Meet the Staff!
Clara Davis is a senior at the University of Virginia, where she is pursuing majors in English and Art History, and a minor in French. Her interests (both in leisure and in study) vary, encompassing literature, photography, painting, and film. At UVa, she is a resident of the French House and a student tour guide at UVa’s Fralin Museum of Art. Outside of these academic and extracurricular involvements, she enjoys traveling, drawing, running, and good conversation. In the future, Clara hopes to further her study of 20th-century American literature and visual culture. She looks forward to learning more about publishing through interning at the Paragon Press this summer.
This is her favorite koan:
When Bankei was preaching at Ryumon temple, a Shinshu priest, who believed in salvation through the repetition of the name of the Buddha of Love, was jealous of Bankei’s large audience and wanted to debate with him.
Bankei was in the midst of a talk when the priest appeared, but the fellow made such a disturbance that Bankei stopped his discourse and asked about the noise.
“The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had such miraculous powers that he held a brush in his hand on one bank of the river, his attendant held up a paper on the other bank, and the teacher wrote the holy name of Amida through the air. Can you do such a wonderful thing?”
Bankei replied lightly: “Perhaps your fox can perform that trick, but that is not the manner of Zen. My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink.”
Harrison Yang is a graduate of Pace University and winner of the 2017 Academy of American Poet’s Awards. His most recent publications include: Poets.org, Z-publishing “New York’s Best Emerging Poet’s”, and the Paragon Journal. He is currently an editorial intern at the Paragon Journal and maintains his own poetry blog. In his free time, he plays Overwatch and drinks way too much coffee.
Julianna Mitchell is an incoming freshman at Chapman University in Anaheim, CA. However, she is from a small town about an hour out of Pittsburgh called Beaver County. She is a woman of many obsessions, including drag queens, movies, The Lumineers, old school rap music, photography, MMA fighting, dogs, and plenty more. She is excited to be working with The Paragon Press this summer, and hopes to share doses of laughter and smiles with each appearance she makes.
Liam Mayo is a sophomore at Bard College, studying piano performance and written arts. Originally from Wisconsin, he has performed as a piano soloist with multiple orchestras across the state and was an active participant in Green Bay community theater through high school. He is the research director for the Bard Free Press, Bard’s student newspaper, and has written for the student news website Study Breaks. In his spare time, he runs several Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, writes fiction and goes on long, rambling walks.
This is his favorite kōan:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868–1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Nadia Tivvis is a senior English major at Dickinson College. Originally from Baltimore, Nadia has always been obsessed with fantasy and has recently been exploring the works of Ursula LeGuin, Douglas Adams, and Samuel R Delany. At Dickinson, she works at the Writing Center as a tutor and was co-president of the literary society Belles Lettres her sophomore year.
Shanel Ledesma is an upcoming senior at Temple University. Her passions for writing, art (aka escaping realism), and telenovelas have marked her career path for writing for television. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she aspired to be like many of the great artists that rose above their circumstances in her hometown. Now she believes she can and will do anything. These are her favorite kōans:
Zen Master Unmon said: “The world is vast and wide. Why do you put on your robes at the sound of a bell?”
A monk asked Master Haryo, “What is the way?” Haryo said, “An open-eyed man falling into the well.”
Victoria Johnson is an editorial intern for Echo and a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She’s studying history, journalism, and Spanish and hopes to become a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. In her free time, she walks her cute little Maltipoo, writes short stories, and watches Akira Kurosawa films. When she comes down with a heavy case of writer’s block, she thinks up answers to her favorite kōan: Shuzan held out his short staff and said, “If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?”
