Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Origin Story, Rose Marion Lopez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

ORIGIN STORY

by

Rose Marion Lopez

Florida International University, 2020

Miami, Florida

Professor Julie Marie Wade, Major Professor

ORIGIN STORY is a collection of lyric essays that examines coming into adulthood and forging a life with a long-time significant other. These essays explore the speaker’s identity as a daughter, sister, partner, and eventual wife and mother across multiple states and countries of residence. They incorporate both traditional scene-based storytelling and hybrid innovations of text, image, and fragmentation to present the speaker’s journey from as many perspectives as possible.

The literary influences of ORIGIN STORY include Rivka …

Ambient Light: Essays On Marriage, Motherhood, And Mental Health, Bonnie Losak

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

AMBIENT LIGHT: ESSAYS ON MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MENTAL

HEALTH is a collection of ten personal and lyric essays interspersed with poems

that speak to the subject or tone of the essay that follows. These essays examine

the narrator’s experiences as mother, wife, and daughter, and explore the manner

in which the different roles bleed into one another. The narrator’s impending

divorce and the events that coalesce around it shape these essays into a coherent

whole.

In the spirit of Brenda Miller’s lyric essays, the essays collected in AMBIENT

LIGHT: ESSAYS ON MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MENTAL HEALTH, use

rich, imagistic language …

Nothing Normal Happens To Me: True Stories Of A Journey From Madness To Motherhood, Esther C. Martinez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Written in first person, NOTHING NORMAL HAPPENS TO ME is a memoir in essays that traces the narrator’s journey from self-destruction to creation. Part one encompasses the narrator’s lost years, after she breaks free from the tyranny of her mentally ill mother and goes to live on her own at 17. Part two provides context for those bad girl years, exploring her childhood when she identified with her histrionic mother. Part three comprises stories about the narrator’s years of awakening when she seeks out transcendence, faith, and a family of her own. The pieces vary tonally and stylistically as they …

Keep The Doors Open, Lauren C. Rivera

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My purpose in writing this collection of lyric essays is to examine my evolution during one decade, from age 19 to 29. Essential questions have guided me: What stimulated change? What formed my decisions? What predisposed me to my relationship with my partner? Why did I want to have a child? What kind of relationship do I have with my son? How did my relationship with my partner evolve? Why did we decide to leave Miami? Hopefully, I have given the reader a glimpse into my movement from self-centeredness to motherhood, from aloof adolescent to committed partner, from timid daughter …