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Wild & Wonderful: A Collection Of Stories, Thomas Bennitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is a collection of literary short stories, many of which spring from my life experiences: people I've known, places I lived, jobs I worked, or subjects I have researched. Some stories are more "realistic," where landscape and geography—often West Virginia, or my native Pennsylvania—is an essential part of the narrative. Other stories are more experimental, blending realism with other styles like satire, metafiction, and historical fiction. Yet the narrators in these stories share a comtrait: they are somehow isolated, alienated, or marginalized. Some are physically confined—a lobsterman who works alone on his boat, coal miners working underground, office …