Creative Writing Commons^™

The Escape Artists, Daniel Gene Hernandez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My thesis, “The Escape Artists”, is a collection of short fiction that represents most of the work I did as a creative writing master’s student. The title is taken from my longest story, a narrative about a young man’s struggle to avoid violence in a federal prison. As a title, “The Escape Artists” also captures major themes in my other stories; characters often pursue emotional escapism or literally seek to evade predators in my fiction. As a writer, I often explore breakdowns in social order, so my stories tend to be set in turbulent, oppressive political climates or else inside …

Cycle Of Return, Clancy Gabriel Daniell Mcgilligan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An American reporter in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, is fired by a local English-language newspaper after he and his lover, a copy editor at the paper, use drugs and she overdoses and dies. The reporter, whose name is Francis, feels partly responsible for her death. He also feels guilty about his life as an expatriate in Cambodia, a poor, developing country that has a large aid community and a history of communist killings and war. He decides to find whoever sold the drugs to his lover, Sara, and to exact some sort of punishment or revenge. However, he’s uncertain what he …

Las Vegas Paperboy, Matthew O'Brien

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

I’m an author and journalist who has lived in Las Vegas since 1997. My first book, Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, chronicles my adventures in the city’s underground flood channels. My second book, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas, is a creative-nonfiction collection set in off-the-beaten-path Vegas. These two books grew out of my eight years as a writer and editor for Las Vegas CityLife alternative-weekly paper.

I enrolled in UNLV’s MFA creative-writing program in the fall of …