About
River An
Peddie School 27’
CREATIVE WRITING
& PUBLICATIONS
& PUBLICATIONS
Amphion Literary and Art Magazine — Editor-in-Chief, 2026–Present
Editorial leadership for Peddie’s century-old student-run literary and art magazine; curates 100+ annual submissions and mentors student contributors.
Creative Writing Signature Program — Selected Participant, 2025–2027
Two-year program in poetry, fiction, and graphic narrative; lead visual artist for a collaborative graphic narrative project.
Iowa Young Writers’ Studio — Selected Participant, Summer 2025
Two-week residential creative writing program in fiction and poetry.
Think of the Sea — Korean–English Screenplay Translator
Translated a short-film screenplay for international film festival submissions.
RESEARCH & LAW
Juvenile Miranda Rights Study — Independent Researcher, 2025–Present
Designed an IRB-approved study of 307 adolescents examining comprehension of Miranda warnings; authored a 20-page research paper and is developing a documentary based on the research.
New Jersey Student Ethics Conference — Presenter, 2025
Presented “Why Do Miranda Rights Fail to Protect Young People?” on false confessions, language barriers, and legal reform.
Columbia High School Law Institute — Participant, 2025–2026
Studied criminal procedure and constitutional law through Columbia Law School’s high school program.
LEADERSHIP & COMMUNITY
Student DEI Leadership Council — Co-Leader, 2025–Present
Organizes student programming and dialogue; designed and led a DEI Day workshop connecting the Heart Sutra and Five Skandhas with contemporary inclusion.
Arts Citizenship Committee — Elected Representative, 2024–Present
Represents theatre students in school arts planning and student-faculty dialogue.
Hartley’s Legacy — Co-President, 2025–Present
Organizes student performers for twice-monthly performances at Princeton CIEL Senior Center; launched an oral-history project documenting residents’ songs and life stories.
VISUAL ART
Independent Studio Art Portfolio — 2024–Present
Developing a 12–15 piece portfolio exploring storytelling and memory through digital and traditional media.
ULTRAVIOLET at BRIC House Gallery — Selected Artist, 2026
Selected for a juried youth contemporary art exhibition in Brooklyn.
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Gold Key — Poetry; Silver Key — Mixed Media; Honorable Mentions in visual art and writing.
PERFORMING ARTS
Musical Theatre — Peddie School, 2023–Present
Gloria Thorpe, Damn Yankees; Fiona, Shrek the Musical; ensemble in The Prom and Mamma Mia!; Assistant Stage Manager and onstage band singer in Romeo and Juliet.
Vocal Performance — Peddie School, 2023–Present
Lead Vocalist, Blair Day Band; soprano soloist for chapel services, alumni memorials, and school ceremonies; member of Peddie Singers and Treblemakers.
Private Voice & Acting Training
Voice study with David Gordon, Manhattan School of Music; acting and vocal coaching with Broadway performers Marina Kondo and Michelle Beck; New York Film Academy musical theatre intensive.
ATHLETICS
Varsity Girls Golf — Peddie School, Grades 9–10
Two-year varsity team member; 2025 Mid-Atlantic Prep League team champion.
HONORS & RECOGNITION
National Merit Commended Scholar, 2026
Scholastic Art & Writing Awards — Gold Key(Poetry, 2026), Silver Key & Honorable Mentions (Mixed Medea, Painting, 2024-2025)
CS Music Vocal Competition — National Live Second Round, Musical Theatre & Classical Voice, 2026
Peddie Declamation Contest — 2nd Place, 2026; Honorable Mention, 2024 & 2025
Poetry | Fiction | Essays | Research
A Knock from Yesterday
Three sharp knocks thud at the door, evenly spaced with the precision of a metronome. One long night, Mrs. Sullivan has imagined this sound—the moment her daughter comes back home. First would come the garbled apology, any intelligible words sparse and splintered between sobs, and then the damp embrace. She would allow herself anger, but only once the door shut closed.
They’d argued before she left. The girl had stormed out, muttering that she needed space from all the ghosts in this house, and Mrs. Sullivan knew she meant the loss neither of them could bear to say aloud.
She lets out a shaky exhale and opens the door.
“Hi, Mama,” Katie says, standing on the porch with her hoodie zipped and her hair brushed slick.
Mrs. Sullivan blinks. “You… you’re back.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
As she brushes past, she slips off her bleached sneakers, even though Katie never cared about being tidy.
Mrs. Sullivan makes tea and remembers to set out milk and sugar before Katie complains. The girl sits at the kitchen table, wrists folded parallel to the edge.
Setting the mug in front of her, Mrs. Sullivan tries not to stare too long at the girl’s hands. They’re perfectly still. “Do you want to talk about why you left?”
“You always want to talk.” When Katie reaches for her cup, her fingers align perfectly on the handle, equidistant from each other. Mrs. Sullivan opens her mouth to warn that the tea is still scalding when the girl lifts it to her lips and drinks it in one long, measured swallow. The steam gathers in her hair, leaving it damp against her cheek. Her skin doesn’t flush.
“That’s not new,” Mrs. Sullivan says, trying for lightness. “But coming home like this… Katie, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I? I promise I’ll never leave again.”
The woman clears her throat. “You must be tired.”
“I’m not,” Katie says, “but you look exhausted. Mom, why don’t you get to bed? I’ll clean up the mess.”
Mrs. Sullivan watches her drink again. The two sugars and two creams sit on neat stacks across the table—if anything, it’s cleaner than when they first sat down.
When Katie finishes the tea, Mrs. Sullivan clears her throat to break the silence, but the sound seems to fall flat, absorbed by the room instead of filling it. “It’s fine. You should get some rest, honey.”
Mrs. Sullivan remembers her daughter filling the house; she remembers how every cabinet in the kitchen would creak for her daughter who rummaged through them until she found the packets of hot chocolate she hid from her; she remembers how she could always hear the girl skittering across the house when they played hide and seek together, joy buzzing through her pattering footsteps no matter how hard she tried to smother the sound; she remembers how she would pretend not to hear; she remembers how her daughter never realized she was letting her win.
Now, all sound seems to curdle into the girl in front of her.
The woman stands and turns toward the sink, needing distance, needing something to touch that isn’t the girl. The faucet sputters, then steadies into a thin stream. Washing her cup slowly, she watches the water bead on her skin. Behind her, the chair creaks. She glances back and pauses.
Katie isn’t sitting anymore. She stands like she shouldn’t be, like a ragdoll waiting to be repositioned. Her arms hang at her sides, her chin lowered just so, her gaze fixed on the woman’s back.
Mrs. Sullivan blinks, and the girl blinks too, just one heartbeat later.
The woman tilts her face. Katie mirrors the motion, almost imperceptibly delayed. A chill itches at the woman’s spine like static. She’s unsure if she can be afraid of the poor girl who calls her mama. “Katie?” she manages.
“Yes?”
Her response is gentle and instant, but she doesn’t move her lips fast enough. The sound arrives half a second early, her face catching up after, and the house holds its tongue.
Mrs. Sullivan strains a smile so it doesn’t turn into a scream. “I thought you might want some more tea.”
Katie shakes her head. The movement is smooth, too smooth, like film played at the wrong frame rate. “I’m fine. Seriously, are you sure you should be having caffeine this late? You know it keeps you up all night.”
Past dinnertime, Mrs. Sullivan usually never sees her daughter, who always locks herself in her room. Besides, she hasn’t been in her mother’s room since she learned how to fold her own laundry. But it must be obvious how busy the woman is with work, so she tries to let the static pass. She dries the cup, back still to the table, watching the girl’s reflection in the window.
When Katie’s not speaking, she barely breathes at all. In the reflection, she gapes straight back, but when Mrs. Sullivan catches a direct glimpse of her, she’s studying the last dregs of tea swirling in her cup. Mrs. Sullivan looks back to the glass. Straight back again.
The cup slips slightly in the woman’s hand, knocking against the sink. The sound is small, but the girl remembers to flinch this time. Mrs. Sullivan turns off the water, and the fridge forgets to hum. Silence spreads thick as fog. She hears only her own heartbeat and wonders if the girl can hear it too.
And then come three knocks, almost timid. Mrs. Sullivan would’ve missed it if not for the house’s abated breath.
She glances toward Katie, who doesn’t move. The girl’s eyes shift slightly toward the hall, then back to Mrs. Sullivan.
“Stay here,” the woman whispers.
Katie tilts her head but says nothing, a dog sniffing at its reflection as if to say: go on then, what’s your next move?
The air in the hall feels colder as Mrs. Sullivan moves toward the door. Another three knocks.
“Mom?” a voice calls from outside.
The voice is familiar enough to make the woman’s chest ache. Behind her, the frail drag of a chair across the kitchen floor.
Outside, the voice grows louder. “Mom? It’s me. I’m sorry—god, I’m so sorry. I know these past few days must have felt like losing Katie all over again. I never meant to put you through that.”
Mrs. Sullivan stops and turns halfway. Katie was standing now, doll-jointed, eyes fixed on the door.
“Mama?” Katie asks, her voice soft as it hangs.
“Olivia,” the woman shouts toward the voice outside. “You should stay back.”
Katie tilts her head to the side. “That’s not my name.”
“You’re right.” Mrs. Sullivan grips the door handle. “It belongs to my daughter. The only one who’s still alive.”
Silver Fish and Linings
Dear Antoine,
The sea is a quarrel of colors today, blue stung by a late pink hush. I walked the harbor before breakfast and watched a boy pull a silver fish from a pail, only to hand it back to the water. He reminded me of you, how you paint and paint, then shred the canvas when a single brushstroke goes wrong.
Mother slept until noon. She’s still unwell, though she’s talking more. When she woke, she asked whether Paris still smells of warm stone after rain. I said yes, though I don’t know. Here, it smells of salt and someone ironing linen in the room below mine.
I’ve tried keeping a journal. Replicating your endless drawings is impossible, but words feel easier to search for. I note the hour gulls fall quiet, the two chips in my teacup, the baker who ties each ribbon twice. If this page glows even faintly under your lamp, then at least something of us hasn’t gone out.
I miss the city every day, but I’ll stay as long as she needs me.
Cécile
Cécile,
Your letter came this morning. I read it by the window without taking off my coat. The boy with the fish resembles me, yes, but I don’t hand things back once I’ve caught them. I hold on until they rot. You make me sound gentler than I am.
Paris doesn’t smell like warm stone. It smells like paint thinner, my neighbor’s cigarettes drifting down the hall, and dog shit, though I doubt the stench was any better in your mother’s time. I’m trying to work, but I can’t remember the last time I liked what I painted.
Perhaps your words find me because nothing else does. For a second, the room didn’t feel empty.
Antoine
Debbie,
I know I was cruel last night. No need to remind me. I’ve been rehearsing our conversation since dawn. You were right. I retreat the moment life demands patience from me.
I shouldn’t have asked you to leave, but we both know what we have only works because it isn’t required to mean anything larger than wine and late nights and exhibitions neither of us truly like. If it did, it would collapse.
I’m writing instead of calling because writing lets me apologize without conceding too much. Still, consider this an olive branch. I want to see you soon.
A.
Dearest Antoine,
The rain stopped this morning. I watched boats move in slow circles while shopkeepers raised their shutters. Mother eats more when I don’t mention the doctor. She’s improving.
The baker’s daughter asked when the painter from Paris would visit again. I told her you’re busy, which is true enough. She’s too young to know you as our most loyal country bumpkin. You’re kindest to yourself when I’m your worst vice.
You say you aren’t as gentle as I make you seem. If that’s true, then I owe the boy with the silver fish an apology. When he lifted the line from the water, he was stronger and far more careless than either of us ever were as children, much less now. The heaviest things we reel in are our pens and each other’s arms.
Let your dissatisfaction guide you; it’s lighter than you think.
Cécile
Dear Cécile,
Your last letter arrived folded so neatly it made me uneasy. You’ve always believed order could rescue meaning from rubble. I used to envy that. Maybe I still do.
I’m trying to let dissatisfaction guide me. At least I’ve stopped ripping canvases and started painting over them. They cost too much. It creates a strange texture, building something new over the mistakes rather than destroying them. I call that progress.
I’m glad your mother is doing well. She thinks kindly of me, I hope, though one can never be sure with her. She should thank you for being the steadier one.
Antoine
Dear Debbie,
I don’t know how to write this without sounding theatrical, so I’ll be spare. A part of me has lived on small, bright things. Your laugh, the way you name a wine like a street you once lived on, the relief of being understood quickly without having to ask.
But “quick” has begun to feel like a trick I perform for myself. I miss asking. I miss choosing to understand someone and being chosen back. I am learning that holding on isn't the only way to keep something.
You deserve someone who is entirely here. I’m not that person. You were never a mistake, and I will carry what I owe you as care. Don’t forgive me. I couldn’t bear it.
Antoine
Dearest Antoine,
Mother insists I return to the city. She says I pace too much and the harbor is tired of seeing me every morning. She’s right. She's steady again.
I’m nervous, which is silly—to return to what is already mine. Last night I wondered whether you would still recognize me. A fleeting thought, but I thought I should tell you. I hope the city recognizes me too.
I’m looking forward to seeing whatever you’ve made, even if you hate it. I’ll defend it.
Cécile
My dearest Cécile,
The studio is cleaner than it’s been in months. I threw away more than I kept. Your letters are the only things I couldn’t put out.
I’ve begun painting again. Small studies, nothing ambitious. I feel like a beginner, but maybe that’s all I am. Maybe that’s enough.
Come home when you can. It rained briefly this afternoon, just enough to darken the pavement. I opened the window, and for the first time in years, the city actually smelled of warm stone.
Antoine
© RIVER AN 2025