Starting last week, the Oak Park High School Literary Arts Club has been selling the 2022 volume of Veritas, with a cover photograph from senior Abi Chadwick.

Veritas is the OPHS annual literary magazine; it features student-written poems and short stories. Publications first started six years ago, when English teacher Leslie Miller helped student authors find their niche in the school community through the Literary Arts Club. The club soon began publishing the Veritas, which continues to attract hundreds of submissions each year.

“We chose ‘Veritas,’ which means ‘truth’ in Latin, and we think that it’s really important to represent your version of the truth from your perspective in your own personal art,” explained English teacher Jessica Wall, who has taken over as the teacher adviser of the OPHS Literary Arts Club since Miller stepped down last year. 

Themes can be found throughout the student works. 

“There are themes about body image, mental health, and self-acceptance,” Wall said. “A lot of them looked at the whole theme of ‘mundanity, not mediocrity.’ A last one would be I think nihilism or existentialism.”

Not only does the Literary Arts Club want to inspire their readers, but they also want to motivate the students who created these pieces of literature.

“I want students to transition their self-label from ‘writer’ to ‘author.’ A lot of people can write, but to be an author is to publish your work or to have other people receive it in some form,” Wall said. “I want students to, for the first time, think of themselves not just as writers but as authors.” 

The authors who published their pieces in the magazine were able to display their creativity. 

“I wish I had this opportunity in high school and it’s my great joy that my students get to have this opportunity instead,” Wall said. “I think that’s kind of what teaching is about. It’s about giving your students the experiences that you always dreamed you’d have.” 

Veritas VI is on sale in the OPHS student store for $5.