Vermilion is a deep shade of scarlet red. Used by Renaissance painters for dramatic effect, it is bold, beautiful, a tribute to life, ordinary and extraordinary.
This hue of red is both the simple scarlet of a lover’s blush and the dramatic sign of sacrifice.
“Vermilion'' is also the closing word of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem, “The Windhover.” Like Hopkins’s falcon, literature seems to soar in celestial beauty while being rooted in the soil of everyday life. Creative writers seem tasked to unite vast imagination with concrete words. Their craft teems with the vibrancy of vermilion.
This magazine seeks to share this beautiful craft, which shines like a color so fully alive.
- Javier Mazariegos (B.A. English & Philosophy '23)

Vermilion is the student-run (and student named!) online literary magazine of the English Department, established in 2021. Vermilion publishes original high quality literary fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, drama, and visual art by members of the Catholic University community. Writers and artists must be current graduate or undergraduate students, faculty, staff, or alumni to be considered for publication. We publish only original, previously unpublished work.

Visit the Vermilion site

 
Faculty Editoral Board:
Dr. Taryn Okuma
Dr. Amanda Auerbach
Dr. Daniel Gibbons
Dr. Kevin Rulo