A B O U T N A M E
NAME Magazine is an undergraduate literature and arts journal
based in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo, which showcases the work of currently enrolled UB students. As a magazine, NAME’s mission has been to present the best work of our creative writing, literature and art students in an annual issue each spring. Each issue is focused around a theme in current events that is significant to our shifting body of students. Founded in 1998 by undergraduate students--Jessica Smith, Matt Chambers, Rebecca Stigge, and Chris Fritton--NAME’s current Faculty Editor is Professor Christina Milletti.
I S S U E S T A T E M E N T
Some Words on Sentences: 2026
What does a satisfying sentence look like? Sound like? How is a satisfying sentence written or enacted? When are sentences censored? When are sentences free? What does it mean to use sentences to create free speech? In this issue, the NAME staff celebrates the sentence at a moment when sentences are under pressure on the page and when their free use in public places has become limited, endangered, even censored. More than a simple grammatical construction, sentences are aesthetic, intuitive and speculative structures that showcase authors’ distinctive voices and way of thinking about the world—in all its beauty and flaws—helping us formalize what we know and how we know it. Sentences don’t just carry a story. They bring stories and thought into being. As novelist and philosopher William Gass once reflected, "The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” It’s this materialization of simple and complex ideas woven together from words into sentences by creative writers of all kinds that NAME celebrates in its annual spring issue.
PAST THEMES
2025-2026: The Sentenced Issue
2024-2025: The Slow-Boiled Issue
2023-2024: No Issue/Sabbatical
2022-2023: The Un-Siloed Issue
2021-2022: Vaccination & Booster Double Issue
2020: The Quarantine Issue
2019: Climate Action Issue
2018: #Me Next (Gun Control Issue)
2017: Border Wall Issue
2016: Shakespeare's 400th Anniversary/Election Mashup Issue
2015: Unbound Issue
2014: Vintage Vinyl Issue