Melissa Marini Švigelj is an award-winning, retired public high school teacher and mother of five sons as well as a dog named Gatsby. Extending upon the advocacy and activism she engaged in during her career as an educator— her scholarship, research, and art engage the entwined vines of healing, educating, and storytelling.
In Verse Operationalization
| A. Equation child + hood = Solve child + hood = childhood Childhood Variable child(m²) = Evaluate m² = more melanin Solve child(m²) = CHILD ≠ adult ≠ adult ≠ adult ≠ adult | B. Childhood Variables m²(childhoods) + d̽ = Evaluate d̽ = dispossessed, disinvested, divested, dechildhooded, detained m² = more melanin Solve m²(childhoods)+ d̽ = CHILDREN ≠ adulthood ≠ adulthood ≠ adulthood ≠ adulthood = unsatisfiable falsehoods now find solutions |
From the Editor:
We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.
Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
The idea for this magazine stems from a simple conversation regarding the aforementioned question, which drew out the need to identify our generation’s place in literary history.
To view the types of work we typically publish, preview or purchase our past issues.
Please join our community on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at @inparenth.
By In Parentheses in Volume 10
48 pages, published 10/15/2025
in parentheses 
enter the discussion: