Do you want to submit to the anthology but have writer's block? Here, let us help you! Have some free ideas!!!!

Try Our Idea Generator!

This is not a large-language model or AI. This is a simple JSON script made using Tracery. For those who remember the old Div III title generator on the old Omen Archive website (RIP) this is exactly the same technology. Results will probably be more humorous than useful, but maybe you'll get some inspiration.

Click the button! :)

Where are you now, and where will you go?

Hampshire people tend to be pretty interesting, and everyone is interested in hearing what happened to their old classmates. Remind us who you were while at Hampshire, and tell what you're doing now. Draw a connection between those two moments. How do they reflect each other? What's different? What stayed the same? How did one grow into the other? It doesn't need to be your whole life story. It can just be two juxtaposed snapshots. Once you've drawn the connection, you can tell us where you want to take this element of your life next.

For instance:

My name is Nora Claire Miller, F13. When I was a student, I worked on the Omen. Through the Omen, I learned how to use Adobe InDesign and developed a passion for platforming the voices of the unheard. Now, I run an after school writing program for youth in Easthampton, MA called The Somehow School and my students publish their own newspaper called The Strawberry.

If you sent us something this short, it would still be an awesome contribution. If we get a bunch of these short guys, we'll compile them into a "Hampsters: Where Are They Now?" article. If you can expand your two moments into a full-length personal essay, even better!

This exercise can be a starting point to write a more complex retrospective on your life, or find a narrative worth writing about.

Who Were You at Hampshire?

There are certain Hampshire "archetypes" that appear in every story about Hampshire—and a few specific people who left a lasting impact (perhaps you built a Yurt). Many of us unwittingly embodied recurring characters who emerge again and again. Sometimes, we knew it was happening, but like characters bound by destiny, found ourselves playing the role anyway.

But you weren't just a side character, were you. You were a real human person with human emotions, struggles, and triumphs. Tell us your story, from your point-of-view, as if you were the main character on campus, or not a character at all. What was really happening, that the rest of us didn't see? What was your story arc? What were the subplots? What paths did you take in the choose-your-own adventure game of Hampshire? What do you remember being a big deal on campus and how did you fit into it? What were the sensory details of the places that meant the most to you? Who left an impact? What did you learn from this story? Who are you now?

Sometimes, we were archetypes, sometimes, we held a very crucial role in Hampshire history. Not just the FiCom director, but the final FiCom director. Not just a campus activist, but a primary organizer of HampRiseUp. Not just a quirky professor, but the dean who wrote an important yet controversial change to academic policy. Tell us what it was like to be you, in that moment.

Perhaps you were:

• The girl who sang Sufjan Stevens songs in the Dakin Quad.
• The over-committed student.
• The quirky celebrity professor.
• The beloved long-time worker (like Roberta, or Jim from the post office).
• The maligned student government tyrant.
• The modmate who never did the dishes.
• The student who skipped class to do homework.
• The Omen Editor.
• The Captain of the Red Scare.
• The tokenized queer person of color pressured to serve on every committee for representation.
• The bitter older student warning first-years of their fates as if delivering ominous prophecies.
• The first-year with a shockingly large polycule.
• Someone who helped build the Yurt.
• The Chair of Community Council.
• The CBD student who toiled away in the lab day and night analyzing data.
• The one who bought the generator they used at woods parties until Hampshire's end.
• The charismatic signer who founded multiple student groups.
• The Student Trustee whose experience made you concerned for Hampshire's future.
• The de-facto leader of Mixed Nuts who did all the financials and ordering
• The Campus Plug for various substances
• A Tour de Franzia Champion
• The student who worked at Saga
• The random guy sleeping in the mods
• The burnt-out director of a single-staff office dedicated to supporting students

Some of you will have specific narrative arcs tied to being not just who you were, but when you were. Tie these together, and you'll start getting an interesting premise.

• I was the one who named the Hampshire Student Union, and the one who put the final nail in its coffin. Here's where things went wrong.
• I was editor of the Omen during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I kept Hampshire's history alive through floods, lockdowns, and racist harassment. This is what Hampshire meant to me.
• I was captain of Red Scare Ultimate when we faced off against North Adams College in 1986 for the national collegiate champions. This is the story of my sultry affair with the rival captain.
• I was the modmate who never did the dishes, and this is my journey to getting on ADHD medications.
• I was the tokenized queer person of color pressured to be on every committee, and then came Action Awareness Week. Here's how it was to be stuck between my community and my colleagues.
• I had the idea to build a yurt! Here's the story of how we made it happen.
• I was the science student toiling over data day and night, and then my Div III chair was laid off by budget cuts.
• During my first semester, I wrote a controversial Omen article that enraged everyone: how my perspectives on accountability in community have grown over time.
• My Div III provoked a campus-wide conversation, and now it's an award-winning broadway musical!
• If my time as FundCom director were a television sitcom.
• I was the Deathfest DM who revived Deathfest after COVID-19. This is how to start a Deathfest.
• I was an alum who became a Hampshire professor. How it changed the way I saw Hampshire.

What's your wildest Hampshire story, that you still tell today?

Hampshire was a weird place! Weird things happened! For a few years, Midnight Breakfast was taken over by hypnotists for some reason. One time a committee of students protested the president by leaving dead fish everywhere. One time there was a performance art piece outside the arts village where students "lit small fires, rubbed themselves with animal entrails, and discussed meat" and then campus-wide protests defended it. Face it, our college stories best everyone else's every time.

So what's that story for you? The one you're always telling the Non-Hampies. How do you tell it? How do they react? How do their reactions make you feel? Why do you tell this story, and what can we learn from it? Is there a moral to it? How can we bring the energy of that story into the world outside of Hampshire, and should we?

Blanking the Blank: A Prefix-Something Retrospective

Pick something about Hampshire and do a retrospective. A student group, campus program, element of campus life.

• Hiking Through Snow: A James Baldwin Scholar Retrospective
• Being Enough: A Hampshire Queer Community Retrospective
• Herding Llamas: A Retrospective on New Student Programs
• Building the Barn: A Mixed Nuts Retrospective
• Whether You Deserve It Or Not: An Omen Retrospective
• Mending Town and Gown: A Contra Dance Collective Retrospective
• Now Presenting: A Theatre Board Retrospective
• Event Related Potentials: A Retrospective on Neuroscience at Hampshire
• Purpose, Values, and Scope: Hampshire's Struggle with Student Government
• Mountains in the Valley: Mental Health on Campus
• Grad School for Undergrads: How Hampshire's Academic Program Stands Up

Get Multimedia With It!

It's the 21st century! We can publish things that move and make sound.

• Make a tabletop role-playing game simulating an all-community meeting
• Film a reading of your Div III play
• Write a song about the dutch belted cows and sing it for us
• Send us photos from your time at Hampshire, maybe juxtaposed to how they look today, or scenes from your life now.
• Take a photo of the future you dream of.
• Film a slam poem about ringing! that! bell!
• Code a Tracery grammar that generates ideas for essays about Hampshire.
• Makes a printable zine of breathing exercises to move you through the process of grief.

Get Scientific With It!

Apply some science! Let's go!

• Conduct a survey of Hampshire faculty past and present about their experiences.
• How about an oral history of the Cultural Center?
• Statistical analysis on Hampshire's financials and demographics over the years using the publicly available Common Dataset.
• Statistical analysis on topics of Div III projects.
• Get some Hampshire people into an ERP cap and see how our brainwaves differ from a general population?
• Ecological research on the flora and fauna surrounding Hampus (Why do those trees bend!)
• Soil samples?
• Analysis of the behavior of the farm cats
• Use a survey to trick Hampshire alums into taking psychological tests screening for certain personality traits.
• Do math on the angles of building architecture features?

Get Archival

Tell us an oral history of your perspective on something that happened at Hampshire. Just set up a camera and start telling us everything you remember, then edit it and clip the parts that feel meaningful to you. Go interview all your old college friends about something you were all involved with. Send us old photos you took. Send us your Div III. Send us clippings of your Omen submissions. Help us remember Hampshire, even if remembering is not enough.

Dream of a Future

What do you hope we will all make together in the future? How do you dream of a better world? What would that better world look like?

Ultimately, there's no written evaluations going on here. We intend to include 90% of what we receive. Do whatever feels meaningful to you.