Sydney Shoulders ’26 has a magnetic presence that only amplifies their determination to uplift voices in any way possible. Shoulders is double-majoring in English and philosophy at the College of William and Mary and will be graduating in May.
Shoulders serves as co-editor-in-chief of The Gallery — the College’s literary arts publication — alongside Ashleigh Pyle ’26. Shoulders is also on the Innocence Club’s executive team and will be attending law school in the fall in pursuit of a career as a public defender.
The Gallery prints once per semester and publishes student prose, poetry, art and photography. The club meets weekly to review anonymous peer submissions, collaboratively editing in a Socratic seminar-style discussion.
“All of our submissions are anonymous, which we think is really important because it allows the artist to choose to be in the room if that’s something that they desire, if they want to hear feedback,” Shoulders said. “We just collect student art and try to spread it and put it out on campus.”
As a member of the club their entire time at the College, Shoulders cited its impact on their friendships.
“I joined my freshman fall, it was the first club thing I did,” they said. “Two of my closest friends and I, one of whom is the co-editor, were all in the same freshman dorm, and it was how we got really close, so that was nice.”
Aside from relationships, Shoulders found fulfillment in editing for the publication.
“I was a very consistent member, and then my junior year, I became the prose editor, which basically just meant that I was in charge of copy editing prose pieces and emailing prose writers if they had any questions,” Shoulders said. “Then, I was chosen for the editor[-in-chief] role.”
Although they served as prose editor, Shoulders’ own submissions are typically poetry.
“I’ve always been a huge reader,” they said. “Prose is my main interest, but we have a page limit, and I typically write stuff that goes beyond the page limit. So, I haven’t submitted prose very seriously to The Gallery.”
Shoulders highlighted their responsibilities as co-editor-in-chief.
“It’s a lot of everything,” they said. “It’s a lot more advertising than perhaps you would initially expect. You know, just kind of spreading the word, communicating with different organizations and departments to get people to submit. But then also, on a technical side, I lead the meetings. I put all of the pieces on the board for the week, and I lead the discussion around the critique and try to get people to engage critically with stuff.”
In addition to leading the meetings and handling student submissions, Shoulders and Pyle work with Adobe InDesign, formatting and arranging the physical publication.
They share the production workload with anyone who chooses to help, and they show them the ropes.
“We call it ‘Pub Week,’” Shoulders said. “We have general members come and also help put together pages, which is really nice, and it lets people kind of get behind the scenes. There’s no minimum amount of involvement you need to help build the pages.”
Shoulders stepped into the editor-in-chief role in fall 2025.
“It’s been really rewarding, honestly, because I feel like I put a lot of time into the club, so getting to lead it and hopefully make other people feel as inspired by it as I did is really nice,” they said. “I feel like there are a few spaces for people who like writing and reading, but there are not really as many as you would maybe expect, given how ‘liberal artsy’ we are as a campus. So getting to cultivate a space like that is important.”
They emphasized the club’s impact on the community amid changing social and governmental policies.
“It’s just nice to create a space where people can get together each week and talk about writing,” Shoulders said. “I feel like that’s very important, especially right now with AI and funding and everything.”
While Shoulders and Pyle facilitate the discussions on student work, they do not vote on what is published.
“We’re just presenting the pieces to the group and then kind of trying to lead a conversation as best as we can,” Shoulders said.
Shoulders spoke on the importance of promoting student publications like The Gallery.
“It’s very important, especially just with all the attacks on the humanities in higher ed,” Shoulders said. “Just creating a space for people to read together and also inadvertently share recommendations of poems and writers keeps a sort of literary spirit alive on the campus, which I think is really important.”
They noted the joy of seeing a student’s submissions evolve and watching their writing develop.
“There are a lot of really talented people here who I feel like I’ve seen kind of grow and develop,” they said. “Getting to tell them, whether directly or indirectly, ‘You’re really talented,’ I think is really, really cool and affirming.”
Aside from The Gallery, Shoulders serves as the Innocence Club’s outreach and education chair.
“I help make the presentations and do events and things like that on campus for issues related to criminal justice and people who are wrongfully convicted,” they said.
Shoulders is also a member of the W&M Legal Scholars Program and is completing a senior honors thesis with the English department on masculinity, labor and purpose in 20th-century existentialist literature.
Shoulders said that their interest in literature has evolved.
“I liked reading, and then I got the job at the bookstore, and then that affirmed it because you become familiar with so many books just through putting them away,” they said. “That’s helped make me hopefully a good leader in The Gallery. I have a pretty big wealth of authors and stuff to pull from for comparative purposes.”
