GOODBYE COLUMN: KAYLINN ESCOBAR

Print Co-Editorial Director

By: Kaylinn Escobar

CREDIT: Kaylinn Escobar

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In accepting my fate as a Florida Gator in the Summer of 2020, I had resigned myself to a college career in a town I hardly knew and thought nothing of. The extent of my interaction with Gainesville had been the small strip of campus between Reitz Union and Anderson Hall, which is hardly a bazaar of arts and culture. Going into my college career as a STEM major certainly didn’t ease my worries about losing the hardly cultivated creative voice I could only exercise in fleeting English periods and a handful of college essays.

Imagine my surprise when a TikTok proclaiming there was an entire magazine dedicated to all of my interests — based in the University of Florida ?! — snuck its way into my algorithm. After applying with some shoddy writing samples and a GIF of Meredith Grey begging the print team to “Pick me, choose me, love me,” I was somehow let into the greatest, funniest Slack group chat on campus.

Being mentored under the print goddesses Ava Loomar, Kalia Richardson and Jenna Bennett (and the online goddess, Lauren Rousseau) was an esteemed privilege and I hoped to be able to lead others in the same way. Although I felt wildly out of place amongst the brilliant writers that filled our weekly Zoom print meetings, Ava interacted and edited with a grace that made me feel welcome all once. Lest I forget my brief, but pedagogic time being edited by Grace Romo. And of course, I could never believe in my creativity and voice as much as Lauren did. Having Kalia and Jenna trust me with the mantle they had inherited was a kindness I am sure they knew about when they passed the torch onto me.

Coming on as the Print Co-Editorial Director with the magnificent Anushka Dakshit was terrifying and exhilarating. There is no other person I could have dreamt of to welcome me and help me navigate the many (many) deadlines and logistics of print. Thank you for sticking by me in the hours-long Zoom calls and being my fellow Rowdy launch party wallflower. With Macie Goldfarb and Lily Clark, there was no other group of people I would trust with the task we were given.

It was made into an even more rewarding endeavor when I had the opportunity to work with our copy editor-turned-Co-Editorial-Director, Macie. I can only hope to carry myself with such an assured and humble air. Thank you for providing the edits I could never have fathomed on my own.

And even now, I leave Rowdy’s print team in great hands with the careful eye of Veronica Nocera (thank you for being a fantastic line editor) and resident wordsmith Sofia Echeverry (thank you for writing fantastic first drafts). 

Creating a magazine may be difficult, but honoring our writers’ brilliance and molding their works into a cohesive piece may be just as challenging.

Of course, our print writers have always made it an easy task. Thank you all for granting me the greatest responsibility in editing your words. It is the honor I will miss the most.

I’ve written articles spanning from cancel culture to growing up to archival social media to indie girls to Fleabag to secularism to material colonialism and now soft lives; I can hardly pick a favorite. It’s hard to imagine no longer being able to sneak in music and television quotes to indoctrinate you all into my cult of media. It’s even harder to let go of these glorious four years — although it might be time when I quantify it like that.

I will miss both the reprieve writing for Rowdy granted me from the whirlwind of my college semesters and the chaos editing for it has created for me all the same.

In the meantime, I have a stack of volumes I can reflect on whenever I get too in my feelings.

With love,

Kaylinn Escobar

Former Print Co-Editorial Director

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Kaylinn was a part of Rowdy Magazine's print team since Summer of 2020 as a writer for Volume 4. Her first semester as Print Co-Editorial Director began in Volume 6 and her last semester ended with Volume 10. Find her rotting away in the Marston basement or swinging happily from a hammock in Plaza. Odds are 50/50.