Fiction Commons^™

The Gender Epidemic: Intersecting Disease, Gender, And Sexuality In A Graphic Novel, Autumn Cejer

All NMU Master's Theses

For my thesis, I wrote a graphic novel set in a world where certain people possess powers that society tries to suppress by viewing them as a disease. The story focuses on two super-powered individuals on opposite sides of the law who handle this oppression very differently. Although these characters would easily be able to overpower the non-powered people in charge, they are too afraid to do so. Internalized guilt from possessing abilities they did not ask for adds an additional layer of conflict, just as women and disabled persons are constantly made to feel like they should apologize for …

My Appointment At Specialty Care Psychiatrics, Darian P. Sabisch

Conspectus Borealis

All your dreams coming true isn't always what's cracked up to be.

Zamzaroo, Zarang, And The Rabbit Men, Adan Mulvaney

Conspectus Borealis

This short fiction story is the tale of a grandfather, his rabbit, and his adopted granddaughter. This story was originally inspired when I heard the story of a suicidal rabbit. The rabbit never ran away from loud or scary noises. By ignoring his innate survival instincts, he was essentially inviting death. I found it intriguing how stagnancy can be a form of death. Though the story itself is fiction, some of the events that happened to the characters actually happened to people surrounding me. It is my hope that after reading this story, the reader can appreciate how peculiar and …

Honeypot, Brenna Womer

All NMU Master's Theses

honeypot is a collection of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid work that closely examines some of the more intimate aspects of the human—and specifically the female—experience, such as motherhood, childlessness, oppression, repression, societal expectation, memory, rememory, and mental illness. This full-length collection includes more traditionally structured personal essays and memoir alongside non-linear narrative, vignette, flash, borrowed form, and magical realism.

Things We Have In Common: Essays And Experiments, Willow Grosz

All NMU Master's Theses

Things We Have in Common is a collection of short stories, flash pieces, and image-text experiments that attempts, in the wake of the death of my mother, to excavate the relationship between memory and narrative, identity and belonging against a backdrop of the main forces that have influenced my familial group, namely generational poverty, a changing relationship with our Athabascan and Caucasian heritages, and the complicated ecology, geography, and culture of Alaska. Like many forays into memory, this project represents a joyous failure. Please read this collection as a love letter to Alaska.

Lonely This Side Of Nowhere, Anne Okonowski

All NMU Master's Theses

In this creative work, the writer explores familial relationships as well as what is home. Combining nonfiction essays, fiction, poetry, and images in one narrative, this work is comprised of multiple stories to create a related narrative. This project is a celebration of storytelling through multiple genres, and draws from multiple sources of inspiration, including both creative and critical works.

The Wrong Side Of Yesterday, Jacob Hall

All NMU Master's Theses

These chapters start off a novel that follows Simon Jones, a man brought back to the city of Decatur, Illinois by the death of his sister. Simon is left taking care of Jeffrey, a ten-year-old boy with an arm that loses skin constantly and glows a dull white. While Simon and Jeffrey navigate their grief and uncertain futures, the city is rocked by a series of murders that target “divergents,” people with physical abnormalities like Jeffrey’s arm. The Wrong Side of Yesterday is a novel that uses elements of magical realism and mystery to explore issues of grief, disability, poverty, …

Hollowend, Hayley M. Fitz

All NMU Master's Theses

Hollowend is a novel set in the small town of, surprise, Hollowend. This is a place where the supernatural is ordinary. The story is told by two narrators: Hettie, a crime scene cleaner whose eye has gone missing; and Harlan, a "private investigator" who isn't actually a private investigator. He's a serial killer—the Widowmaker, according to the local press. He's been terrorizing Hollowend for the past three years, only getting away with it because of his influence magic, which allows him to convince anyone of anything. It even allows him to scrub Hettie's memory after his many failed attempts to …

Walking In Waves, Sarah David

All NMU Master's Theses

The following thesis consists of a story collection, the majority of which are flash fiction pieces. The thesis consists of two sections. The first section, “Walking in Waves,” is composed of stories about familial relationships and the balancing act of motherhood. Some of these stories play with unique formats or degrees of speculative fiction. Many are rather lyrical in nature. The second section is a novella-in-flash; entitled “Tiny’s Jazz Magic,” this series of stories tells the tale of a woman and her young daughter in 1920’s Storyville, New Orleans.

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, …

Paranormal Orgy, Cameron M. Contois

All NMU Master's Theses

Paranormal Orgy is a novel length work that explores a world full of the paranormal— demons and vampires and aliens— and how some very real, very flawed characters get by in the face of these monsters. Many different points of view are utilized in this work, beginning with the point of view of a 15-year-old girl who may or may not be possessed. Haunted by the prospect of growing up, this girl attempts to live and love in the world of the strange. Other point of views explored include that of an addict, an estranged daughter, a strict grandmother, and …

Check The Box Marked Other: Exploring Gender In Family Life, Serenity E. Dougherty

All NMU Master's Theses

The concept of a traditional family structure has been fading over the last 50 years and with this decline the notion of responsibilities being determined by gender is also losing ground, though it still has a long way to go. This short story collection works to continue to normalize the increasing variety of family structures, especially variety that has its roots in new notions of gender challenging old conventions. The stories are all set in Nebraska, an ideal landscape for exploring tradition versus modernity. Though there are major cities in NE, most of the state is composed of smaller rural …

Remain, Johanna M. Hardy

All NMU Master's Theses

After completing her own grief counseling group, Gennie Maxwell becomes the leader of a grief group for young adults. Six people are left to her charge in the face of the loss of a loved one. Gennie, still grappling with her own grief, leads the way through each week’s group session, and the people within the group begin to find support and growth in their time within the group. As each member finds a place amongst the others, they unfold a stories of their individual struggles with being left behind when someone they love dies. As the weeks progress, grief …

A Marriage Sewn Together, Marie E. Curran

All NMU Master's Theses

A Marriage Sewn Together is a creative writing thesis in three parts. Forming the thesis is a collection of very short essays, A Startling Passage, a short story, “Perigee,” and a novella, This Is Not Our Revolution. The latter pieces are fictional and take place in rural settings. All three pieces include explorations of questions concerning birth, beginnings, “original sin,” land, and the tension of balancing personal relationships with political or community ideals. The works are rooted in realism, and sometimes tend toward the lyric. As indicated in the introduction, the three works in A Marriage Sewn Together …

Yardbirds, Joshua A. Brewer

All NMU Master's Theses

Novel-length fictions, when at their best, deeply complicate themes, characters, events or situations using the form’s lengthy narrative arc. Yardbirds aims to employ the long narrative arc to engage a fictional west Arkansas mountain community, Ink, and the contemporary post-mill economy evoked. Yardbirds attempts to disorient the traditional notion of point-of-view to recognize the multifaceted power of the land. This work features a multi-racial, bilingual and multicultural community which confronts the longstanding black-white binary that has dominated literary depictions of the American South. This work aims to disrupt that notion—the South as monolith—by presenting bioregional communities as central to individuals’ …

With The Light Caught Between, Albert M. Jacoby

All NMU Master's Theses

Although Henry and Claire Lumens are twins, their high school lives couldn’t be more opposite. Henry enjoys sketching, looking at handsome boys, and reading about fantastical places, but his shy and pensive nature means he battles demons of his own every day in the gym locker room. Claire, however, loves the world she lives in, which is easy because she’s bossy, clever, and stunning. On their seventeenth birthday, their grandmother gives them a gift that will take them to a fantastical world. Despite their ignorance of the world’s existence, their grandmother insists it’s their birthplace, and the only way they …

16-Bit Ghouls: A Novella, Alyssa M. Bersine

All NMU Master's Theses

This novella follows twenty-something phone psychic and recluse, Jane, whose dead brother haunts her Super Nintendo. When he prompts Jane to find his killer, she must learn how to navigate a world where he is absent. Jane struggles not only with the ghost, but also with letting go of the nostalgia and anxiety that prevent her from moving on with her life. 16-Bit Ghouls is a story about grief and growing-up.

Past The Edge Of The Forest, Emily M. Suess

All NMU Master's Theses

This fictional work traces the superstitions around No Name Forest as members of the town just beyond the forest begin to disappear. While set in present day, the piece draws on the way fairy tales use the inexplicable and strange to engage readers in questioning the human experience. The story details the disappearances of several people from the town of Little Haven. While each of these disappearances are presented in individual tales, they are linked together through the voice of a girl who has been tracking the disappearances. In search of the father who abandoned her, Gwynn Halpert is interested …

Behind The Silent Mask, Elizabeth Fust

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Somewhere Amongst The Ashes, Keith Rebec

All NMU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

SOMEWHERE AMONGST THE ASHES

By

Keith Rebec

This story collection explores how human beings deal with loss. Whether the loss stems from death, the loss of personal innocence, or the loss of love, the characters within are forced to make decisions that he or she wouldn't make if given the choice. Some of the characters, in an effort to prevent the same or a similar type of loss from reoccurring in their lives, desperately seek ways to avoid the issues altogether, which further complicates their troubles. Others, unbeknownst to their impending loss, must make split second decisions that will …

To Soar Above The Apple Grove: Stories, Emily V. Doseck

All NMU Master's Theses

The stories written for this thesis revolve around the idea of lesbian characters finding, and in some cases losing, love in the young adult genre. Each piece differs in time period and setting, but all take the typical ‘tragic’ stereotype of queer fiction and prove that everyone deserves a chance at love. All three pieces also contain elements of magic, ranging from the black magic associated with the witches of Salem to the whimsical magic of fairy tales. First love is a time of discovery and new joy for so many, and queer literature could use more of these positive …

Seasonal Roads, Lynn K. Fay

All NMU Master's Theses

Lynn Kimball Fay has been publishing for twenty-five years under the pen-name L. E. Kimball.
As a writer, I’m interested in the way Truth seems to me—intuitively—nonlinea. I’m interested in story cycles that examine Truth from different points of view, usually nonlinearly; and I’m interested in the way setting reveals Truth and how it reveals character. I’m interested in Faith—a kind that is not irreconcilable with science, the kind it takes to put that foot in front of the other.
The kind we have in one another.
I have always, therefore, been fascinated with layers of Time, the nonlinear and …