Moments of Silence
433 is a daily magazine of art, literature and politics that began as a running collection of “moments of silence” from various places around the world, experienced in isolation, in the midst of a pandemic. We have since grown into a broader literary journal focused on powerful storytelling that responds to the times.
The project was initially an assignment for a class of writing students displaced by COVID-19. The prompt was simple: listen to John Cage’s 4’33”, a composition that is essentially four-minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, and write about what you experienced during your “performance.”
Those students’ responses captured a moment in the lives of twenty individuals living in New York during the first weeks of the city’s social distancing guidelines, a small part of the nearly global effort to stem the spread of a pandemic through isolation. Their responses were compiled and published at Ander Monson’s Essay Daily as 4’33 in a Pandemic.
To submit your own “moment of silence,” or any other work that resonates with this moment or that you think might be in line with other work we have published, please view our submission guidelines here.
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Stewart Lawrence Sinclair is a writer whose work has been featured in Lit Hub, Guernica, The New Orleans Review, The Millions, The Morning News, and elsewhere. His essay “Search Party” was selected for True Story, a mini-magazine from Creative Nonfiction. His books Juggling and Rover are forthcoming with Duke University Press and Bloomsbury/The Atlantic in 2023 and 2024 respectively. @stewsinclair
FOUNDING EDITOR
Patrick Pawlowski is a high school English teacher and writer born and raised in Brooklyn. His writing can be found at Gulf Stream, The Brasilia Review, The Daily Drunk, and 433, which he co-found and edits. He earned his MFA in Fiction from City College. Find him on Twitter @pattypaw.
FOUNDING EDITOR , SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER & EVENTS COORDINATOR
Stephanie Gaitán is a Queer writer, editor, and mother from the Bronx, New York who is mesmerized by all things creative and cute. Her work has been featured in The Lovers Literary Journal, Stone of Madness Press, Voyage YA, and Palabritas. You can find her on Twitter @GaitanWrites & on Instagram @JupiterGaitan.
SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR & EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Ellie Culpepper is a writer and graduate of The City College of New York. She believes in the power of healing and self-expression through story-telling. Her work explores grief, coming-of-age, and women-centered perspectives.
POETRY EDITOR
Faith Brown, born and raised in the Bronx, is a writer and MFA student completing a degree in creative writing—poetry. In her down time she enjoys avoiding writing and indulging in her guilty pleasures of reality tv and psychological thrillers. Her most recent work can be found in Bx Writers Anthology Vol.1, 433 Magazine, and Daily Drunk Magazine.
‘NOTES’ EDITOR
Gabriel Noel is an Editorial Assistant at Guernica. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, he is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction at the City College of New York. His work can be found in 433 Magazine and Strange Horizons.
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Oelania Rubino is a writer and an artist. She was born in Barahona, Dominican Republic and immigrated to Brooklyn, New York in 1998. Her work has been published by TeenInk Magazine, theGrio, The Dominican Writers Association and Spanglish Voces. She is the 2019-2020 recipient of The Doris Lippman Prize in Creative Writing.
ART & DESIGN
Arpa Hacopian is an artist, freelance graphic designer and an independent curator with over a decade of experience. She focuses on photography, video-art, conceptual installations and painting. She has presented her work at ACCEA in Yerevan, Armenia, where she lives. Currently she is working as an operation manager at Impact Hub candidate Syunik. Arpa was born in Tehran and moved to Armenia in 2003.