Creative Writing Commons^™

We Wear The Mask, Matthew Dawkins

Uplifting Blackness Collection

No abstract provided.

The Aftermath, Matthew Dawkins

Uplifting Blackness Collection

No abstract provided.

Golden, Matthew Dawkins

Uplifting Blackness Collection

No abstract provided.

He Is Dying And He Is Alive For It, Matthew Dawkins

Uplifting Blackness Collection

No abstract provided.

Sharing Personal Cultural Experiences Through Travel Writing, Faith Morrow

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

It is common to hear that travelling changes people, often for the better, but what are tangible ways in which those changes are shown? Founded on a two week study abroad to England, I explored the captivating and educational genre of travel writing and attempted it myself. Through researching and consuming various travel writing and taking countless notes and observations in England, I set myself up to create my own travel pieces. Based on my research, two common types of travel writing included location-based personal narrative and tourist-centered pieces, both of which styles I experimented with in my three completed …

Travel Writing: Capturing British Culture Through Prose And Image, Ashley Conway

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

This project examines the development and creation of the travel writing genre. Before going on a study abroad trip, research revealed notetaking and photography techniques and helped develop overarching themes to guide activities abroad and story writing upon return.

Fragments Of A Soul, Angelina Hinojosa

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Fragments of a Soul is a fragmentary, epistolary creative writing project consisting of pieces from a fictional, now deceased writer that include polished short stories, stream-of-consciousness writings, and lists. The pieces from 'the Writer' are narratively strung together by notes from 'the Editor,' a mysterious individual who knew the Writer when he was still alive. Fragments is set within a vague fantasy world in which reincarnation is apparently known but not understood, and the Writer appears to be haunted by something he can't quite define and can only write around. This project was an experiment in experiments, trying out different …

Something American, Carolina S. Souto

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

SOMETHING AMERICAN is a poetry collection written from the perspective of a first-generation American navigating a growing family, a political crisis, and a global pandemic. Influences on this collection include Robert Hass’s THE ESSENTIAL HAIKU and FIELD GUIDE, which attend to nature and the poet-speaker’s immediate surroundings with diligence and precision. Ariel Francisco’s place poems and creative titles in ALL MY HEROES ARE BROKE provide important touchstones for Souto’s commitment to here-and-now writing. And Sylvia Plath’s frank and complex writing about motherhood in ARIEL grants the poet permission to probe these subjects as well.

In SOMETHING AMERICAN, experimental poems sprawl …

Greenhouse, Sophie Hall

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Greenhouse is a chapbook of creative nonfiction lyric essays and poems about what it means to be at home, fragmented forms echoing my own varied definitions. The writing in this chapbook returns to ideas I have explored for years, expanding on my original college application essay titled “Home” to think about what it means to be at home, what defines a home, and how I am currently building one.

While I was not familiar with the term “creative nonfiction” at the time, my college application essay was my first introduction to the genre, allowing me to reflect on my childhood …

Haunting This Garden, Anna B. Thomas

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Haunting this Garden is a poetry chapbook containing several poems and illustrations. The final copies were printed and bound with paper, glue, and cloth. Poems in the chapbook were written between 2018 and 2021, though all were heavily revised before being used in the chapbook. The pieces explore themes of love, fear, guilt, and shame. They are all heavily grounded in environmental themes.

Why Intersectionality In Fiction Matters, Grace L. Dillon

Indigenous Nations Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In lieu of an abstract, here is an excerpt:

Indigenous peoples often say that from maewizhah, or time immemorial, we have gazed upon ae-iko-dawo-dunnauk-mishi-geezhik and created stories that are maumikaud-kummik. In other words, throughout our histories, Native peoples have looked to the heavens, pondered the universe, and composed fantastical tales that, translated literally, are “out of this world.”

This is the very definition of speculative fiction.

To us, storytellers are artists and medicine people who provide mishkiki: medicine, healing, and sometimes even solidarity — or, as we say in Anishinaabemowin, inauwinidiwin, which means collectively becoming a …

Creative Non-Fiction Prose Workshop, Laura Yan

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Creative Writing, Shamecca A. Harris

Open Educational Resources

This introductory creative writing course asks students to explore their literary interests and proclivities through regular reading and writing activities designed to promote an in-depth understanding and appreciation for the craft of writing. Students will intellectually engage with both contemporary and classic authors within the main genres of creative writing and use the craft elements discussed in class to compose their own original poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction work. While studying various forms of creative writing, emphasis will be placed on the creative process of writing while encouraging students to find their writing voice. Student responsibilities include workshop participation, several …

The Hate Within, Kora Kukk

Honors College

A novel in its beginning stages, The Hate Within (May 2021) is the product of discovering a way to be able to eloquently combine biomedical engineering with creative writing which will intrigue young adult readers. This thesis contains the first few chapters of the story along with an additional journal entry, the story’s outline with a list of plot events, and a disquisition exploring the motivation and methodology behind creating this thesis.The novel is about a junior in high school named Alaita. She is a super sweet, kind, and popular girl in school until one day she is diagnosed with …

An Anthology On Human Suffering In America: Notes On Black Lives Matter, Katelyn Dubois

Senior Honors Projects

For far too long systemic racism has protected inequality and suffering in the United States, preaching that one’s worth and opportunities are determined by the color of their skin. Despite the foundational values of freedom and equality in the United States, the Black community continues to be killed and discriminated against in disturbingly disproportionate amounts to their peers, and is precisely 3.23 times more likely than Caucasians to be killed by police. “An Anthology on Human Suffering in America: Notes on Black Lives Matter'' was created with the intent to bring greater awareness to the racism and social injustices experienced …

Overcome: Farmington Honors Journal, Volume 3, Spring 2021, University Of Maine At Farmington

Honors Journal

This marks our third Journal for the University of Maine at Farmington’s Honors Department. Looking back at the works submitted to us this year we no-ticed a common thread between them. The delicate thread we discovered was that our artists were working through things, whether that be the shape of the loss of a loved one or struggles with self identity. It became apparent as we read, that humans have the strength to overcome, to show growth and discover through writing and art different ways to cope and to identify. Their work has shown that our struggle during this pandemic …

Hello_World: A New, Not-Quite-Animated Story (First Draft), Jack Harbick

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This story is meant for the medium of animation and is intended to act either as a pilot episode for a longer series or the beginning/skeleton of an animated film.

Synopsis: A robot awakens into a human-less world with seemingly no pre-programmed directive and a low battery. With the help of a new friend, a postcard, and some strange plants, they'll undertake a great journey to find whatever answers they can.

Bycatch, Terin Weinberg

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

BYCATCH

by

Terin Weinberg

Florida International University, 2021

Miami, Florida

Professor Denise Duhamel, Major Professor

BYCATCH is a collection of poems that explore the speaker’s relationship with the natural world. The poems utilize a variety of forms, from traditional sestinas and sonnets driven by image, to puzzle-pieced stereoscopes that can be read grammatically in three different ways—left to right, or down one of either columns. Though the collection is rooted in nature, the emotional drive is rooted in the construction and deconstruction of the family and the body. Each section of the book will function as …

Children Of Greatness, Kimberly Douglas

Uplifting Blackness Collection

This poem was written by Kimberly Douglas and performed at Western's Black Student's Association closing ceremonies for Black History Month.

Confessions Of A Dark-Skinned Black Woman, Glenys Obasi

Uplifting Blackness Collection

This poem was written by Glenys Obasi and performed during Western's Black Student Association's Black History Month closing ceremonies.

Anxiety: Environmental And Otherwise, Aprille Noelle Mohn

English: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

“Anxiety: Environmental and Otherwise” is a collection of works from different genres and of different lengths. The pieces vary in tone from professional to confessional. Nonfiction sits next to fiction and experimental forms. The common thread that binds the pieces together is one of personal values. The heart of the collection is the importance of discovering one’s self and then making the choice to nurture that identity. With all of life’s strangeness and the impossible abundance of experiences, it can be difficult to truly see one’s self. It’s even more difficult to see why any of us are the way …

Et Cetera, 2019-2021, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

Big Nothing: A Story About Bicycles And The Girls Who Ride Them In The Heart Of West Texas, Keziah Staska

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Their one-way road trip had started the day before when they left their home in San Bernardino for the final time. Paisley was afraid of moving away from the city she grew up in, but not for the same reasons many children her age would be. . So, her social life wasn’t her primary concern when it came time to abandon her home. Instead, she was afraid to leave San Bernardino because she had memorized all the perfect bike routes within a thirty-mile radius. On the other, the fear that their new home would have insufficient routes and roads compared …

Delivering Extinction, Tatum Cordy

Honors College Theses

Living during a human extinction is something no one is prepared for. No one thought humans would last this long. Even the sun dies eventually. A child’s drawing with a dripping smile. Sun rays heating soil into dust, melting metals, and large pine trees would light like matches. Smoke would rise into the air blocking out everything but the fires taking over the once livable landscape of Earth. Then, it would be over. The sun would explode. Simple and quick, painless for the few who wouldn’t try to resist their demise. Too bad humans were a few million years early. …

Skeletons In My Closet: A Collection Of Personal Essays And Short Fiction, Macey Howell

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

My thesis will be a collection of personal essays and short fiction centered on examining the ties between fashion and identity and told through a Gothic literary tradition. I seek to explore my identity by examining my personal style using the mode of the Gothic. Through this project, I will encapsulate my sense of style, and therefore my sense of self, in words and explore the nuances of my identity through creative nonfiction and fiction.

I have a distinct sense of style that is inseparable from my identity as a woman, as an artist, as a human drawn to beauty …

The Language Of Breathing, Brian Wallace Baker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Language of Breathing is an eclectic collection of 18 creative nonfiction essays that capture moments from the author’s life and attempt to give them meaning through narrative and metaphor. They deal with relationships, nature, faith, and often rely on background research to pair art, mythology, current events, and science with personal experience.

From The Shadows: Setting As An Expression Of Character Development In The Epic Fantasy Genre, Leah Henson

Senior Honors Theses

Epic fantasy is a genre defined by its setting. It offers writers the opportunity to be incredibly specific with the way setting contributes to the overall story, specifically as an aid character development. In order to successfully use setting to support character development, the writer must understand what preconceptions with which the reader enters the epic fantasy genre and what purpose setting plays in the overarching story world. The writer must determine what setting elements to include and, just as importantly, which to leave out. Finally, because setting is such an abstract component of writing, it is useful not only …

Banana Bread, Madeleine L. Quinn

Student Publications

This poem describes a young narrators exploration of her grandmother's battle with dementia. Her grandma's unwavering love still finds ways to shine through.

Rejuvenation: University Of Maine At Farmington Honors Journal Spring 2020, University Of Maine At Farmington

Honors Journal

For the second time we have come together as an honors program and de- cided to showcase students’ work. Our honors students drive and motivation here at Farmington goes beyond expectation. Time and time again students push limits and comfort zones to come up with amazing ideas, thoughts, and advice to their fellow students and themselves. In their works it is clear the power writing and art has in their expression. It is our special privilege to be able to showcase the bold, authetic works each of our contributors brought here for publication.

The University of Maine at Farmington Honors …

Closure, Madeleine L. Quinn

Student Publications

This poem explores the idea of closure through various lenses of the narrators life.