Fiction Commons^™

Washington Irving And The Not-So-American Myth, Haydn Jeffers

English Class Publications

Washington Irving has often been revered as the father of American literature, and, more specifically, the father of the American myth. He was one of the first American writers to make a real living off his writing, and as such was considered to be America’s personal declarer of independence within the literary world. Having been viewed as so undoubtedly American in his writings, one might find interest in the fact that Irving drew very heavily on European sources in his inexplicable creation of this nation’s fiction, as it appears “he was not all that at ‘home’ with American life” (“Background: …

Desert Palms, Carolyn D. Pledge-Amaral

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

DESERT PALMS is a contemporary women’s novel set in an Arizona RV park. When Miamians Margie Campos and her husband, Carlos, unexpectantly inherit Desert Palms, a rundown retirement community, Margie reluctantly agrees to stay in Arizona to overhaul the park. With the discovery of a secret letter that threatens to unravel the family, an unscrupulous broker determined to buy the park on the cheap, and a husband bent on hitting it big, Margie digs in and starts to find purpose amidst a desert microcosm.

Told from Margie’s perspective in a closely attached third person, DESERT PALMS is a realistic and …

The Ones Who Walk Away From The Ocean, Katia D. Rubinstein

Student Publications

When a mermaid mysteriously appears on the shore of a Northern island, the town's children become enthralled with the newfound mythic creature, while the adults become wary and untrusting.

Ouachita To Host Andy Davidson In Fiction Reading Sept. 29, Brooke Zimny, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Language and Literature will host author Andy Davidson in a reading of his debut novel, In the Valley of the Sun, on Thursday, Sept. 29. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in Hickingbotham Hall’s Young Auditorium on Ouachita’s campus.

Olive In An Oak Grove: A Novel, Haley Quinton

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Olive Delaney has not seen her dysfunctional family in seven years, but now she has to return to her childhood home in Louisiana because her father is dying. She is reunited with her simultaneously strict-but-absent parents, her twin brother, Hugo, with whom she was once close but has now grown apart, and her childhood best friend and possible lost love, Owen. Olive must learn how to be part of her family again while also dealing with the problems and family secrets of the past. The novella shuttles back and forth in time--every other chapter contains an event from Olive’s childhood …

The Preservation Of Identity: A Narrative Examination Of National Parks In Kentucky, Abigail Ponder

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

National parks are symbols of national identity. They tell the history of places—personal legacies and natural phenomena. My Capstone Experience/Thesis (CE/T) project for the Honors College at WKU features two stories that fuse fiction and non-fiction conventions to share the experiences of national parks in Kentucky. Currently, the National Park Service is celebrating its centennial anniversary at parks across the nation. First established in 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson, the national parks have become symbols of the quintessential American experience: serving as memorials to nature, to history, and to culture. As such, these stories that take place at Mammoth Cave …

Text And Paratext: Analyzing Edith Wharton's Hudson River Bracketed In Its Periodical Context, Paige Szmodis

English Summer Fellows

Studying a novel in the context of its paratexts — including the illustrations, advertisements, and captions surrounding the fiction — reveals how the publication context can shape a literary work. This project examines Edith Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed (1929) and its paratexts by comparing the final version of the novel with textual changes made in its monthly periodical publication in the magazine The Delineator (1928-1930). As mass-consumerism and advertising increasingly targeted women during the 1920s, examining Wharton’s work in a popular middle-class women’s magazine like The Delineator illuminates how paratexts affect audience perceptions of the novel’s characters, conflicts, and themes. …

Jam On The Vine By Lashonda Barnett, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Book review of Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Barnett from the perspective of a lesbian and lesbian of color audience of readers.

People Are Oceans: A Novel, Brianna Cataldo

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Fairy Tales Rewritten: Reclaiming Womanhood For Women, Caitlin Rose Bradley

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

John Mcgahern And The Imagination Of Tradition By Stanley Van Der Ziel Review, Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Consequences Of Failing: A Memoir, Olivia M. Zajac

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Failing is part of our human nature. I have never met a person who has never failed at something. Sometimes when I look back at my failures I feel like crying, and other times I laugh at the mistakes that I have made. But no matter the type of failure I have suffered, I have learned one thing. Failures, along with successes, have shaped me into the person I am today. When I fail, I often fall. But each fall is a chance for me to get back up. I don’t plan to stop failing any time soon.

Just like …

An Alternate Route, Rachael D. Tague

Creative Writing Minor Portfolios

An Alternate Route is a collection of short fiction and creative nonfiction from my undergraduate creative writing minor at Cedarville University. It explores stories I have heard, experienced, and imagined—stories worth remembering. “My Boyfriend’s Estranged Grandfather” was published in Cleaver Magazine, and “Rick’s Café: Negril, Jamaica” appeared in The MacGuffin.

In Order To Live, Madison E. Grapes

Creative Writing Minor Portfolios

This portfolio, In Order to Live, includes some of the poetry and creative nonfiction pieces I wrote as a Creative Writing Minor at Cedarville University. “Printmaking” was published in the June 2015 edition of Spry, and “Deep Creek Lake” will be published in the summer anthology of Snapping Twig. The collection aims to redeem memory and salvage the sermon from previous experiences. I wrote about fingerprints, worms, grand pianos, the trinity, heartbreak, cancer and so much more to understand why any of it matters, in order to live.

A Work In Progress, David Gruber

Creative Writing Minor Portfolios

This is a collection of poetry and nonfiction pieces that I have written while I attended Cedarville University for four years. Each piece of writing originated from my musings and experiences during my college career. I write humor pieces not only to poke fun at things, but also to help understand the world around me and the experiences I have. In no way, do I ever want to think that I have made it as a writer, but that I am always in progress of becoming a better writer and working on my craft. The nonfiction short “Heart” has been …

A Former Liar Armed With Truth And Aiming For Greatness, Jonathan Gallardo

Creative Writing Minor Portfolios

This portfolio is a collection of my favorite works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that I wrote during my final four semesters at Cedarville University. “Cicadas at Lorelei” has been accepted for publication in The Merrimack Review, and “I Don’t Share My Grandfather’s Love for Mathematics” has been accepted for publication in *82 Review. This collection deals with my discovering the truth about Jonathan Gallardo and using that truth to create art. I present to you A Former Liar Armed with Truth and Aiming for Greatness.

Reaper In The Rain: An Animated E-Book, Kurt Stilwell

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Reaper in the Rain is a short story approaching Novella length in the young adult fantasy genre. The story follows two protagonists, Rebecca Reed, a freshman college student, and Eric Manning, a teenage boy who harnesses the powers of the Grim Reaper to destroy the Temuti mafia and avenge his mother’s death. This thesis explores the melding of genre; the fantasy of the Grim Reaper, the realistic grounding of Chicago, and the visual novel with the addition of animations.

"In The Land Of Tomorrow": Representations Of The New Woman In The Pre-Suffrage Era, Natalie B. O'Neal

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This digital anthology explores feminism in selected short fiction by women writers from the 1911 run of the popular women’s magazines Woman’s Home Companion, Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Farmer’s Wife. This fiction furthered the women’s rights movement by allowing women to imagine a world similar to their own with a heroine who voiced their desires and enacted change. Rather than the more experimental, inaccessible literature of avant garde high modernist writers consumed by the upper class, popular fiction reached a wider, middle class audience and was more effective at producing a progressive zeitgeist following the stilted Victorian …

2nd Place: "Tattered Fiction", Murphy Studebaker

John and Margaret Class Student Book Collection Contest

This is Murphy Studebaker's submission essay, annotated bibliography, and annotated wishlist for the 206 John and Margaret Class Student Book Collection Contest, which won second place.

Murphy is a freshman at Chapman University, majoring in Film Production.

New Tricks (2016), John Nelson, Paige Lampe, Tanner Bowman, Brittany Vlaminck, Jennelle Pueppke

New Tricks

25 years ago, a group of students began the Literary Stunt Dogs, a club for students who wanted to establish a way to share poems, short stories, art pieces, and photography made by the individuals in the community of Dakota State University. Then, in spring of 1992, the first issue of New Tricks was published.

Today, the 2016 Literary Stunt Dogs are proud to bring you yet another engaging and entertaining issue filled with works created by students, faculty, staff, and other DSU members. In addition to the print copy, we are now offering our works online as well.

Please …

Karma, Jhanvi C. Ramaiya

Student Publications

A short story about a woman, Indira, who undergoes a formative transformation in her understanding of Karma as she flees her mother's home, and finds her own with her three daughters.

Spring 2016

The Alembic

Spring 2016. Full issue, 133 pages in total including front matter & table of contents.

Table of Contents:

• Levy, Jeffrey, A Story to Tell, 1
• Durbin, Branan, Namesake, 2
• Durbin, Branan, Hannah, 4
• Durbin, Branan, Zoraida, 5
• Price, Devyn, The Surly Bonds of Earth, 7
• Perchik, Simon, *, 17
• Moglia, Greg, Three Steps, 18
• Moglia, Greg, Try to Get Away, 19
• Moglia, Greg, Commander, 20
• Wright, Ben, 1000 Tea & Topology, 21
• Wright, Ben, Herstein & More Caffeine, 22
• Wright, Ben, Irrational Pi, 23
• Wright, Ben, Bullet from …

The Disappearance Of The Hms Umbra, Francesca M. Costa

Student Publications

A sailor aboard the HMS Umbra has a strange run-in with an ominous fog that won't lift. As the days drag by, the weather is the least of his problems.

She Spoke For Those Without A Voice, John M. Rudy

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Statistically, about 50% of Adams County’s history has been women’s history since the dawn of time. But it can sometimes be painfully difficult to find out about the women of our county and their experiences. And as with most history, it is the troublemakers who stand out in the records. Luckily one of Adams County’s greatest troublemakers, Elsie Singmaster Lewars, is easy to find in the files of the Adams County Historical Society. Mrs. Lewars had the courage to speak for those without a voice. [excerpt]

Fragile Saints, Mary-Claire Ibarra

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

FRAGILE SAINTS is a magical realist novel set in contemporary Peru. Elsa is struggling with her recent divorce and childhood memories of her family’s silk-producing farm haunt her, so when Elsa’s dying grandmother requests to see her, she visits Peru. There, Elsa learns she has inherited a country house, near the old family hacienda, which is haunted by a dark secret. Elsa is intrigued with the house, its caretakers, and her new lover Gustavo, yet she encounters disturbing ghostly visitors.

The novel is written primarily from Elsa’s point of view, as she discovers her purpose, but an omniscient narrator is …

A Single Regret, Jason Ehlen

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A SINGLE REGRET is a murder mystery set on the post Hurricane Sandy Jersey shore.

At thirteen, Jimmy Miller killed his father in retribution for murdering his mother. Twenty years later, he returns home because of the murder of his childhood best friend, Dillon Abernathy. Jimmy learns that Gavin, a classmate turned junkie, is charged with murdering Dillon, a scenario Jimmy doesn’t find plausible, so he decides to pursue leads the police won’t.

Told in first person past tense, A SINGLE REGRET follows Jimmy as he unearths the secrets behind his friend’s death and also learns the truth behind the …

Husband Hunting In Africa, Marleen S. Barr

Publications and Research

This is a short story.

"A Bastard Jargon”: Language Politics And Identity In The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Rachel Norman

Faculty Publications

This essay explores Junot Díaz's only full-length novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, through the theoretical lens of sociolinguistics and examines the ways in which Díaz has attempted to overcome the publishing industry's complicity in maintaining the nation's ethnocentric expectations in regards to English as the only acceptable language of publication. By introducing the work of several sociolinguists into the discussion, examining the use of African American Vernacular and “nerdish” alongside the Spanish, and reviewing Díaz’s relationship with his editors, I provide a more nuanced reading of the ubiquitous code-switching throughout Oscar Wao and suggest that beyond …

Symptoms Of The Virus, Emily Haase

UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity

SYMPTOMS OF THE VIRUS BY DR. HENRY ESQUIRE III MD CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 1. Severe hunger, often voicing their distress. 2. Chronic moodiness, confusion, sullenness. 3. Irritability, otherwise emotionally unstable. Paranoia. 4. Homicidal tendencies – full takeover of the disease. Handle with caution.

“Making a list of symptoms of the zombification virus. Like, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 … except I don’t know what to say about how it’s spread, which is probably what’s most important. Through the air, d’you think?”

Bender, Jess Lockhart

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A combat officer struggles with his memory of a soldier in Vietnam he feels he let down.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.