Creative Writing Commons^™

Wet Specimen, Abigail Lee Raley

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Cystic fibrosis is a condition which thickens the mucus throughout the body of the afflicted patient. Bob Flanagan, in his book The Pain Journal, ventures to record that sort of physical experience, as it pertains to the daily practices of his art, leading up to his death. Flanagan expounds on given relationships between his sadomasochistic performance art and the pain of his body in his poem “Why.” Richard Siken, too, in his book Crush, explores the embodied violence of gay lust, love, and obsession. WET SPECIMEN finds itself amongst these traditions, as it ventures to explore the animality …

Essays And Novel Excerpt, Mirela Music

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

The Biome Within: Conception And Change In The Paradise Valley, Austin Kirchhoff

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Biome Within is an essay collection that meditates on change. Born and raised in the Paradise Valley of southwest Montana, Austin recounts stories from her childhood, painting a picture of rural life in the Valley that contrasts with its modern-day incarnation as a luxury get-away and millionaire’s playground. Even as Austin pines for a time and a place that no longer exists, embodying the nostalgia that she identifies in the Valley’s transplants, the reader comes to understand that the author – and her family’s way of making a living – are culpable in creating the changes that she now …

No Other Gods, Hubble Stark

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

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, …

Witness This Thing So Tender, Erin Marie White

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

At once fantastical and down-to-earth, the poems of Witness This Thing So Tender are concerned with the convergence of the speaker’s many selves and influences. Gritty and mysterious happenings shape the speaker’s physical, emotional, and psychological circumstances in the world. Whether the triggering topic is ecological, parental, or sepulchral, the work of the poems is to examine and integrate the changeable natures of memory and reality.

Each poem in the second movement of the collection, entitled “Lunar Cycle,” employs the idiom Once upon a time as its entry point. This small, well-worn turn of phrase operates as a springboard into …

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 …

Asked For Another Mountain, Nichole Lynn Moore

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

Wayfinding, Kalani N. Padilla

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

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 …