The Hagy Monsters

The Twisted Circle of Room 114 The Hagy Monsters

The Twisted Circle of Room 114 was written by 23 Alleghany High School students as a class project. They came together with the goal of taking a deep look at the emotions that fill their lives and the lives of us all. Every short story and poem between these covers belongs to them. In eight short weeks, they circled their chairs together to dig through their lives for inspiration, be it happy or sad, and put this collection together. Some of these pieces hurt: "What does it say that we would rather be dead than not be enough?" Some of these pieces will make you smile: "Choccy milk I love to drink/Choccy milk is all I think/When I pour it in a cup/I can't wait to drink it up" Some of these pieces will make you set the book down and deal with what they just did to the inside of your head: (The sun) just rises and sets/Day after day/And all we are left to do is watch and pray to god/You're awake enough to see it rise These offerings came out of a circle of students who trusted each other enough to open up and explore the art and craft of writing with bits of their soul for paper and blood for ink. This is an invitation. Join the circle, if only for a while, and bring your own pain, your own laughter, and your own heart to these pages. May you learn as much about yourself in reading this collection as they learned about themselves in writing it.