2022 has been a wild year full of endings and beginnings. The nature of endings in particular is that as they happen, they call to mind other, more painful endings.
As a college sophomore in 2016, I launched Swipe Right, a humor column for my college newspaper. Pieces from the column went on to win awards, were republished in 34 newspapers across the U.S. and Cuba, got me early agent interest, and probably even landed me some grad school acceptances.
It was an incredible experience that I miss dearly. I left the newspaper and ended Swipe Right because, as a senior double majoring in the honors college and applying to MFA programs, I wanted to prioritize my creative writing. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, and it always felt like it lacked closure.
I’ve long thought about bringing Swipe Right back in some capacity, though I think I’ve always known it would have to be different. To bring it back now— after I’ve finished grad school, made it to the next step in my writing career, and obtained a frontal lobe— feels like a full-circle moment; an attempt at closure.
Meet Tightwires, a somewhat-unhinged vlog series about navigating life after the MFA and attempting to rediscover the joy in writing! Think of it as Swipe Right but with a frontal lobe, a camera, and much more free time.
I floated the idea earlier this year with some of my former newsroom colleagues and was so ecstatic to reconnect with the original Swipe Right logo designer, Cameron Cummins, to create the new Tightwires logo and also the animation above. [Thank you, Cameron, for rendering my vision so perfectly and holding my secret for so long!]
Through Tightwires, I’ll be posting writing vlogs, tutorials, analyses, and reviews. I’ll also be completing quarterly writing challenges. The first of these begins next Monday, Dec. 19, when I’ll be challenging myself to write a 50,000 word novel in the last ten weekdays of 2022 and documenting the entire process in daily vlogs on YouTube. I’m so excited to get this started, and I hope that my reasons for delving into this challenge (explained in the video below) will convince you to join me!
Hiba Tahir 