crashtest
About Crashtest
Crashtest is an biannual online magazine founded and run by the creative writing students at the Fine Arts Center, a public arts high school in Greenville, South Carolina, so that students in high schools all over the country will have a place to publish work that tests limits, asks questions, rejects the easy answers, risks obliteration, believes in failure, is suspicious of scripted success.
Here at Crashtest we believe being alive right now is what matters. We don't think the ability to observe the world and form an opinion is denied us because we can't yet rent a car. We don't think the experience of being human kicks on at a certain birthday, or that our vested interest in building a life we want to live in a world that can sustain us should be delayed until we have all the right paperwork in place.
We think that literature matters. We think that ideas are what it means to be human. We think that culture is built through communication and that communication is not always nice and not always easy to digest. We think Samuel Beckett was right when he said a writer must, "Fail. Fail again. Fail better." We think we are all on the same planet breathing the same air. We think we have something to say about that. Do you?
Sarah Blackman - Editor
Sarah Blackman is the Director of Creative Writing at the Fine Arts Center. She is the co-fiction editor of DIAGRAM. Her story collection, Mother Box, was published by FC2 in 2013 and her novel, Hex, was published by the same press in the spring of 2016. Read her poem, "Late Night Unspooling", here, if you will.
S. Liggett- Creative Nonfiction Editor
S. Liggett is a third-year student at the Fine Arts Center, as well as a high school junior. Her preferred sports are verbal sparring and pretending to know how to play chess, but she’s beginning to think that there are more scholarships in golf. When neither writing nor reading, she plays the piano, attempts to play the mandolin, hikes with her family, lazes on the couch with her dog, and forces everyone in the immediate vicinity to eat her vegetarian concoctions. She believes that there is truth everywhere, in everything, if one knows where to look. And she is dedicated to looking. You can read her short story “Saint Ormando’s Occupation” in Johnny America. You can also give her a hug.
Margot Ritter - Design Editor
When sophomore Margot Ritter isn’t writing or designing for Crashtest, you can find her lurking in the YA section of used bookstores, tea-drunk and listening to niche indie music. Most of her inspiration comes from psychological questioning, creatures that never asked to be in the spotlight, and a strong desire to describe dresses she can’t afford. She identifies herself as an avid Speech and Debate member, diehard Minnesota Vikings fan, cofounder of the WANDER reading series (a series of student run and performed poetry readings), and has been recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing on the regional level. If you have the time, she asks that you stick around and see what she’ll get away with next in her writing career.
Saul Alpert-Abrams - Co-Editor
Saul Alpert-Abrams is a fiction writer, poet, and ceramicist. Originally from Massachusetts, Saul completed his undergraduate degree in Ancient Greek Literature at Oberlin College before moving to Los Angeles, where he founded Solarc Brewing, an experimental microbrewery. Saul holds his MFA from The University of Alabama, where he concentrated in fiction. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the North Carolina Governor's School.
His literary work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Mid-American Review, World Literature Today, Full Stop, and elsewhere. He is a reader for the New England Review, and his pottery has been displayed in juried shows around the United States.
Charlotte Popat - Social Media Editor
Charlotte Popat is sophomore writer based out of Greenville, South Carolina, who has had a delightful time giving the Crashtest instagram some personality. Charlotte views writing as a way of annotating the world and loves to communicate messages of joy, peace, and hope in her work. When she isn’t writing, Charlotte enjoys reading, baking, and listening to Billy Joel. She has received regional recognition from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, co-founded the WANDER reading series, and been a recipient of Interlochen Art Camp’s Fine Arts Award in creative writing. Charlotte is a firm believer in dessert before dinner, and until recently, was convinced that terracotta was a cheese.
LILLIE MARKEL - FICTION EDITOR
Lillie Markel is a senior, in her fourth year at the FAC. She is a 2025 Youngarts Finalist and a recipient of an Honorable Mention from the 2024 Leonard L. Milberg ‘53 High School Poetry Prize. Her writing has received numerous Silver Keys and Honorable Mentions from Scholastic. Her writing is inspired by camping trips, mythology and folktales, 500 page Gothic novels, and the people around her. She is working to end her romance with the word “and.” Lillie enjoys procrastinating, thrifting, driving her car, Sally, reading corny vampire novels, and drinking sparkling water.
Alex Byrd - Managing Editor
Alex is a homeschooled junior who loves to write and do theater. She's mainly a poet and a playwright. You can find her baking/cooking, playing with her dogs, listening to music, or spending time with her family and friends when she's not writing. Her favorite book is Going Bovine and her biggest inspiration is Jordan Peele.
Amanda Nicoloff - Poetry Editor
Amanda “Fern” Nicoloff is a senior in her 4th year at the FAC. She enjoys poetry because she thoroughly believes that genre is a social construct and there is not a single concept in the known universe that is not poetic in some form. She also is a fan of the font EB Garamond. She has a fascination for insects and the after death process of human bodies, as well as how the two topics interact. If one cannot guess, she will go forth and study to become a forensic entomologist. Stink beetles are the poetry of the natural world.
Readers
Tad Carrig, Ava Randolph, Cole Couillard-Dix, Bea Fink, Tess Gandolfo, Brie Goff, Ezra Churches, Liliana Greenbaum, Avery Hoke, Robyn Shaw, Trinity Larsen, Tesia Hennessy, Sirius Boyer, Liz Figueroa, Holden Baker, Sam Wareham, Ace Koch, Esme Padilla-Cortez, Gina Palma, London McClain, Chloe Bird, Olivia Weaver, Spencer Ramirez-Garnica, Ray Ray, Tylar Clark, Kaiden Rosa, Anya Sexton, Cadence Zbin, Grace Wagner, Micaelan Rossnagel, Jade Harmon, Jessenia Gordillo, Lucy-Addison Gray, Amelia Ortiz, Sage Sommese, Sarah Rawley
Allison Kim - Interviews & Reviews Editor
Allison Kim is a fourth-year student at the Fine Arts Center. She has been recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing and the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 High School Poetry Contest, and her work is published in Cargoes and The Interlochen Review. If she could interview anyone, she’d interview Immanuel Kant, Treebeard, and the raptor in the FAC parking lot. She also loves to include biblical references in her writing, and never drafts anything without using brackets as placeholders. Cain by José Saramago is the book currently sitting on her side table.
