Grace J. Bromage ‘23
Former Editor-In-Chief
My Spire journey started at the club fair in September 2019. Just about every freshman was crowded around folding tables in Hogan’s ballroom, and, like so many others, I put my name down on way too many club lists. I signed my name for The Spire’s copy editor, Features, and News email lists. I had always loved the idea of being a writer, even though I was painfully shy and my high school hadn’t had a newspaper. This was going to be my moment.
Initially, I ignored the many emails I was getting from The Spire, too stressed about the amount of school work in college. However, when I got an email from News that requested a staff writer to cover Mingwei Song’s Chinese Science Fiction Lecture – which I had to attend for a class anyway – I decided to go for it. The article was entirely a play by play of the lecture with no quotes from Song and initially 1500 words (the maximum amount of words The Spire encourages is 600 words), and yet it was published in the Features section in October 2019. Still too shy to admit to my friends that I was writing for the school paper, I shared it only with my parents, who were thrilled for me.
Shortly after the article was published, I got an email from Kelly Gallagher ‘22, the Chief Features Editor at the time asking me if I wanted to be a Features Editor. Even though I was a little scared about balancing an article a week with school work, my excitement won out and I joined The Spire’s editorial board. That semester, I covered music department concerts, ACT plays, and fun facts about Thanksgiving. I eventually told my friends — who had already figured it out — that I was a Features Editor and they were excited to read what I was writing. And, of course, I saved every newspaper edition to give to my parents when they came to visit.
In winter 2020, I finally began to incorporate interviews into my articles. I interviewed William Crowley, a Holy Cross senior who had published a book on Amazon, and Peter Moriarty, a photographer who has an exhibit at the Cantor Art Gallery. Of course, 2020 was also the year where Covid-19 hit, which put me on a bit of a sabbatical as I adjusted to life back at home in the midst of a pandemic. I came back for the annual April Fools Day Eggplant Edition, writing for the first time in a section other than Features. I found that although I wouldn’t want to professionally write satire, writing for the Eggplant was always a fun break.
In my sophomore year, Kelly Gallagher was promoted to Editor-in-Chief leaving an opening for Chief Features Editor. I eagerly applied and was so happy to get the position. Being the Chief Features Editor in Fall 2020 had its unique challenges and yet, I was determined to make Features the best it could be. I gained a new Features Editor and started an article series called “Unsung Heroes” where I interviewed the groundskeepers, Kimball workers, and janitorial staff who kept the nearly empty campus running throughout the pandemic and were preparing for our hopeful return in Spring 2021. When we did return to campus, I was eager for my work to become in-person again. My favorite article I wrote that semester was a piece on Syrian artist, Kevork Mourad, who was putting together an exhibit in the Cantor Art Gallery. I got to sit in on one of his work sessions and interview him, and walked away with many great quotes for an article and a piece of the linen canvas he was working on.
When I returned to the Spire in my junior fall, it was as Editor-in-Chief with Ethan Bachand ‘22, as Kelly had decided to take on a consultant role as Senior Advisor to focus on her senior thesis. With Vincent Rougeau as president and campus returning to how it had been when I entered Holy Cross, it was an exciting semester. Ethan and I set up monthly meetings with Rougeau to interview him about important campus happenings. My role as Editor-in-Chief was more behind-the-scenes work than article writing and yet it felt so rewarding. We started having whole-staff in-person meetings to touch base on articles and I learned all the ins-and-outs of newspaper printing negotiations, The Spire’s history, advertisements, and Adobe inDesign (a platform I am glad not to have to use anymore). Ethan and I fell into a routine of last minute look-through of articles on Thursday mornings before class. Those Thursday mornings, joking around with Ethan as we speed-read through pages of articles, ended up being up being a fun start to my Thursdays, joking around in the office with Ethan (those Thursday mornings, were also where my addiction to coffee started, thank you, Spire). It was with mixed emotions that I left the position in Spring 2022 so I could study abroad in Dublin, Ireland.
When I returned to campus as a senior, I took a page out of Kelly’s book and became a Senior Advisor to focus on my thesis. I probably spent too much time acting as a third editor-in-chief to Michael O’Brien ‘23 and Julianna Mariani ‘24, and yet it was a fun semester with crossword competitions and Wednesday evenings doing layout in The Spire office (side note: newspaper group chats are the best source for campus gossip). That fall semester was when I co-wrote the coolest Spire article ever: Mike and I got to have an interview with Russian journalist, free-press advocate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dmitry Muratov, in the vestry of St. Joseph’s Memorial Chapel. That spring semester, Joseph Abrams ‘23, stepped in for Julianna when she went to study abroad, and I challenged myself to write for a fourth section, Opinions. Even though I never wanted to wake up early on a Friday, Friday morning 9am Spire distributions were a fun chance to spend time with Mike, Julianna, Joey, and Ben Lepper ‘25.
Although my time on The Spire helped me get a communications internship the summer before my senior year, I am currently not in the journalism or communications field. Right now, I work as a fellow at the Nativity School of Worcester, teaching art to fifth graders and English to sixth graders. I am currently pursuing my Master’s of Arts in Teaching at Clark University and anticipate sticking around the education field for longer. However, I am so grateful for my time on The Spire. In my four years on The Spire, I held just about every position imaginable, wrote for every section (except Sports), and interviewed artists and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The friends I made working on The Spire are the people from Holy Cross who I keep in touch with to this day. Not to mention, being on The Spire taught me so much about time management, budgeting, crisis management, problem-solving, and writing that I will always carry with me. How could I not look back on that time fondly? Thanks for reading this long-winded walk down memory lane, and keep reading and writing!
Featured images courtesy of Grace J. Bromage ’23
Leave a Reply