Creative Writing Commons^™

The Jubilant City Almanac: Stories, Azaria Brown

Graduate Thesis Collection

The Jubilant City Almanac is a collection of short stories set in the magical Jubilant City, a city founded by a group of Black women in 1736. These stories bridge the whimsical and magical with the realities of poverty, classicism, addiction, abuse and health disparities. “Got His Alligator” follows the journey of two codependent addicts as they try to get their fashion designs onto Jubilant City’s premiere drama, Girl, Please. The characters in “Carbon Copy” use a magical phone to bring Denzel Washington to the city. “Jeremiah the Conqueror” summons Black American folk legend, High John. THrough an exploration of …

From Far Gone, Back, Courtney Renae Causey

Graduate Thesis Collection

From Far Gone, Back is a short story collection that explores multigenerational families living in and around the changing landscape of Atlanta, GA. It asks what comes of the decisions we are forced to make for those around us and ourselves while surviving the best way we know how.

The Prism, Darrah Melita Ellis

Graduate Thesis Collection

"The Prism" is a magical-girl-themed fantasy light novel series about four best friends who finally graduated junior high school. Miya, Teresa, Liana, and Destiny are anxious to start their new high school lives (for better or worse) in their rough, monotone, and corrupt urban town of Quaint Village. Their plans are interrupted, however, by the opening of a brand new private school. Then, for the first time ever, all four girls end up in the same program. They're ready to make great memories together and spend much more time with each other.

Unbeknownst to them, their new school is nothing …

There Could Be Light Here, Audrey Bowers

Graduate Thesis Collection

Poems about healing and hurting. The journey begins with a 14-year-old who is struggling with suicidal thoughts and ends with a 25-year-old learning how to live with bipolar 1 disorder. The poems focus on finding light in the darkness, one poem at a time.

Strange Beginnings, Lincoln-Abdullah Hasan El-Amin

Graduate Thesis Collection

"Strange Beginnings" is a short story collection consisting of four short stories. Some of these stories go together and some stand alone. All of them aim to evoke something in the reader, whether it be shock, joy, unsettledness, or something more.

Flying In Our Sleep, John Strauss

Graduate Thesis Collection

Flying In Our Sleep is a one-hour radio / podcast production of a story in which “Teens wake to discover they’re drafted into an army of killer robot drones and must outwit their deadly AI overlords in a desperate bid to escape.” This partly ironic summary sets the tone for an adventure story for Young Adult audiences with thoughtful elements around the meaning of consciousness, personality, and friendship. The project also includes a paper, “The Art of the Fiction Podcast,” that explains how the show was produced, and argues that digital media has a place in literary writing programs to …

My Body Is A Question Mark Lit From Within, Lisa Marie Schrad

Graduate Thesis Collection

In her MFA thesis “My Body Is a Question Mark Lit from Within,” Lisa Marie Schrad explores through poetry the body and its different appetites—hunger for justice, for healing, for God, for home, for wonder. Along the way, the poems also make clear that the path toward fullness and satisfaction must inevitably pass through a deep, brave commitment to knowing the full truth about ourselves. When a light shines out from inside the body, what shortcomings are exposed? What goodness is revealed? And how do we live in the world responsibly, kindly, from the space in-between our questions and their …

The Vicissitudes, Lara Young

Graduate Thesis Collection

On the surface, Julia's life at middle age seems calm and settled. Her children are grown; she's got plenty of friends and family; and her marriage has survived a betrayal. But when she unexpectedly receives a text from an old flame, one by one the certitudes she's come to rely on start to unravel and Julia's is forced to reckon anew with the meaning of her life and her place in the world.

Sweat, Cigs And A Ball Of Noise, Tyler Jacob Hughes

Graduate Thesis Collection

Corduroy Jones is contacted by a local promoter to reunite his band Streetwise Preacher. Over a three week span, Corduroy and his bandmates Tony and Johnny go through a series of events leading up to their Halloween Night reunion show.

Sometimes I Think I’M Going Crazy, Connor Kesslering

Graduate Thesis Collection

"Sometimes I Think I’m Going Crazy" is a short story collection containing three stories of more or less equal length. Each of three main characters face conflict that tests their resolve and ultimately forces them to reevaluate who they are as human beings. Stress helps people to grow and evolve and the protagonists in these stories are forced to face their greatest fears head on and (with varying degrees of success) come out the other end better for it. But not before going a little crazy in the process.

Buried Hair, Abigail Radcliffe

Graduate Thesis Collection

Like every other poet, I’ve always been trying to write the poem living inside of me. The poem of myself. So many iterations of this very poem have come about because of my exploration of the greats and because of my exploration of self. The most predominant themes that come up in my thesis are my Cherokee heritage and culture, my family, and my chosen relationships. Interspersed are poems about hardships I, and others, have faced as women. The constant dilemma of womanhood is certainly exacerbated when “woman” is paired with “non-white.” Through my poems, I’ve tried to explore these …

Primrose And Other Stories, Demetra Koras

Graduate Thesis Collection

Primrose and Other Stories is a short story collection that explores themes of family, loss, and legacy.

Only One Went Through The Green Door, Rachel Sahaidachny

Graduate Thesis Collection

Written in three parts, Only One Went through the Green Door, explores abandonment, homelessness, childhood, womanhood, and choices made or unmade that create the complicated and winding path of life. The poems use narrative and lyric to examine the effects of childhood trauma on the development of a persona, and its shadow. Emotional realities explored through natural landscapes, and at times through child-like language, create an unsettled speaker who quests for some final understanding that might lead to peace.

Basement Heart, Samantha Constance Tkac

Graduate Thesis Collection

Basement Heart is a collection of short stories with a goal of documenting the manifestations of rage and how it evolves throughout a woman’s life. In these stories, femininity is explored through the aesthetics of the grotesque. Female protagonists seek to inhabit new definitions of female sexuality that combat tired expectations made by society’s misogynistic and objectifying culture. Often, their feelings of unprovoked grief manifest themselves as pursuits of the flesh, which becomes the underlying heartbeat of each story; themes revolve around sex and obsession and explore what happens when sexual fantasies are realized and lived out in the real …

Useless, Seth Stone

Graduate Thesis Collection

Useless is a short story collection about people who feel lost in the world and go searching for fulfillment. Six disconnected stories about six disconnected people. The collection deals with themes of loss, identity, loneliness and the exploration of niche subcultures.

One Hundred Books: A Journey Through A Century Of John Newbery Award Books, Tyler Sassaman

Graduate Thesis Collection

"On a quest to read all of the existing Newbery award-winning books (est. 1921), a reading specialist examines the history of the books and the award itself. Considered the “most distinguished contribution to children’s literature,” the John Newbery gold medal, awarded by the American Library Association, is a high-water mark for upper elementary-aged children across the United States. The author’s two decades of teaching experience provide the analytical perspective and memoir-style investigation. Interviews with a book buyer for the Scholastic publisher, children’s librarians, former Newbery committee members, and a visit to the famed Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature, frame the …

Hypnotic White Silk Skylights, Anthony Borruso

Graduate Thesis Collection

A poetic examination of the self as well as cycles of trauma and recovery. This manuscript explores poetry's ability to transform one's experiences by re-engaging with them in the realm of the imagination.

Girl-Junk, Sugar-Funk, Natalie Tombasco

Graduate Thesis Collection

A poetic look into the life of a girl which centers around food, alcoholism, mommy issues, sexuality, identity and mortality.

Dr. Mengelt, Marc Allan

Graduate Thesis Collection

An obstetrician implants microchips in the babies he delivers so he can track their movements when they get older. The doctor is a white supremacist and determined to find evidence that supports his twisted vision of racial distinction. Eighteen years after his first implantations, two of the children he worked with commit a particularly brutal murder. The doctor turns them in anonymously and quickly becomes a kind of folk hero. But after a relentless New York Daily News reporter finds out how the murderers were identified, the doctor becomes a man on the run.

This Is How You Burn Away, Taylor Lewandowski

Graduate Thesis Collection

A short story collection dealing with down and out types in rural Montana and Indiana.

Sentinel, Bailey Merlin

Graduate Thesis Collection

Devastated by the mysterious death of her guardians, Elizabeth Davenport finds herself thrust into a new world that proves to be scintillating and dangerous. Can she trust those who claim to be her friends? Or will her trust lead her into trouble? When a mysterious letter presents itself and proves that her guardians might have been more than they ever let on, Elizabeth must gather her courage and pursue the truth, whatever the cost.

Kingdom Come, Kirk B. Young

Graduate Thesis Collection

A secret service agent returns home to reconcile with his wife just as the Rapture begins. His scramble to reunite with her becomes all the more urgent when a violent cult begins terrorizing the city in its final hours

Marathon, Tristan Durst

Graduate Thesis Collection

Marathon is a novel about a young girl who is not born into the best family, who sets out to make a family for herself.

Collect Your Dead, John Eckerd

Graduate Thesis Collection

Since the bizarre disappearance of his wife, mountaineer Abbot Boone's life has spiraled into a pit of alcoholism and alienation. But then a wealthy and desperate widow hires Boone for an impossible task: to recover her husband's dead body from the peaks of Mount Everest. With nothing to lose and debts mounting, Boone enlists a team of exiles and misfits to attempt the climb. But if Boone is to conquer the mountain, he will first have to survive the pressure cooker of Everest Base Camp, brutal subzero temperatures, and ultimately confront the mystery of his own grief

Beneath The Foundation, Michele Cooley

Graduate Thesis Collection

Beneath the Foundation is a work of fiction, a detective novel that follows protagonist Cheryl Simpson as she’s thrust into the middle of a murder mystery. Cheryl lives a quite life, an attempt at hiding from her past, but when she arrives at work one Saturday morning and finds her boss dead of a gunshot wound, she finds herself pulled into the middle of the investigation. Clues start popping up all around her, and once they start showing up in her apartment, she realizes there’s more at stake than figuring out who killed her boss. As Cheryl works through the …

People This Body Has Housed, Laura Kendall

Graduate Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Guardians Of Freedom, Drew Davis

Graduate Thesis Collection

Guardians of Freedom is my attempt to make sense out of my time spent in uniform, in the only way that is appropriate: hyperbolic comedy. It is a story of Specialist Henry, a disillusioned soldier returning from one deployment in the Global War on Terror and facing another. Thoughts of making a difference and changing the world dashed, he wants nothing more than to be rid of the uniform and live an admittedly pointless life. He is joined by the various characters of Bravo Company, the deploying unit which has been used as a dumping point for medically-impaired soldiers. Outwardly, …

Sky Lifting His Skirts, Thaddeus Harmon

Graduate Thesis Collection

An imbecilic invocation uttered by glass-fingered mannequins jaggedly gesticulating forgotten ballet moves in a future where skin is optional, and computers sneeze.

The Religious Imagery In Emily Dickinson's Love Poems, Constance B. Kirby

Graduate Thesis Collection

This paper will discuss to what extent Emily Dickinson's heritage, environment, and experience formed her attitudes on religion and love, and will explain how successful she was in translating her intense emotional experience of love into poetry by examining her use of religious imagery.

A Study Of Edwin Arlington Robinson With Special Attention To His Shorter Poems, Lucile Willowby

Graduate Thesis Collection

The purpose of the present study is to ascertain the principles of poetry to which Robinson adhers, to determine his position in relation to the imagists, and to discuss in some detail the technical qualities of his shorter poems.