Creative Writing Commons^™

The Present, A Thousand Times Deeper, Edie Talley

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The creative nonfiction essays and poetry in this collection explore family survival during the hardest of times--when the desire to give up is at its greatest--as told from the perspective of a woman who is a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother. These are not stories of defeat. Nor are they merely explorations of death and dying. They are cleebrations of living, of surviving, of loving and being loved against all odds.

Brief Encounters, Alexandra E. Reisner

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This collection of essays meditates on connection and how it is formed and severed. Several pieces consider lasting or arbitrary connections, like those holding together members of a family or the bridges joining two sides of a city. Some consider more tenuous bonds, such as the chance meeting of near-strangers or the moment shared between a child and a dying mouse. Indeed, many pieces consider the ways in which characters are bound to life – and to death.

Time Enough, Lb Kovac

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Last Place On Earth, Cameron Q. Todd

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

N/A

Different Names For Bullying, Marco Poggio

Capstones

“There's all different forms of bullying,” says Steven Gray, a Lakota rancher and former law enforcement officer living in South Dakota. In this look into Gray’s life, we learn about two instances of bullying: the psychological and physical harassment that pushed his son, Tanner Thomas Gray, to commit suicide at age 12; And the controversial construction of an oil pipeline in an ancient tribal land that belongs to the Lakota people by rights of a treaty signed in 1851, which Gray sees as an institutional abuse infringing on the sovereignty of his people. Gray is involved in the movement that …

American Milk: The Raw Deal, Dan Heching

Capstones

This report takes a look at the difficulty in procuring raw milk, an increasingly desired alternative to processed dairy, in New York City. It also tells the story of one woman's journey to tasting raw milk for the first time, despite reservations.

link: https://social.shorthand.com/MoodyHeching/uyYgLmuoNp6/american-milk-the-raw-deal

The New Pornography: The Rise Of Fanfic, Kelly Caputo

Capstones

Fanfic has quickly become the new pornography, showing how in modern culture, everything becomes sexualized.

https://newpornography.wordpress.com

Why The Business Of Love Is Bull$Hit, Deanne Gaston

Capstones

This is a narrative piece about the experience I had when I became a love guru/advice columnist.

Link: https://deannegaston.atavist.com/why-the-business-of-love-is-bullshit

How A New York Native American Community Was Polluted For Decades, Tola Brennan

Capstones

General Motors came to the upstate New York's North Country a savior, the bringer of much needed jobs. But after decades of using PCBs, a chemical much later revealed to be highly toxic, it's become the story of one the largest Superfund sites in the country. And the the hardest hit have been the Saint Regis Mohawk whose small reservation is right next door to the now demolished plant. Today, after decades of cleanup, General Motors has capped its liability through a 2009 bankruptcy. With the cleanup set to be completed next year, many Mohawk feel justice was never served. …

You Gotta Crack A Few Begs To Make An Honest, Jonathan Alexander Brown

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores childhood, relationships, teaching, and god.

Verge, Jessica A. Collins

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This poetry thesis explores the relationship of the Buddhist concept of nonduality to polar mood disorders by employing motifs of bomb testing, war crimes, spiders, and seascapes. A critical preface credits Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Ruefle as influences. The manuscript favors free-verse poetry and field composition, though also includes a lyric essay and two formal poems.

All Of This Would Be Water, Linden Crawford

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

N/A

What Sweden Is Like, Riccardo Savini

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Collection of short stories set in Stockhol, Sweden. Themes are alienation, bi-culturalism, third culture kids nomadism, fitting in a differnet culture.

Wandering Sagebrush, Andrea Cyrus

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Wandering Sagebrush is a collection of eight unified short stories. The main themes of the thesis include: the struggle of identity and how one finds the people and places to call family and home. The stories focus on family we make, family we lose, family we choose, and the decisions one makes in the name of family.

This Is Not Your Life, Ella M. Carroll-Smith

Stonecoast MFA Theses and Capstones

My novel, This Is Not Your Life examines themes of identity, class, and fate. Identical twin sisters, Annie and Quinn Graves, shared a troubled childhood, which led each of them down very different life paths. Annie is now climbing the corporate ladder at work, while Quinn leads the perfect family life in Richmond’s elite suburbs. And yet, they’re both unhappy, yearning for something different than the lives that seem to have chosen them. The two women decide to switch places for a while, hoping for a change of scenery and lifestyle. However, that decision has potentially disastrous consequences for them …

The Beast Inside, Steve Cave

Stonecoast MFA Theses and Capstones

This thesis contains the first seven chapters of the novel Ravenous, the short story “Faithfall,” and the academic paper “From Hellhound to Hero: Tracking the Shifting Shape of the 21st Century Werewolf.” Both of the stories deal with werewolves as a common element, but use very different types of werewolves in each. The werewolves of Ravenous transform through losing control or giving in to their passions, while the werewolves in “Faithfall” change only with the full moon, and retain no control once transformed. Both stories have a gay male protagonist, though also in very different ways. Ravenous follows the story …

The Awkward Year(S), Kate Seaholm

Senior Theses

This creative writing thesis contains short stories, memoir writing, and a screenplay by Kate Seaholm.

• Preface
• Girl vs. Garbage
• The Blood Test
• Barcelona
• "Wanna see my sailboat?"
• The Question
• Before I Begin
• The Last Straw
• Dear Diary
• Let It Happen
• Lost in London
• Gullible
• Red-handed
• Afterword

Swamp Bandit: The Legend Of John Ashley And Florida's Notorious Ashley Gang, Constance M. B. Briggs

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This capstone presents the first five chapters of an historical novel about the life and legend of John Ashley and the group of men who make up his alleged criminal gang and reign in south Florida from 1911 to 1924. Considered the last frontier of the United States, Florida during this time is raw, untamed, and just beginning to be drained for land reclamation. Ashley makes local as well as national headlines, several of which are quoted in this story. Known as a “crack-shot” with a gun, he becomes a folk-hero to the local “Crackers,” native Floridians who keep from …

Trickling, Marissa Medley

Honors Projects

A collection of poetry and other writings that explore family relationships with a focus on mental illness.

Short Works: Things Gone By, Novel: Creatives, Elizabeth B. Visscher

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

The theme of each short work will portray three life-changing intersections: The first short work will follow a man named, Early Easter, an elderly man struggling with the decision to let loss and age give way to bitterness or accept the ever-changing world and find companionship in Ayotunde, a fourteen-year-old boy. The second work will portray the conflicting paths of Idella, a newly-divorced mother, and Grace, her daughter, who is struggling to navigate this change in her mother’s life; these woman learn that relationships are as deeply rooted as ivy and even harder to upheave, as they toil to rip …

Greenbroke: Stories, Sarah Jean Rains

Graduate Theses

In my collection Greenbroke: Stories, I explore the underbelly of the equestrian world. On the surface, the equestrian community is viewed as a world for the wealthy. It is viewed as a community of extravagance and excess. Additionally, there are few pieces of fiction that actually take the reader beyond the glamor of the surface. My stories do just that. Throughout my collection it was my aim to allow readers into a world that is different from the stereotypical equine community they thought they knew. In my stories, horse people watch their worlds collapse around them. My characters exist …

People Sitting In The Dark: Stories, Trent Chabot

Graduate Theses

In my story collection, People Sitting in the Dark: Stories, I explore the ever troubling theme of how to cope with loss, and occasionally, how to cope with not losing when one is so accustomed to it. Though some of my stories are connected with reappearing characters, they are not all written in such a way. Characters in the background of one story may be given the narration of one later in the story, thus changing how the reader views the character through difference perspectives. I wanted to explore how point of view can drastically change the sympathy and empathy …

How To Hitchhike West With A Promise, Max Wojciechowski

All NMU Master's Theses

This work is an excerpt of a larger novel in progress that closely follows the journey of the main character, Charlie, who is hitchhiking from the Chicago suburbs to California in order to spread his mother’s ashes. It takes inspiration from the traditional American road trip novels, while following a contemporary narrative that dives into the main character’s judgmental attitude toward his fellow human. The story highlights his character growth with tips for hitchhiking that Charlie directs toward the audience sporadically throughout the piece. Charlie happens to be gay. A conscious decision was made to not highlight his sexual orientation, …

Little Left Of Normal, Nicole Archambault

Master’s Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Lessons For An Educator: The Real Meaning Of Sacrifice And Service, Courtney A. Lemire Mrs.

All NMU Master's Theses

I knew at a young age that I would devote my professional life to being an educator. I was not prepared for the numerous setbacks that I would experience and, at times, I have questioned why I became a teacher. It is during these moments of hesitation and uncertainty that I find inspiration from three military family members: my maternal grandfather, Edwin, my paternal grandfather, Lloyd, and my husband, Joe. They dedicated their lives to serving others while not asking for anything in return. All three unselfishly sacrificed a part of who they were for the betterment of others. It …

If This Heart Had A Mouth: A Forbidden Romance Narrated Through Mimesis: Poems, Julieta V. Corpus

Theses and Dissertations

If This Heart Had a Mouth consists of forty-two poems where love is the catalyst for a multitude of emotions, ranging from falling in love, to hopelessness, to a begrudging kind of acceptance at losing the beloved to somebody else. To create all forty-two poems, 23 written in Spanish, and 19 poems written in English, I employed the literary device called Mimesis which entails deriving an original poem from someone else's work.

To create each poem, I followed another poet’s original work, line by line. I imitated that poet’s rhythm through their use of meter. I counted the number of …

From A Long Line Of Thieves, Lucinda Zamora-Wiley

Theses and Dissertations

This is a work of original creative writing, containing works of poetry, prose poems, flash non-fiction, and personal essays. The primary subject areas include family relations after PTSD, love, interracial struggles within marriage and family, pride of place--including Texas and the United States, and poetic/artistic inspirations that influenced the author.

Young Punks And Their Bible Adventures: A Collection Of Biblical Fiction Short Stories, Hunter Schmitt

English Undergraduate Honors Theses

These stories are based on the premise that the men who left their lives, families, and jobs behind to follow Jesus were not adults relearning a way to live, but teenagers learning about the world for the first time. The stories will not focus on the miracles we have seen on tv around Easter and Christmas times, nor will they revolve around Jesus. They will give us between-the-scenes views of the apostles in their everyday lives as regular teens.

Kept, Adrianna Robertson

Writing Theses

No abstract provided.

Egg Head And Other Poems, Celeste Hackenberg

Writing Theses

No abstract provided.