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Full-Text Articles in Creative Writing

Green Grass: A Collection Of Short Stories, Julia Wynne Jan 2024

Green Grass: A Collection Of Short Stories, Julia Wynne

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Within the country club setting, the levels of financial wealth span greatly, from young adults in search of summer employment to businessmen sealing deals on the 18th hole while retired couples vacation in spacious homes situated directly on the course. Often associated with privilege and luxury, golf is much more than just a game, involving defined dress codes, social events, organized leagues, and tournaments. Centered around the lives of staff and members of an Arizona country club, Green Grass is a collection of short stories that uses the game of golf to explore privilege, money, and motivation. Golf is a …


Too Old For Monsters : A Collection Of Stories, L. A. Hause Jan 2024

Too Old For Monsters : A Collection Of Stories, L. A. Hause

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Ursula K. Le Guin writes, “We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?” In my collection of short stories, Too Old for Monsters, I hold out my hands to every reader—the lonely and suffering person, the uncertain and wavering, the joyous and the brave, the growing and the stalling, and the myriad in-betweens. Writing explores the human experience, but this collection also explores the tangled mess of life beyond the merely human. These stories address the bone-saw sharp ache of loss and …


Give Them Bread, Mara E. Kneafsey Jan 2024

Give Them Bread, Mara E. Kneafsey

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The title, Give Them Bread, is based off a quote by Roman poet, Juvenal: “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” The story contains elements of horror, dream-like imagery, and surrealism—a mode of art that, topically, emerged in the early 20th century. It contains accounts of Italian history, references to commedia dell’arte, and inspired by Italian literary works such as Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and Curzio Malaparte’s macabre novels, Kaputt and La Pelle. The grander purpose of Give Them Bread is to examine the meaning of truth in a political, moral, philosophical, spiritual, and …


Sudden Oak Death, Jeffrey William Guay Jan 2024

Sudden Oak Death, Jeffrey William Guay

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A novel set contemporaneously in rural Montana, Sudden Oak Death follows two protagonists, Wade and his teenage daughter Paige. Each are fighting different addictions, as Wade is in alcoholism recovery, and Paige recently came home from a drug treatment program. In order to succeed, Paige must reintegrate herself into public high school, despite suffering from undiagnosed dyslexia. Wade is raising his family as a single father, and struggles to maintain his emotional stability in the face of his own recovery.


Islands In The North, Kirstie Catriona Clinko Jan 2024

Islands In The North, Kirstie Catriona Clinko

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Islands in the North is a coming of age Y.A. novel, set first on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides, then Vashon Island in Washington State. Dwyn is fourteen and three quarters, and she has attended Bridgely School in Manchester, England, since kindergarten. At Bridgely, she can truly be herself. A straight ‘A’ student, an accomplished pianist, a good friend. Dwyn is a stand-in mother for her five-year-old brother, James. Their absent father is a merchant marine who sails the seven seas and is little more than a pen pal for Dwyn. Her abusive mother dates a Scottish …


No Other Gods, Hubble Stark Jan 2023

No Other Gods, Hubble Stark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


Water Lake And Other Stories, Allison Rose Levy Jan 2023

Water Lake And Other Stories, Allison Rose Levy

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This excerpt from the novel Water Lake takes place at an undisclosed time in an undisclosed American location called Water Town. It primarily follows Jason and Holly, who are employees at Water Hardware and lifelong residents of the insular, religious, isolated town. Water Town is in constant industrial and environmental decay and hosts many mysterious natural and social phenomena such as an unusual amount of animal deaths, a gender ratio skewed disproportionately towards men, and a single seal in a local body of water hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. During an episode of impulsivity induced by neurological trauma, …


Under Night's Darkness, Alexandra Fiege Ore Jan 2023

Under Night's Darkness, Alexandra Fiege Ore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Under Night’s Darkness follows Landry, who has recently been paroled from prison and returns to his family home in rural Montana. He has recently become a born-again Christian and is in the midst of a frantic final attempt to redeem himself after a lifetime dedicated to bullying and cruelty. He’s not only haunted by the specters of domestic abuse and sexual assault, but also by the ghosts of the recently dead. Enraged at the failure of his tragicomic attempts at redemption, Landry commits the sadistic murder of his own brother. The ensuing cycle of revenge destroys Landry’s family and Landry …


Beulahland: A Novel, Emily Ann Marie Nelson Jan 2023

Beulahland: A Novel, Emily Ann Marie Nelson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Beulahland follows Esther and Beulah Baxter, a pair of orphaned sisters traveling across the American west with their evangelist uncle in 1994. Raised on the seedy motivational speaking circuit of small towns and youth groups, Esther is determined to free Beulah from this nomadic way of life under from the neglectful care of their uncle August, a fame-chasing bodybuilder who wants to bring the world to God through his demonstrations of physical strength. This plan is put on hold when Beulah falls ill during a routine performance in the wildfire-wracked town of Orchard, Washington, and almost dies; her near-death experience …


The Waning Days Of Projection In The Mountain West, Samuel Gwinn Dunnington Jan 2022

The Waning Days Of Projection In The Mountain West, Samuel Gwinn Dunnington

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Waning Days of Projection in the Mountain West is a novel featuring a young narrator named Argus, who worked for years as an apprentice and assistant to a documentary filmmaker named Max Morgen. The novel begins years after Argus and Max have gone their separate ways. Max has recently died, and his final wish was that his son send Argus all the footage they’d acquired over their years together in order to edit and complete the film Max originally set out to make. Argus must decide how to proceed.


Gigi, Helen Wesley Kapp Jan 2022

Gigi, Helen Wesley Kapp

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Francis’s grandpa taught her how to wrestle alligators. By the time Francis was sixteen, she could hold her own, but all it takes is one gator. Just one gator who almost gets the best of you, and suddenly you’ve got a dead animal; somebody’s getting stitches; you’re getting haunted by the ghost of the alligator you just killed; and your mom’s making you move to Charleston to attend a swanky prep school where the kids don’t wrestle gators, but surviving the gossip is even harder.


Squatters, Alina Cerisse Cohen Jan 2022

Squatters, Alina Cerisse Cohen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


Kid Gloves, Anne North Kolle Jan 2022

Kid Gloves, Anne North Kolle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Kid Gloves is an excerpt from a novel in progress that follows the lives of three generations of women—Dorothy, Lydia, and Maisie—and explores the privileges and traumas they hold onto and pass down. The novel takes place in wealthy Baltimore society in the week leading up to Maisie’s debutante ball, but it is interspersed with stories from the past that inform the lives of the three women today.


The Curiosociety, Luke G. Smith Jan 2022

The Curiosociety, Luke G. Smith

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


Cobalt Blue, Connor W. Southard Jan 2021

Cobalt Blue, Connor W. Southard

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cobalt Blue is a collection of three pieces of fiction. The first piece is the titular short story, “Cobalt Blue.” The second is the short story “The Martyrdom of St. Canisius.” Finally, there is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress, Hawkfeather. Thank you for your reading and consideration.


No Answering Riot, Jacob Z. Bienvenue Jan 2021

No Answering Riot, Jacob Z. Bienvenue

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I left this morning for Portland, Oregon—could be for good. Told my dear mother I was taking a day trip then hopped in her dinged up black Audi and felt the thing hum alive beneath me. Her speakers were still good, so I threw on a playlist with Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie and all of the ragged traintrack prophets and went roaring out of those gilded hills for hopefully ever. There was no traffic getting to Sacramento; it took me just twenty minutes to hit the I-5 North juncture and after that I went peeling up the central flatlands …


Mary Of The Yellow Sea, Nicole Rose Gomez Jan 2021

Mary Of The Yellow Sea, Nicole Rose Gomez

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Maria del Mar is the third of five children born to a poor seventh-generation Hispanic-Indigenous family in rural southern Colorado. Maria’s grandmother is a highly regarded midwife, and she herself is born with the healing gift. When she is twelve years old a gypsy reads her palm and predicts that she will soon receive a letter from the man that she will marry. Soon after the prophecy is made, Maria’s beloved father, Don Antonio suffers a heart attack and is left unable to work the family ranch, part of a land grant by the Spanish crown to their ancestors. Responsibility …


Hand Signs, Rebecca Kristine Swanberg Jan 2020

Hand Signs, Rebecca Kristine Swanberg

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Hand Signs is a novel-in-progress that follows a friendship between two high school women, set in the world of elite choirs. It is an investigation of giving up one’s individuality for the sake of a greater harmony, in both the context of choral arts and young female friendships.


Son Of Red Earth Or The George Story: Novel Excerpt, Callie Ann Atkinson Jan 2020

Son Of Red Earth Or The George Story: Novel Excerpt, Callie Ann Atkinson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


No Man's Land, Jesse Daniel Durovey Jan 2019

No Man's Land, Jesse Daniel Durovey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


Triple Double Diamond: Nevada Stories, Kylie Michelle Westerlind Jan 2019

Triple Double Diamond: Nevada Stories, Kylie Michelle Westerlind

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In a collection of fictional short stories, Triple Double Diamond explores the relationships and grit of people who dwell in the Nevadan landscape. The stories roam between neon cities like Reno and Las Vegas to small high-desert towns like Wells and Gerlach, focusing on the people who live within these places. The people in this collection are restaurant servers, fur trappers, part- time gold miners, gamblers, park rangers, and veterans, and the stories look at the inner lives of these characters.


The Republic Of Catatonia: A Novel, David Byron Queen Jan 2019

The Republic Of Catatonia: A Novel, David Byron Queen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My thesis, a novel titled The Republic of Catatonia, is a story of a broken family, and the one man trying to keep their legacy alive. An adrift academic named Miles Cata moves back to Northeastern Montana from New York City, when he learns about the death of his father. When he arrives, it turns out his father isn’t dead, and Miles soon learns of his father’s plan for building an autonomous micro-nation on the property of their Montana ranch. The novel is set in the '90s against the backdrop of the Bakken oil boom, and much of the …


Beaches Without Sand, Connor Mcelwee Jan 2018

Beaches Without Sand, Connor Mcelwee

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


A Reflection On A Dhc Senior Project: "Silvie Danger", Breann Watterson Jan 2018

A Reflection On A Dhc Senior Project: "Silvie Danger", Breann Watterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This is a reflection about an Honors College Research Project. The project was a work of historical fiction concerning the coming-of-age of a young woman in mid-nineteenth-century New England.


Beak Doctor, Bryn L. Agnew Jan 2018

Beak Doctor, Bryn L. Agnew

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Beak Doctor is an excerpt from a novel in progress concerning the life of Brennan Madigan as he grows up in northeastern Ireland and later works as a plague doctor in Venice during the Thirty Years War. The excerpt's primary themes are loss, madness, mythology, religion, and mortality.


Cut And Run, Hamish Rickett Jan 2018

Cut And Run, Hamish Rickett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.


A Reflection On My Writing Process, Madison R. Hinrichs Jan 2017

A Reflection On My Writing Process, Madison R. Hinrichs

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

For my honors research project, I investigated the techniques of established contemporary writers, took a specific look at their different ways of framing a story through the guise of recollected memory, and used their conventions and mechanisms to develop my own original work. I also studied the elements of noir, speculative, and realistic fiction, as those are the genres that I am primarily interested in. In the process, I examined my old workshop material, with revision in mind, and selected the pieces with the most potential for improvement. I then developed and polished these into two short works of fiction …


The Grand Gallery, Nicole Roché Jan 2017

The Grand Gallery, Nicole Roché

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Grand Gallery is the story of a woman coming to terms with her identity and purpose in a small town in Kansas during the post-WWII boom. Astrid Grand is the heiress apparent to the family business, a gallery that has been at the center of the town’s operations from the time of its founding. The gallery displays a person’s “collection” at the time of their death. The townspeople collect everything from Victorian mourning jewelry to gum wrappers to objects found in trees. “In many ways,” as the novel’s opening chapter states, “the collections displayed at the gallery served as …


Slam Poetry: An Online Intervention For Treating Depression, Spencer J. Ruchti, Mercedes Becker, Cara Mckee, Austin Herron, Alex Swalling Jan 2016

Slam Poetry: An Online Intervention For Treating Depression, Spencer J. Ruchti, Mercedes Becker, Cara Mckee, Austin Herron, Alex Swalling

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Given that depression is the “leading cause of disability worldwide,” and that less than 50% of people suffering from depression receive treatment, this study aims to provide support for a globally accessible depression treatment (WHO, 2012). The study conducted implemented an internet-based treatment for depression in which users were provided an opportunity to watch slam poetry videos related to mental health issues and write free responses regarding the content of the videos and their subjective experience of depression. Numerous studies provide support for the effectiveness of expressive writing, online mental health interventions, and slam poetry in particular for reducing symptoms …


Wellspring, Alicia Bones Jan 2016

Wellspring, Alicia Bones

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.