English Language and Literature Commons^™

The New Writing Series, Spring 2016, The University Of Maine Honors College

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

In its thirty-fourth consecutive semester of programming, the New Writing Series will host six readings featuring four poets (John Keene, Prageeta Sharma, Divya Victor, and John Yau) and two fiction writers (Emily Fridlund and Joanna Walsh).

These writers are all highly active across the full spectrum of literary activity. They are editors, publishers, and anthologists; translators and tale-tellers; art-makers and trail-blazing scholars.

The New Writing Series brings innovative and adventurous contemporary writing to the University of Maine's flagship campus in Orono on selected Thursdays at 4:30pm.

Notes On Narrative, Bryan Furuness

Bryan M. Furuness

"What happened is an anecdote. What someone felt about what happened is a story."

Winesburg, Indiana: Fork River Anthology, Michael Martone, Bryan Furuness

Bryan M. Furuness

In the mythical town of Winesburg, Indiana, there lives a cleaning lady who can conjure up the ghost of Billy Sunday, a lascivious holy man with an unusual fetish and a burgeoning flock, a park custodian who collects the scat left by aliens, and a night janitor learning to live with life’s mysteries, including the zombies in the cafeteria. Winesburg, Indiana, is a town full of stories of plans made and destroyed, of births and unexpected deaths, of remembered pasts and unexplored presents told to the reader by as interesting a cast of characters as one is likely to find …

Second Coming, Bryan Furuness

Bryan M. Furuness

Brian Furuness' contribution to the Fall 2014 volume of Fourteen Hills.

The Lost Episodes Of Revie Bryson, Bryan Furuness

Bryan M. Furuness

Revie Bryson, a precocious and dreamy kid from Paris, Indiana, has decided he's the second coming of Christ. His mother, an inventive storyteller, likes to tell him made-up Bible stories which she claims are "lost episodes" from the King James version. When Revie's mother suffers a crisis of identity and leaves home to pursue her dreams of stardom in Hollywood, Revie must learn to sacrifice and forgive in order to be born again.

Jameson's Story: A Tale Of The Human Condition Through Fiction, Steven Kubitza

Honors Projects

A work of fiction focusing on two characters living in the same world, but under much different circumstances. One must try and find out who he is while the other is attempting to uphold his way of life in a society threatening to take it away. The story delves into the ideas of a somewhat dystopian world; one in which our society could ultimately mirror in the near future. The work is unfinished, which is explained in the reflection paper at the beginning of the document.

Blood At The Root, April Schofield

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This is a coming of age story about two very different boys – Jason, a Northerner who ends up stuck in a small Southern town and Billy, a Southern boy with an abusive father. The boys become friends and grow up learning the dark secrets that are allowed to fester in a tiny southern town ruled by the Good Ol’ Boy System of justice. The story chronicles how their shared experiences change them in ways they never imagined and ultimately destroys their friendship and their lives. Through a history of violence and prejudice, Billy and Jason learn who they really …

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 …

Class Mate, John Kristofco

Bryant Literary Review

"Hey, has anybody seen my Hawthorne?" Terrence Terrill poked his head into the small living room.

Lavender Bride, Robert Kostuck

Bryant Literary Review

Svetlana and Valery at the late edge of a summer weekend, aligned vacations, rented bicycles, wool sweaters, damp air spilled inland from the half-empty beaches.

Ginger, Charles Butterfield

Bryant Literary Review

After Sam's truck clears the hill, all Lucius hears is the cooing of wild pigeons in the cavernous haymow.

Gerstler's Triumphant Return (1972), Julie Zuckerman

Bryant Literary Review

Sitting among the malodorous teenagers--boys ripe with day-old sweat, girls thick on jasmine scents--Jeremiah Gerstler tried to check his mounting vexation.

Gift-Wrapped, Daniel M. Jaffe

Bryant Literary Review

Will there come a point during your El Al flight home from Israel when you can politely question the elderly man in the middle seat beside you as to why, during taxi yet before take-off, he ensconced himself toe-to-head within a 30-gallon, heavy-duty, clear plastic trash bag?

The Strap, Ruth Latta

Bryant Literary Review

"Carmen? Carmen Lawrence? Where are you, girl?"

I peeked through the planks of the porch stairs

Phantom, Adam Matson

Bryant Literary Review

The pinky finger betrayed her. It sent a signal to Martin, who reached out from beneath the frilly cuff of his costume and grasped it.

No Absolutes: A Fantasy Collection, Tiffany M. Hughes

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Genre fiction, particularly fantasy and science fiction writing, has a mixed reception in academia across the world. The notion that make-believe characters and worlds could not be intellectually fulfilling is an old stereotype that reduces some of the most profound fiction of our era down to children’s tales. This fantasy collection serves as an example of how genre fiction can contain impactful stories that challenge our understanding of traditional values. As the title suggests, life, from relationships to self-identity, offers no absolutes for the future. Humanity faces uncertainty of the past, present, and future every day. These stories reflect the …

Mother's Bed: Gender Representation In Children's Literature, Karin Hanni

Senior Theses

This children's book and accompanying research paper both address gender inequity in children's literature. There is a significant imbalance of gender representation in children's literature, with the number of central male characters almost doubling that of central female characters. Additionally, the roles of males and females still tend to be stereotypical: boys are action-oriented and heroic, while girls are nurturing and passive. Further, it is believed that boys will only enjoy books about boys, while girls will enjoy books about both boys and girls. This imbalance in children's literature hurts both genders. Children not only learn to read from books, …

Satori 2015, Winona State University

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.