writing and Democracy, is an award-winning literary journal that is edited and published online by students in the Writing and Democracy Honors Program (WDH). The WDH program offers undergraduate students at The New School an opportunity to investigate language and democratic expression across a spectrum of cultural, political, social, and artistic experiences. The program fosters a cohesive community of undergraduate writers through regular student readings and other peer-group activities.

12th Street presents creative work that engages with discourse on the role of the writer in the world and literature as an engine of democracy. It is a forum to amplify and celebrate a diverse New School student body, foster and experiment with emergent ideas, and elevate marginalized voices. 12th Street began in the 1940s and was re-launched in 2008. In 2011, 12th Street won the Director’s Prize award for both design and content at the annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference. 

Masthead Spring 2025

Michelle Yoshino Berry, Editor-in-Chief
Matt O’Connor-Mattila, Managing Editor 
Tierney Auerbach, Fiction Editor
Reya Hart, Nonfiction Editor
Sara Al Hajri, Poetry Editor
Gil Bittner, Staff Editor
Mary Bond, Social Media Editor
Luke Copley, Art & Design Editor
Ayaana Sabb, Interviews Editor
Amelia Stewart, Reviews Editor

Masthead Fall 2024

Eve Michelson-Bianco, Editor-in-Chief
Matthew Mattila, Managing Editor
Tierney Auerbach, Poetry Editor
Michelle Berry, Nonfiction Editor
Gil Bittner, Staff Editor
Fatou Hymes, Fiction Editor

Seth Graves, Faculty Advisor

Can I publish on this site?

All students, faculty, staff, and alumni of The New School, including and especially Writing and Democracy Honors program alumns, are urged to submit! If you have suggestions or requests, email faculty advisor Seth Graves at sgraves@newschool.edu.

image by Walter Houmere in a 1945 issue of 12th Street
The undergraduate magazine of the Riggio Honors Program: Writing and Democracy, alludes to an earlier New School publication of the same name. The artwork reproduced above, by New School student Walter Houmere, originally appeared in the Summer 1945 Issue, Volume I, Number 3 of 12th Street.