What is the scale of a story?
Is a story measured by its characters, the places they travel? Or is a story measured by its age, the mouths that have spoken it, the ears that have carefully listened?
Is it defined by the tender minds that commit it to memory—or the rigorous ones that strive to transform it?
In this issue, writers of the Yale Herald explore the boundless nature of storytelling. Robert Gao ’27 sits down with directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel to discuss the blurred lines between reality and film; Hudson Warm ’27 reviews Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s debut novel, Catalina, and interrogates the anatomies of fiction, nonfiction, and autofiction. Cameron Jones ’26 limns the character of a quirky entomologist by describing her room. Larry Dunn ’25 underscores the humility of living amidst a land that is infinitely bigger and more powerful than us. Finally, in this week’s cover story, Joshua Ching ’26 talks to Māhealani Ahia, Yale’s 2024-2025 Henry Roe Cloud Fellow, and guides readers through the stories she has carried, from her native Hawaiʻi to New Haven.
On behalf of our publication, we extend our gratitude to Māhealani Ahia for allowing us to hold her stories, both in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i—the Native Hawaiian language—and in English. We also thank Howard R. Lamar Professor of History Ned Blackhawk and Assistant Professor of Native and Indigenous Studies Hi‘ilei Hobart for their time and dedication in the reportage of this week’s cover feature.
As Joshua notes, for Māhealani Ahia, stories are measured by their power to heal. In this way, we hope that the stories in this week’s issue can be the connective tissue between our publication’s community, and you, our reader.
Yours most daringly,
Connor Arakaki and Madelyn Dawson