Spring 2026 Rough Cuts Features

 

love will stop the wound from bleeding by Ash

When non-binary and Persian professor Raj is forced to choose between moving across the country to be with their boyfriend or moving even further away to Iran to continue their research, they come face-to-face with a past they know and a past they don’t, in an exploration of Persian poetry, queer love, and cultural estrangement.

 

Girls at Sea by Paige Esterly

Following the fascist takeover of America and resulting global political conflict, four thirteen year old girls aimlessly circle the ocean in a resistance-backed School Ship. As the years drag on, they stumble through victories, blunders, and insecurities-- and begin to confront the realities of the political landscape they're inheriting.

 

Lenin is a Mushroom by Madelyn May

An unlikely bond forms between a mycology professor and a doctoral student sent on a mushroom-hunting expedition across Siberia. Their mission: to prove or debunk the bizarre claim that Vladimir Lenin was a mushroom—while the Soviet Union collapses around them.

 

The Thru-Hikers by Ellie Melick

Kay and Peter are backpacking to heal their marriage. Rena and Lance are backpacking to explore each others’ bodies. Both couples want alone-time, but keep running into each other. The theater is the woods in this immersive comedy, and like the theater, the woods aren’t as private as they seem.

 

Vinyl Vanguard by Marcus Scott

Uprooted and disillusioned, Heron Gregory finds a kindred spirit in Babatunde, a studious Nigerian immigrant. Their rock band becomes a sanctuary from the “provincialism” of their island town, but first love and complex cultural misunderstandings soon turn their brotherhood into a high-stakes struggle for identity and survival.