Not to be dramatic, but this is it. After a nearly-two-year reign (though officially only one), your famous Pillbox editors Zachary Gelman and Anna Cappella are passing the torch to a new generation of brilliant minds in writing and design, Madison Kwo and Lily Stern. We’re so excited to see the new ideas they bring (and are already bringing) to our beloved magazine.
pillbox has been one hell of a ride for us; when Anna started, she had literally never used InDesign before. Now she ignores anyone who tells her that her design is bad because obviously it’s not (right?). Zachary, subsequently, has not touched InDesign in years. He’s spent this time honing his skills as a genius editor, curating the content we present to you greater and greater every week, especially the editors’ letters (if this is the first one you’re reading, I highly recommend going back in the archives to find past letters, they’re amazing).
In some ways, this is a sad goodbye. Anna will have to be dragged out of the office screaming, “NOOOO! MY BABYYY!” only to be dragged back in to start copy editing articles. But in other ways, this is just the beginning of a brand new chapter. If you really don’t like pillbox as it is now, then this is going to be a very exciting time for you. There are going to be newer, better designs and fresh content. If you hate change, don’t be scared – everything’s going to be okay.
From Zachary Gelman: I first got involved in pillbox (at the time called Pillbox) in late September of my freshman year. I was writing my first article ever (unlike most college “journalists” I never worked for a high school paper) and the Pillbox editor quit mid-week, leaving an entire section editorless. Genius editor and writer Sujay Utkarsh graciously leapt in to pick up the slack, and we trudged forward. The Tartan was struggling back then, with even Pillbox averaging only four articles per week. It was so bad, even I had to write articles! This was a time of giants, notably Zivan Vasquez, the funniest person to ever write for The Tartan. But these were elderly giants, and much like Master Oogway in “Kung Fu Panda,” they had to leave for greater pursuits. And so I became a pillbox co-editor January 2022, working alongside Sahaana Sethu, Priya Dahiya, and later Anna Cappella, all incredible in all journatorial aspects. But now my two years of service are up. Maybe I’ll go back to writing consistently again.
From Anna Cappella: Like Zachary, I had never been on a newspaper before I came to The Tartan. As soon as I joined I knew that I wanted to be a part of Pillbox. I honestly found the other sections a bit boring, and I just wanted everyone to know what I thought about the latest ABBA album and I wanted to go to plays and musicals on campus and in the city and write about them. I felt like everything I was seeing and experiencing on campus was so beautiful and new, and I wanted everyone to know how much I loved it. Neither Zachary or I can quite remember, but at some point in the turmoil of changing editorship, I got pulled in to try my hand at layout. In high school, I was always taking art classes, but as a Biology major at CMU, I never got the chance to make things that were pretty for any other purpose than just for myself. pillbox gave me an outlet to practice art every single week, and eventually, to work with an amazing co-editor while doing it.
Both Zachary and Anna are so grateful for the time they’ve gotten to spend with The Tartan staff as Pillbox editors. We hope you’ve enjoyed it, too.
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