I am proud to announce Nova, Volume 57, will be available today, March 17th. Please join us for a reception today at 6pm, in the Student Union Art Gallery.

It’s been five years since we relaunched as Nova Literary-Arts Magazine.

Usually, anniversaries are a reminder to slow down, take stock, and reflect on what has come before, but we’re always in such a rush to get where we’re going that you might not have even noticed. Everything is speed, deadlines, applications, an unending series of computer screens, motion, motion, motion, computer generated summary, dead battery.

Volume 57 opens with an epigraph– “Why should [we] live in a world without feeling its weight?” There’s something to be said for friction: the grit of textured pages between your thumb and forefinger, the little heaviness of a magazine in your bag– the way it forces you to consider what you’re thinking and doing.

Every issue of Nova is a continued argument for the value of friction. We review more than a thousand submitted pieces, mock up dozens of covers, write tens of drafts of notes, biographies, colophons. Each issue takes more than two thousand man hours for our editors and designers to complete.

Exhibited here today are a selection of art works from volume 57 of Nova Literary-Arts Magazine. Like reading and creating, engaging with art is the product of friction: turn your phone off, look carefully, get caught up on stray details. Enjoy things. Take your time.