By Wendy K. Mages

Gran’s holiday feast. Warm cinnamon doughnuts on dainty doilies. Fragrant aromas wafting, mingling, harmonizing with hints of the pipe tobacco Grandad pretends he never smokes. Candles flicker. Flavors of love and longing, music, and laughter. A symphony of sentiments, sounds, and scents—yesteryear enveloped in wrapping paper, ribbon, and yearning.

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Wendy K. Mages, a Mercy University Professor, is a Pushcart Prize nominee and an award-winning poet and author. She earned her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and her master’s in Theatre at Northwestern University. As a complement to her research on the effect of the arts on learning and development, she performs at storytelling events and festivals in the US and abroad. To learn more about her and her work, and to find links to her published stories and poetry, please visit https://www.mercy.edu/directory/wendy-mages