A Journal of UC Berkeley Undergraduate Writing
Introduction
As lecturers in writing and as writers, Joe and I both understand (at a knee-jerk level which escapes most outside of the discipline) the value of the written word. And as former undergrad and grad students, we both also recognize the worth of literary journals because, as once starving writers striving desperately for a slice of the literary pie, we’ve both been published in them.
So when we met for lunch just off campus over two years ago, we had come to wonder why an institution as storied as Berkeley – with all the free-expression connotations that that name provokes – had no literary journal for undergrad writers. It was Joe who had broached the subject, but it was something we both had been thinking about, me since I taught my first creative writing classes here in the summer of 2021. That lunch was where Peregrine came into existence, and this because of our unique push-pull relationship. Both of us wanted a student lit journal, but it might never have happened if we hadn’t sat down for that initially innocuous meal. And therein resides the beauty of it. The two of us and our differences – Joe had innocently lit the torch while I, fired by his enthusiasm, ran with it like an Olympian to Maggie Sokolik and Margi Wald (the former carries an oyster knife honed for the cutting of red tape while the latter is College Writing’s resident Super Genius) with the idea, both of whom were more than receptive. Joe and I now acknowledge that it was our inherent distinctions which brought us to that point. Otherwise, it might just as easily have been forgotten again. It is therefore in that vein and beyond that we are proud to present the Inaugural Issue of Peregrine.
