In different eras, everyday life during a pandemic has been a collective experience and subject for which humans have turned to storytelling and art. Whether for solace, inspiration, understanding, insight, or release, telling stories has helped in some way. Such was the project of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, a collection of tales written in 14th-century Italy when medieval Europe was wracked by the plague. In 2020 The New York Times commissioned writers to compose their own contribution to a modernized version of this collection in The Decameron Project. More recently, junior and seniors at Silver Oak High School explored the latter, giving the impetus for our own anthology, where you will find different kinds of tales and visual art that look at and through this past year: what it has meant, means, or could mean for students as individuals and for our community. The collected works here represent the singular ways students have not only struggled with, but also re-imagined and re-invented their own sense of our times through the tales and images they have created.
*Note: Some pieces do contain content or language that can trigger the intense emotions we have experienced this past year, and the editors of this anthology have marked these
pieces with a *
Visualizing the PandemicStories that take a brooder look at the different perspectives of the pandemic |
Love Sick
Lucia Limo Clavijo |
The Painted Wall
Belle Reinhardt |
Alternate World StoriesFictional and fantastical stories inspired by COVID |
Student Decameron Art Projects |
Untitled
Isaiah White |