Creative Writing Commons^™

Falling Down The Rabbit Hole: World Building In Ya Literature, Claire Webb

Undergraduate Honors Theses

World building is a key component to many young adult novels, but what is world building and what are some different styles and techniques that authors use when constructing fictional universes? In this thesis, Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: World Building Techniques in YA Literature, I will examine Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865), The Princess Bride by William Goldman (1973), and my own unpublished novel, The Sun Kingdom, to compare different techniques and styles of world building. These works will be explored through the aspect of world building, focusing specifically on the importance of the geography, language, …

..., Claire Alfonso

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Words are fickle, easily misunderstood, and often put us at a loss... but we all have so much we feel we need to express. This begs the question: Is there any safe way of communication? Can anything ever really be communicated how you mean it? Will you ever see the reflection of what you feel, think, and dream outside of yourself? In response to this existential dilemma, I imagine an alternative language of images, sounds, color, feelings, and non-identification. My thesis is a meditation on the issues with standard language and the idea of alternative language. In my argument I …

Yo Soy Rumano (I Am Romanian): An Autobiography Exploring The Effects Of Memory And Trauma On The Formation Of The Self, Andrei Bucaloiu

Honors Theses

I came to the United States from Romania with my parents when I was two years old. This moment of cultural, linguistic, and geographic separation occurred before I was able to consciously recall it, yet it constitutes a traumatic experience, in the Freudian and Lacanian sense, that defines my positionality and serves as a primary space in which I seek to develop who I am. However, regardless of how much I have developed my ability to communicate in English, it is not the language of my emotional affect. At the same time, profound expression in Romanian is not possible for …

A Nameless Blue, Francis (Elle) Lawson Mitchell

Senior Projects Spring 2021

A Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College, Written Arts. A science fiction novel about queerness, disability, the heart and the body. The novel considers where the biological and the mechanical meet, and where the body intersects with relationships of power, the state, production and religion.

Looking At Shadows: Four French Texts In English Translation, Kalena M. Hermes

World Languages and Cultures

This project present four French texts in English translation that share the theme of loss. This theme is perhaps one of the most poignant and relevant; loss is an experience that every human will encounter, and as people we continue across time to grapple with what it means for us and how to deal with it. These four texts will bring the perspectives of four authors to light in English. When we study how other countries and cultures deal with common human issues, we are able to gain new views on these issues. This project will make these texts accessible …

A Citrus Wildfire, Mark Anthony Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

An American Dream forged by greed. A family caught in the middle of a race war. A young boy trying to learn how to be a man. A Citrus Wildfire is a fiction novella that tells the story of a Mexican family struggling to survive in the Rio Grande Valley after their only source of income burns down, and the lengths they must go to in order to get the life they were promised.

A small preface from the author proceeds the work. This novella is inspired by many different authors and educators, as well as the Rio Grande Valley …

Dear Me, Hannah Patricia Farley

MSU Graduate Theses

This collection of fiction includes short stories and a partial novella. A critical introduction provides background on the author’s writing and a theoretical framework as it pertains to the fiction highlighted in this thesis. The works presented explore aspects of genre fiction including magical realism, absurdism, and the bildungsroman. The partial novella relies heavily on epistolary form, confessional style entries, and continuous stream of action. The main characters of the included works serve as focal points which address themes of family life, addiction, mental illness, minority languages, and voice.

Les Mots Justes And Other Things Impossible To Find, Katherine Tasseff

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Communication can be hard enough when you’re speaking in your native tongue, but throw in a second language and something’s sure to get lost in translation. In this creative nonfiction piece, I trace my real-life journey from tongue-tied homebody to bilingual voyageuse over the stepping stones of four chapters, with each chapter linked by the themes of language and communication. In the first half of the project, a unique job offer brings love, friendship, and plenty of misunderstanding into my humdrum life, and inspires me to pick up a language that broadens my personal and academic horizons. In the …

In His Wake: Applying Life's Truths In Fiction, Joseph M. Balderas

Theses and Dissertations

The culmination of the creative work and its introduction attempt to delve into the psyche of what it means to lose someone you love. The screenplay explores the grieving process and the coping mechanisms that accompanies it, with an examination on how far some people are willing to go for closure.

To reach my conclusions, I draw from my own life experience, the experiences of others, and a fine amount of research. It also means to shed light on the impermanent mental strain that chaperon’s grief.

Cenzontle/Mockingbird: Empowerment Through Mimicry, Daniel Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

My collection is a polythetic assortment of poetry, prose poetry, monologue and drama that serves as a polyglottic exhibition of empowerment through mimicry. Like a mockingbird, whom the Aztecs call “cenzontle” in their Nahuatl tongue, my writer’s voice is polyvoiced. I include in this collection an eclectic variety of voices: personas, languages, forms, styles, and identities—often mixing them, in part to entertain and in part to challenge my boundaries as a writer, to stretch my vocal chords, so to speak, but also in part to challenge the lingering prejudice against such mestizaje—or meeting and mixing of cultures (and also voices)—and …

Babel Underground, Joyce Y. Butler

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Joyce Y. Butler, earned her Bachelor of Arts from Southeastern Oklahoma State University in English. Her short stories and poems have been published in Green Eggs and Hams, the literary and arts journal of Southeastern Oklahoma State University. She also writes inspirational essays which have been published on the online journal, Purpled Nail. She is currently in the process of compiling a book of inspirational essays. She has been employed as a Legal Assistant for 44 years.

This work is available at Amazon.

Del Otro Lado… Y Más Allá Colección De Crónicas, Oscar Iván Zapata García

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Del otro lado... y más allá. Colección de crónicas está compuesta por 13 crónicas o textos de no-ficción que a su vez se agrupan en dos partes. La Primera Parte (Del otro lado. Crónicas Fronterizas) está compuesta por 7 crónicas donde se relata la experiencia fronteriza (Estados Unidos-México) en sus dimensiones políticas y sociales desde la perspectiva de un chilango. Para ello hago uso de las técnicas de la crónica, en su acepción de periodismo narrativo y literatura de no-ficción, y del humor y la ironía del altiplano mexicano. La pretensión es hacer agudas y relevantes observaciones geográficas y sociales …

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.

Motherland, Melanie Joy Mignucci

Senior Projects Spring 2016

A novella about Puerto Rico.

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Narrativizing Pain: Reconstructing Selfhood Through Memory And Language, Erin Joy Carden

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The three female authors I study for this paper- Alicia Kozameh, Alicia Partnoy, and Nora Strejilevich- are all survivors of the Argentinean military Junta’s state-inflicted terror and who have written, with great beauty, about the horrors they experienced as political prisoners during the Dirty War. Through the written word these survivors gain the power to reclaim their human dignity and a sense of distinctive selfhood which were severely damaged through trauma and torture. Through analyzing four works: Steps Under Water(1996) by Alicia Kozameh, The Little School(1986) and Revenge of the Apple(1999) by Alicia Partnoy, and A Single …

Constellations – A Space In Time That’S Filled With Moving, Deanne Leber

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Constellations in the sky have been a source of inspiration, in both science and literature, for aeons. Working within the constraints of the ‘official’ 88 constellations, as devised by the International Astronomical Union, this study involved researching the myths and histories of constellations, and then creating a collection of poems based upon those. Thematic connections between the eight modern constellation “families” or groups of constellations were explored and it is in these groupings that the poems work, to tie together, through experimentations with language, a somewhat cohesive fabric of poetry.

Each constellation consists of three poems. The first is a …

A New American Fiction: Personal Essays, Observances, And Interviews, Daniel M. Mendoza

Theses and Dissertations

This work consists of essays on the author’s personal development as a writer. It also contains reflections on the state of contemporary American and Mexican-American fiction. The author seeks to illustrate the relevance of certain writers affiliated with working-class fiction, a genre of contemporary American fiction that blends social, political, and aesthetic values into their novels and short stories.

Included in this work are also a number of conversations with writers of working-class fiction. In these conversations the author engages other writers in dialogue that further illuminates the author’s development of his creative identity as a cultural and literary writer.

Historias De Psicopatas Desidiosos Y Solitarios En La Frontera, Silvia H. Vera-Huesca

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a collection of short stories and poems. The first part focuses on short-fictional stories based on the problematic violence trending in the border between Mexico and the United States, triggering psychosis, sloppiness and loneliness to the characters. The second part of this project includes poetry in prose, based on my own psychotic, sloppiness and lonely experiences living in the border for the past few years.

What The Fuck Is This?: Aesthetic Nature Of Being Or Ontology In The Poetry Of Gerard Manley Hopkins, Alexis Stephenson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“What the Fuck is This?” examines the intersection of phenomenology and poetry arguing for an aesthetic nature of Being and focuses on how we know or experience the world instead of Cartesian absolutes. This subjective knowledge does not compete against objective knowledge but simply recognizes the use that poetic language has for communicating the subjective knowledge from experience of being as it unfolds for us. The major movements of the thesis focus on aesthetic objects, aesthetic intersubjectivity, and the aesthetic self. These are labeled “aesthetic” because a phenomenological methodology reveals a dialectic between that which is unfolding and that which …

The Sorcerer, William Carlisle Goehring

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A collection of poems from 2011-2015.

Learning To Speak: Poems, Celina A. Gomez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This project is a collection of poetry that weaves together past, present, and the hopes of a future that causes change. It is set in South Texas and discusses borders spanning from social class, language, and identity. The collection primarily focuses on the Chican@ voice and the shame that comes from the borderlands. I have drawn from the Rio Grande Valley as a source of inspiration while also using family experiences, my own reaction to shame, and the possibilities of an empowered voice.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Transylvania, Texas, Joshua Murray

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis is a collection of poems about my experience realizing that I was transgender, working through my feelings prior to this realization, the moment of realization, and the fallout that comes afterword. It begins by dealing with the feelings of depression and alienation that accompany unrecognized feelings of gender dysphoria, examining feelings of disconnect from the body, the mind, and everyday life. It builds to the slow realization of being a trans woman, a woman taught to be a man by society, and the joy and relief that comes with that epiphany. Finally it looks at what comes afterword, …

I Won't Die, Azael Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Sid is 22, and like the rest of the men in his family, he will die when he is 24. Sid will take his brother’s identity, money, and college degree to get ahead in life before death takes it away again. Sid will travel to the other side of the world in pursuit of adventure and meaning. In the final stages of his short life, Sid will try to make sense of his curse, and try to figure out what is left worth pursuing.

I,Metaboy, Mario Leal Jr.

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

I,metaboy is a stage play about a young homosexual couple, one a soldier and the other a writer, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s and the struggles they encounter in their relationship when the soldier marries a woman to pass in the military. The story follows in the tradition of other Queer literatures that explore the state of the trope of the homosexual male within his given historical period. This historically places the identity. I,metaboy is based on an amalgamation of imagery from a variety of media (theatre, literature, TV, film, social policy, historical texts, myths, …

Finding No One, Sarah Owen

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Finding No one is a Non-Fiction creative writing piece written around one young woman’s desire to overcome obstacles in order to prove she is the complete opposite of her enemies: strong, determined, and brave. The main character shares her story of surviving childhood abuse, how she used Anorexia to cope with the aftermath, and what it took to become someone with a desire to fight for a future. The writer has taken the readers directly into vivid scenes of abuse and the innermost thoughts of self-loathing, refusing to hide any secrets. Finding No One explicitly shares details of therapy and …

Living In The Outskirts, Thomas De La Cruz

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Living in the Outskirts is a bildungsroman collection of short stories of a young Chicano growing up in the Rio Grande Valley town of Elsa, Texas. In the critical introduction of this thesis, I discuss how my stories challenge traditional Chicano/a cultural ideals of masculinity, language, class and nationality. Included in my introduction are other Chicano/a writers who engaged with these Chicano/a cultural ideals, and who I find myself in conversation with through my work. Inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of the “New Mestiza Consciousness,” I show how the protagonist of my stories gradually changes throughout the collection and adopts …

Stolen Youth: A Co-Authored Memoir, Jeanilee A. Garza

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This literary work of creative nonfiction qualifies under the literary genre of memoir, as a co-authored memoir. While the work incorporates the practices of both memoir and testimonio, the classification as a co-authored memoir recognizes a collaboration between the writer and the individual interviewed for this piece. “Stolen Youth: A Co-Authored Memoir” presents nine chapters and an epilogue, and is part of a larger creative work. The piece narrates the life of, Cirano “Cid” Lagunas, III, a dear friend who offered me the opportunity to convey his personal experiences through memoir. His memoir begins at the age of 12, following …

The Language Of Trees, Lorraine A. Martinuik

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Language of Trees is a poetry collection based on a series of walks, and rooted in the experience of place on a small island off the west coast of Canada. Prose poems and a serial poem that gives the collection its title, reflect the poet's leanings towards experiment. The preface discusses poetics and the poet's technical approach to form.

Angel In Skirts, Mary Ruth Chen

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Angels In Skirts is a memoir composed of organic memories thematically linked through essays and chapters. I re-create the story of a young girl’s vivid and imaginative way of seeing life, the intensity of her emotions and what it feels like to desperately want to control men by handing over her body. Highlighted is a discussion of the struggle I had with labeling my work nonfiction. I also explore the effective use of parataxis in dialogue and the effect structure has on the narrative arc and characters in a work. I discuss my process when deciding on a form for …