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Hattie: A Twin Territories Matriarch, Madison P. Brown
Hattie: A Twin Territories Matriarch, Madison P. Brown
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
“Hattie: A Twin Territories Matriarch” is a creative novel of vignettes in the vein of historical fiction set at the turn of the 20th century in Oklahoma/Indian Territory exploring the complexities of love and betrayal through generations of one Muscogee family as they battle the legal and personal implications of white-settler encroachment. With societal criticisms and Indigenous methodologies, this thesis aims to explore land ownership, resource allocation, and the complex governance of Oklahoma tribal reservations. The research of this novel focuses on primary documents from National Archive probate records, Dawes Commission enrollments, newspapers, and a familial collection of photographs, letters, …
Exposed Roots, Ashley Lynn Van Elswyk
Exposed Roots, Ashley Lynn Van Elswyk
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
“Exposed Roots” is a collection of seven interconnected short stories following a farming family, told through the perspective of middle daughter Anna. The stories reflect the shifting uncertainties of their narrator, weaving the past and present together and, on occasion, blurring the lines of reality. Characters include a grandfather single-mindedly dedicated to his farm, an aunt whose resentment drives her from her family, a father who simultaneously wants his children to have their own lives but also stay within the family business, and a mother and grandmother who have come to this family farm as “outsiders.” The farm is not …
Blend It Like Beckett: Samuel Beckett And Experimental Contemporary Creative Writing, Sam Nicole Campbell
Blend It Like Beckett: Samuel Beckett And Experimental Contemporary Creative Writing, Sam Nicole Campbell
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Samuel Beckett penned novels, short stories, poetry, stage plays, radio plays, and scripts—and he did each in a way that blended genre, challenged the norms of creative writing, and surprised audiences around the globe. His experimental approach to creative writing included the use of absurdism, genre-hybridization, and ergodicism, which led to Beckett fundamentally changing the approach to creative writing. His aesthetics have trickled down through the years and can be seen in contemporary works, including Aimee Bender’s short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves[1]. By examining these works …
Disconnect, Peter Hogan
Disconnect, Peter Hogan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My thesis manuscript is a collection of lyrical, neo-confessional poems entitled Disconnect. The collection centers on themes of connection and disconnection, the ways in which the world is both singular and multiple. The speaker in these poems explores not only relationships, but his own relationship with relationships and how that has affected the perception of himself. The manuscript relates these themes through the dynamics of a speaker's romantic and familial relationships, as well as intentional reflection on the maturation process. Some lesser themes in the collection include social masculinity conceptions and the idea of persistent work towards a living wage.
Choking Hazards, Tessa Hathaway
Choking Hazards, Tessa Hathaway
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The following manuscript is a creative writing thesis in poetry. The goal of the thesis was to expand my abilities as a poet and find a cohesion in my work. I wanted to utilize some skills gain in a fiction workshop and apply them to poetry, as well as gain influences in various fields of expertise through the other courses I’ve been taking in the English department. Essays for a poetics class, novels for an American literature class, and short stories for a fiction workshop gave me a base from which to work from and draw inspiration. Not only was …
The Backs Of Leaves, Shelby L. Colburn
The Backs Of Leaves, Shelby L. Colburn
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis is a novella that explores themes of emotional abuse, grief, toxic masculinity, sexuality, and gay violence. The author deploys a frame narrative that encompasses short stories that are tied by a narrator in the novella. The narrator’s stories create a continuity between “real,” realistic, and surrealist fictions. These explorations of fiction create a conversation between the frame narrator’s “real” life and that of her stories. As the novella’s plot progresses, the frame narrator’s sanity deteriorates, which allows her to become increasingly grotesque. The grotesque situates how macabre the frame plot is, creating a connective tissue between the “real” …
Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang., Todd Edward Evans
Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang., Todd Edward Evans
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis is the first two chapters of a novel. The novel parodies the capitalist and consumerist United States of the 21st Century in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Donald Barthelme.
How The Smokestack Grew So Big And Other Forgotten Stories, Matthew Krajniak
How The Smokestack Grew So Big And Other Forgotten Stories, Matthew Krajniak
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
No abstract provided.
Rule Of Seconds, Shawna Diane Partridge
Rule Of Seconds, Shawna Diane Partridge
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Set in the Northern Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie, the novella Rule of Seconds is a semi-autobiographical fiction that interlaces a city’s and a family’s history through storytelling, family lore, hearsay, medical accounts, newspaper clippings, and other archival materials. The disjunctive narrative weaves together stories about the troubled relationships of four generations of women with Ukrainian backgrounds. Rule of Seconds spans from the early 1920s, through Prohibition, to the present. The narrator-protagonist, a member of the fourth generation, pieces together surprising facts about her family history. The novella is a story of self-discovery, acceptance, and remembrance. It depicts the …
Is This Fire, Gregory Sherl
Is This Fire, Gregory Sherl
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Is This Fire is a collection of poems dealing with the themes of faith and loss. In one section, "The Third Testament," parts of the Bible have been reimagined. There are poems about Joan of Arc, as well as poems that touch on miscarriages, as well as the Columbine massacre. There are, of course, also love poems.
The Unthinkable Botanical Gardens: Poems, Travis Oliver Green Smith
The Unthinkable Botanical Gardens: Poems, Travis Oliver Green Smith
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The Unthinkable Botanical Gardens is a book of poems in five sections. The first, third, and fifth sections present a speaker navigating a wondrous and often hostile world. The second and fourth sections are long poems: "Zodiac B," a sequence inspired by obsolete or forgotten constellations, and "Elbow Island," which tells the story of the beluga whales exhibited in Barnum's American Museum.
Dictated But Not Read, Kevin Cifarelli
Dictated But Not Read, Kevin Cifarelli
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This is a collection of interlinked short stories that, among other things, satirize the legal profession. Although each story may stand on its own, the stories are structured so that the accumulation of information from each story enhances the next. Thus, it is recommended that the reader read the stories in the order that they are presented. This is a work of fiction. All the incidents, names and characters are imaginary.
Wild & Wonderful: A Collection Of Stories, Thomas Bennitt
Wild & Wonderful: A Collection Of Stories, Thomas Bennitt
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My thesis is a collection of literary short stories, many of which spring from my life experiences: people I've known, places I lived, jobs I worked, or subjects I have researched. Some stories are more "realistic," where landscape and geography—often West Virginia, or my native Pennsylvania—is an essential part of the narrative. Other stories are more experimental, blending realism with other styles like satire, metafiction, and historical fiction. Yet the narrators in these stories share a comtrait: they are somehow isolated, alienated, or marginalized. Some are physically confined—a lobsterman who works alone on his boat, coal miners working underground, office …
A Little Slice Of The Moon: Stories, Fatima Rashid
A Little Slice Of The Moon: Stories, Fatima Rashid
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
A Little Slice of the Moon: stories is a collection of short stories that explore the struggles of various characters to find their place in the world. And the world, despite its familiarity, can be a hostile place. The characters in this collection learn that families are a fragile lot, that every desire contains a paradox, that the Road of Life can seemingly be grasped by the horns, but that the future twists and turns, yet never escapes the past. And it is the past that haunts these characters' lives. One word, one act, impacts a lifetime. In A Little …
The Meaning Of The Moment: A Collection Of Short Stories., Jonathan David Benton
The Meaning Of The Moment: A Collection Of Short Stories., Jonathan David Benton
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis consists of three short stories in very different genres but tied together by a intensely personal look at the lives of its protagonists culminating in epiphanies. One of these epiphanies is intended solely for the reader, but in two cases, the reader and character gains the insight. “The Tears of Angels” looks at the effect one person in a moment, even a stranger, can have on the protagonist’s life. “Climbing Heaven and Gazing on Earth” focuses on the haunting power of history and the need we as humans can feel to share a story, to make sense of …
Refractions, Linwood R. Lancaster
Refractions, Linwood R. Lancaster
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project allowed me to pursue one of nly greatest joys, expressing my feelings, emotions, and thoughts through the written word. As we march towards a world dominated by technology, there are those that think the day of the storyteller has passed. Television, movies, and electronic games have become the vehicle for amusement in the world today, supposedly leaving no room left for the lowly storyteller. However, these entities are stories told but in a different medium. The ideas that drive these devices still have to come from someone, an author. Even video games now are intertwined with the storyteller, …
Waiting For Mary Jane: A Collection Of Modern Appalachian Short Stories In The Joycean Tradition., Lorie Ann Wright
Waiting For Mary Jane: A Collection Of Modern Appalachian Short Stories In The Joycean Tradition., Lorie Ann Wright
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This thesis consists of a collection of short stories stylistically reminiscent of the works of James Joyce yet with an Appalachian and feminist voice. Waiting for Mary Jane should appeal to readers interested in experimental styles as well as feminist and Appalachian literature. The protagonist of the collection is Mary Jane, a female from present day East Tennessee. The reader experiences her life from age three to thirty. The introduction to the collection explores the link between James Joyce, Appalachia, Feminist writing, and the short stories. Structurally and thematically the collection reflects the works of James Joyce by using the …
The Wise Women Of Chelm, Beth Amy Lurie
The Wise Women Of Chelm, Beth Amy Lurie
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
My Creative Writing Thesis is a collection of short stories. This original collection, THE WISE WOMEN OF CHELM, reflects an older, oral and written tradition of folk tales known as THE WISE MEN OF CHELM. I grew up with these older tales and have been inspired by their humor all my life. Many authors have added to the Chelm tradition, spanning centuries and including contemporary times. My tales occur in the late l W s , and my twist on them is the focus on women. I like to describe them as mock-feminist since they involve women who, in their …