Creative Writing Commons^™

Quarry Light And Other Stories, Claudia Lois Smith

Dissertations

Quarry Light and Other Stories is a collection of short stories and one novella articulating themes of violence, trauma, and sexuality. The stories in Quarry Light and Other Stories are arranged according the theme, movement, and tonality. Although they can stand alone, the stories are meant to be read interdependently. The collection is accompanied by a critical introduction.

Tiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things, Ashley Mary Siebels

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The stories in this collection revolve around a central theme which is expressed by my titleTiny Animals Made To Do Unnatural Things. All my characters feel guilt about decisions and experiences that haunt their past. In the present, they have come to a crossroads and are trying to decipher between what they were made to do as in vocation and evolution and what they are being made to do by the authorial pressures that loom over them (e.g. bosses, parents, loan officers, prison guards.)

In this way, my thesis pivots on the word made. Made (or to make) has many …

On Our Way Out: And Other Stories, Benjamin Champlin Wright Morris

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

On Our Way Out and other stories is a collection of short fiction banded together with themes of the darkened strange, the missing and the moving, and a sense of place. The characters in these stories try to claw their way to newfound identities, whether it's through a financial transaction, saving a life, or putting a body in the ground. An action with a result is what's needed in these characters' lives. Though, often, the results are not intended. Despite the oddity inherent in these stories and characters, there is something familiar about their plight as ordinary people, something in …

Talk Me Down: A Selection Of Short Stories, Katie Elyce Freeman

Masters Theses

In Talk Me Down, Katie Elyce Freeman offers a selection of short stories that follows young characters in their pursuit for self-satisfaction. At times her characters are uncertain of their talents, at times wracked with guilt over immature mistakes; but their highly detailed, sensory worlds often deliver a needed coincidence, a sliver of light to lead their way.

Renovations And Other Stories, Amanda Rene Lager

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Renovations and Other Stories is a linked collection of ten fiction stories that examines the ways by which women renew or restore themselves. The collection is set in the imaginary city of St. Clair, South Carolina, a town balancing historical accuracy with the sensational tourist industry; Carolinians who trace their ancestries back to the American Revolution with suburban newcomers; and the notion of cherishing the past with moving forward. Many of the characters struggle with identity, whether it is regional or feminine individuality. The protagonists must challenge self-image when faced with situations that make them reconsider their places in their …

The Boys' Republic, Jonas Mueller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The young men in The Boys’ Republic live in a world that is continually falling apart. Their houses collapse into sinkholes, forest fires carve out chunks of their towns, plague spreads through their communes, the money runs out on the construction project where they work. This decay mirrors their own collapsing identities, as they are forced to question their mastery of nature, their nostalgia for their youth, their relationships with others, and the value of masculinity itself. Drawing on the work of writers like Dennis Cooper, Flannery O’Connor, and Benjamin Percy, The Boys’ Republic depicts men in the midst of …

Let Them Eat Cake, Courtney Yeager

Honors Theses

My mother has always said she belongs in the kitchen. Sure, she voted in presidential elections and wasn’t surprised when I, as a seventh-grader, mentioned that Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted all moms to find a real job. But whenever I glanced up at my childhood home, tucked neatly into the hillside towering over town, I envisioned my mother dicing zucchini or fingering the grout between counter tiles as she pored over hardback cookbooks, turning pages as delicately as she would crack an egg.