Stephanie Schwiederek

March, 2026

It’s been a year since my mother’s stroke and fall. It’s been a year of uneasiness and unpredictability.

Over the past several weeks, I haven’t been able to visit her as much as I’d like. Teaching at two colleges and taking a class to refine and finish my dummy book, scheduled to be on display later this year in Italy, has made it hard to find time without completely burning out. She lives about 45 minutes away, which isn’t a terrible drive, but it’s still a commute.

My last visit was during Spring Break two weeks ago. I spent about two hours with her. I’ve started limiting my visits to about that long because of her smoking; it’s difficult to stay in the same room when she continues to smoke. And it’s not just traditional cigarettes anymore; she smokes cigars now, and the smoke hangs heavily in the air. She used to go through at least a pack of cigarettes a day, but now insists she smokes less because she sticks to her Black & Milds.

They’re killing her regardless.

On top of her nicotine addiction, her short-term memory keeps deteriorating.

She often repeats the same questions- “How are you doing? How are your friends? What’s new?”- within five to ten minutes of asking them and hearing my answers. I noticed myself getting short with her during my last visit, worn down by the final sprint to the end of the semester and the pressure of preparing my final presentation for my class and finishing my dummy book.

As my mother weakens and deteriorates, I wake up each day and watch the world as a whole feel like it’s doing the same.

It’s been a month since the war in Iran began. Gas prices are up a dollar per gallon from a month ago, and the cost of everything else keeps climbing.

I’m in the middle of doing my taxes because I always put them off until the last minute, and then end up wondering why I even bother. Last year, I earned less than twenty-five thousand dollars as an adjunct, which is both discouraging and surreal when I think about the time, energy, and education that go into this work. The pay barely reflects the hours spent preparing lessons, grading, and supporting students outside of class. On top of that, trying to find opportunities for additional adjunct positions around the state has been slim to none. Many departments are cutting back instead of hiring. I was lucky this year to land a second adjunct position, and for a moment, it felt like things might finally be turning a corner. Still, there’s no real sense of stability. Each semester feels temporary, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be asked back. That uncertainty hovers over everything: my budget, my plans, or thinking about saving for the future.

I don’t know how much longer any of this is sustainable. I don’t know if any of our leaders are moral enough to make any substantial changes for the people, as they line their own pockets and keep taking money from AIPAC donors.

This past Saturday, I went to my third NO KINGS protest. The first two were in Princeton but this one was in Somerville, which was closer to home. The protest started at 11 a.m. We parked, then waited for a friend who wanted to join us. When he arrived, we walked up to the courthouse where the demonstration was being held. As we approached, we could hear the chants, speeches being made, and handmade signs held up in the air. Our group gathered on the right side of the courthouse steps. It was a beautiful mix of families, young adults, retirees, and people who recognized each other from town. There was a mix of people from all backgrounds: White, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, Asian, LGBTQIA+, and others I’m sure I’m leaving out.

To the left stood the counterprotesters, a small handful of people (seriously, it was maybe five or six of them at the start of the protest) separated from us by police and public safety personnel from our side. They were visibly angry and hostile, leaning heavily on optics to make up for their lack in numbers. They had huge flags, oversized banners, and blaring music in an attempt to dominate the space.

As the event went on, I moved through the crowd documenting what I saw. There were clever signs, small kids holding up our country’s flag, and my favorite, a little dog wearing a little jacket and a sign attached that said “No Kings.” In contrast, the MAGA agitators to our left kept trying to drown us out with loud, and truly awful music, and bursts of aggressive shouting. It was truly pitiful. To spend what little time you have on this earth so consumed by hate, fear, and willful ignorance is such a small and joyless way to live.

And yet, we continue on.

February, 2026

Another month has passed. Four more weeks that I can’t clearly remember because so much is going on. I’m nearly halfway through the spring semester now, and I am more than ready for spring break.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being a professor. As an adjunct, there are real advantages: flexible hours, the freedom to shape my curriculum, and summers that I can devote to my own projects and studio practice. These are not small things. They are part of what drew me into academia and what still, on most days, makes the work feel aligned with who I am.

And yet, now in my sixth year of teaching, I often feel as though I’ve made no significant headway in my career; there have been few to no full-time teaching jobs available since I graduated with my master’s in 2020. This was especially compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significant systemic issues behind student loans.

Teaching photography is, at its best, deeply rewarding. On good days, the classroom feels alive. Students are engaged and curious, leaning forward as I introduce new techniques, artists, and genres. I watch them experiment, synthesize, and find ways to fold those influences into their own practice. Some students take the work seriously, return to it even after they stumble, and show through their persistence that they genuinely care. Their questions and breakthroughs are what keep me connected to the reasons I chose this path.

But other days, the job feels like being thrown into an emotional wood chipper.

This whiplash recurs every semester. I’ve come to realize there is no tidy way around it. It simply comes with the territory. My most difficult experience so far involved a student a few years ago who repeatedly plagiarized his assignments, then became hostile when I confronted him. He refused to ask me for help because I am a woman and made comments in class implying that women who have abortions are murderers. As someone who chose to have an abortion during graduate school, when I was focused on my studies, and my partner and I had little financial stability, that last remark cut particularly deep. I wasn’t just dealing with a classroom disruption; I was watching a deeply personal, necessary decision reduced to a cruel judgment.

This semester has felt especially heavy, and I keep turning over possible reasons.

Maybe it’s the financial reality of adjunct life. I’m barely making enough to survive. Even while juggling positions at two colleges, I bring in roughly $30,000 a year. An income that frankly doesn’t come close to reflecting the education, commitment, and emotional labor this work requires.

Maybe it’s the rise of AI and the way many students now use it as an intellectual shortcut. I see critical thinking and curiosity give way to convenience. Instead of wrestling with ideas, some students offload that work to machines, and it feels as though their capacity for sustained thought is slowly being sacrificed.

Maybe it’s the apathy. Some of the students I’ve taught recently seem profoundly disengaged, not only from photography but from learning itself. There’s a numbness, a desensitization that can be hard to reach through. A sense that nothing really matters enough to invest in.

Maybe it’s the numbers. This semester, my courses have the lowest enrollment I’ve seen since I started. Fewer students can mean more individual attention, which is great, but it can also signal shrinking arts programs and a broader devaluation of creative education. It’s hard not to feel like the ground under my profession is eroding.

Maybe it’s the world outside the classroom. I’m watching my country drift further into authoritarianism in real time. That reality hangs over everything: the images we analyze, the discussions we have about power and representation, the future my students are walking into. Especially as I wake up to this morning’s news that the US and Israel have conducted joint strikes in Iran, stirring up what will likely become another forever war, or worse.

Maybe it’s the cultural reckoning around abuse and exploitation. With more Epstein files being released, I’ve had to confront how normalized the sexualization and exploitation of girls and women were in the 1990s and 2000s, when I was growing up. It’s unsettling to look back and see how much of that we internalized without fully recognizing it. It’s horrifying to see how much the government is bending over backwards to cover it up.

Or maybe I’m just burnt out. Maybe I’m simply tired.

Just the other day, I had a student who completely disrespected me in class. She was struggling with an alternative photographic method, and as I was trying to figure out why the technique wasn’t working, she said, “Well, you should know this, you’re getting paid, aren’t you?”

I am exhausted. I suspect most educators are. And still, every week, we prepare our lessons, answer emails, tweak our slides, and walk into the classroom with the quiet hope that something will land. We hope that a single assignment, a single conversation, or a single image might open a door for a student that they didn’t know existed.

That hope is not naïve to me. I’ve seen students change over a semester, becoming more confident, more thoughtful, more willing to take risks. I’ve watched them move from passivity to genuine engagement, from imitation to a clearer sense of their own voice. Those transformations are often small, but they’re real.

It’s those students who sustain me. They are why I keep reworking my syllabi, offering detailed feedback, and showing up even when the pay is unsustainable and the emotional toll is immense. Their growth doesn’t cancel out the exhaustion, but it offers something to hold onto. That those moments of meaning and connection are still enough to carry me into the next semester.

January, 2026

This first month has already felt like a year and I’m still finding my bearings. Over the years, writing has become a cathartic way for me to process the things I don’t always know how to say out loud. But this month has been particularly difficult. If you’ve chosen to join me on this journey, I’m grateful for your time and your patience with my wandering thoughts.

News From Home was inspired by Chantal Akerman’s film of the same name; an Avant Garde documentary from 1976 which consisted of long takes of locations in New York City with the artist’s voice-over reading letters that her mother sent her between 1971 and 1973. Prior to my mother’s stroke and fall last year, I would ‘report’ to her about what was happening in America. She’s lived in the country now for thirty-five years, her thick Slovak accent never leaving her. She doesn’t pay much attention to American politics. Why would she? For her growing up, America was this shining vision on a hill. It contained this grand idea of freedom and richness. If you can make it to America, then you’ve made it.

That’s a lie.

Speaking to my mom about current events happening in this country was a way for us to have deep, critical conversations. We didn’t always agree but it made me feel close to her; it was a way for us to connect beyond superficial things. Especially considering her background of where she came from. She was born shortly after WWII in Czechoslovakia in the early 1950’s; her father was a holocaust survivor and her mother was an orphan of that war. She lived under communism and Soviet rule under the Iron Curtain. She lived through Prague Spring. Soon after that event, she moved to West Germany with her first husband, where they had two children; my half brother and half sister.

After a difficult marriage, she divorced her husband in the 1980’s and eventually met my father, who was stationed in West Germany during the end of the Cold War. They met at a cafe where my mother worked. They were in the country when the Berlin Wall fell. Celebrations erupted across the country and Europe that lasted weeks. Nine months later I was born, here in America, after my mother crossed through Canada in her third trimester and married my father in August, a few weeks before giving birth to me.

Watching the news over these last several weeks has been… overwhelming.

And heartbreaking.

Our democracy, constitution, and civil rights are attacked every day. Two people have now been murdered by federal agents in Minnesota, with several other individuals dying or being killed in ICE custody. There have been ICE raids all over the country, including recently in New Jersey- one occurred in Morristown and another in Bridgewater, which is two towns over from where I live. In his final hours as Governor, Phil Murphy pocket vetoed a pair of bills designed to protect the rights of New Jersey’s immigrants. “Re-opening the door to judicial scrutiny of our State’s immigration policies, combined with the Trump Administration’s increasingly targeted actions against states and cities, is a recipe for disaster for our immigrant brothers and sisters and puts them in greater danger.” Murphy said in a statement release.

No one has a fucking backbone.

I don’t speak with my mom about the news any more. She can’t remember or hold on to conversations for very long. And I don’t need to add any unnecessary stress on her. And while my father is still present in my life, I know for a fact he voted for the Trump administration in previous years; though I honestly don’t know where he stood in 2024. I don’t feel particularly confident in sharing my opinions with him. It very rarely goes anywhere, and I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to be gaslit by far right talking points.

I do miss talking with my mom and venting to her about my frustrations on what was going on that day or week. I miss her telling me about how she felt. I miss watching how she would get equally upset and distraught with what was happening here on American soil. “They are terrorizing us,” she would say during our past conversations. I miss her comfort of not feeling alone.

Perhaps that is what this monthly post will be for me. A space to vent about all of the shit going wrong. A space to express all of the reprehensible acts being taken out on our communities.

A space where I can report the News From Home.

2025 Review

I’ve been thinking for several days about how to reconcile with 2025. And an app showing me my “best” barely covers the surface.

I’ve had some serious lows this year starting with two deaths on my partner’s side of the family, followed by my mother’s stroke resulting in her falling and breaking her hip. She’s not been the same since this event and watching as her dementia, which she showed signs of prior, slowly taking her away has been a total gut punch.

I attended a wake for one of my former students who died in a horrific car accident in August, and two weeks ago I found out that I have a 9mm mass in my uterus (the irony of 9mm is not lost on me), which can be indicative of a fibroid or endometrial polyp. More testing will be required to rule out anything more serious.

But you need the bad times to appreciate the good times, and there were some highlights that I was incredibly fortunate to have. I went to Chico, an experience I will never forget, one that brought me more out of my shell and connected me with such amazing human beings. I finally built up the courage to perform my poetry on stage at a local monthly open mic night. I received news in October that I’ll be teaching at a second college for the Spring semester, and in that same month began participating in PhMuseum’s FOLIO 2025/26 Masterclass.

I’m wondering what word I should choose for the new year. These times are challenging and downright exhausting. With an overwhelming amount of abhorrent things happening across the world on top of corruption and inequality here at home, it’s a miracle any of us can keep our heads above water. With that said, I’m aware many are in far worse situations and I am very fortunate to be where I am today.

I keep coming back to the word love. Which feels corny and cliche, I know. Love is, and has been, an unpopular feeling, especially nowadays when rage and fear is much easier to sell. So with that, I want to counter those feelings and let some love in.

I want for us to love ourselves, each other, and the work we make as artists. All of it, even the shit work that disappoints us; because those failures are what you need to get to where you’re going next. Hopefully, that place is a sense of happiness and joy.

And love.

Happy New Year.