Creative Writing Commons^™

Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Darker, Jennifer Sarra

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

This creative thesis consists of the first seven chapters of the novel, Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Darker. Set in two time periods, 2017 and 1849, the plot centers around a newly renovated castle hotel in County Cork, Ireland. Newlyweds, Alicia and Greg Silvan discover a bottle of absinthe that is Spanish in origin. Alicia is haunted by the ghost of former owner, Keira O’Shea, as well as the disappearance of her father in hurricane Katrina. Alicia finds Keira’s handwritten journal and begins to read about Keira’s life and love and loss at the end of the Great Irish …

Overheard In Leftover Lane, Molly Steckler

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

No abstract provided.

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, …

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.

Buckyboy, Marissa Canarelli

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

She Was The Wall, Elana Marcus

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

We Went To The Ocean To Forget, Hannah Mcsorley

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

The Presentation Of Postmodern Sexuality In Short Fiction, Allie J. Kapus

Senior Honors Theses

Shifting norms in twentieth century western society, coupled with emerging postmodern thought in the 1960s, radically changed the ways in which people viewed sexuality, gender roles, and the institutions of marriage and the family. The literature of the postmodern era, namely short fiction, also reflects such ideological shifts. Literature is a powerful communicator of the human condition as well as a crucial means for reflecting the customs, beliefs, and norms of a society at the time of its writing. Such evolving differences as were occurring in the realm of sexuality came to be represented in postmodern literature. This thesis aims …

What We Say: Exploring Well-Versed Messaging In The Tradition Of Black Americana, Brenda Bell Brown

Creative Writing Programs

What We Say: Exploring Well-Versed Messaging in the Music, Literary and Cloth Traditions of Black Americana—serves as an exhibition of coded cypher without disclosing the inherent secret to deciphering the code. It is the script for the enigma, sans the full disclosure of meaning. It is the novel, without the cliff notes; the song without the mind-blowing lilt; the telling of the secret, without the whisper. I am giving you the truth, out loud, to provide relief through kinship connection to long-time sufferers who wandered for a long time wondering “what is wrong with me?” and seldom got an …

Translation Of View From The Ossuary By Antoine Volodine, John Thomas Mahany

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a literary translation from the French of Antoine Volodine’s Vue sur l’ossuaire. Additional creative embellishments have been included in the form of translator’s notes and epigraphs in order to enhance the fictive reality of the work.

A Streetcar Named Kanye West, Frisco Edwards

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This abstract is brought to you by Pogodyne Incorporated, whom you may remember from other narrative disasters such as: Finding Pynchon and that one about Marcella Hamilton with that guy. In this one, Kanye West and his partner Dog the Bounty Hunter find themselves involved in another zany mystery, filled with slapsticks and low-wits. In this powerhouse action adventure, buddy-cop-bonanza, there is no respite from hilarity and political intrigue. With cameos aplenty, a trolley chase, and one very live-wire prop comedian, this thing has got it all, friends. You didn’t ask for it is, but here it is, in all …

Insect Light: Stories, Sacha Michael Idell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A collection of short stories. Literary fiction.

Episode 12: All Things In Murderation, Tanner Elrod

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 11: Blunt Force Drama, Michael Painter

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Ashbelt: Volume Five, Ash Belt

AshBelt

No abstract provided.

Episode 10: He's Come Undone, Kristen Daly

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Waxing, Waning, Waking: A Collection Of Poetry And Prose, Brook Vanbruggen

Honors Theses

Waxing, Waning, Waking: A collection of poetry and prose is a digital magazine featuring a body of creative writing pieces that were written during my undergraduate career. The written word is powerful and adaptable and can accomplish any number of difficult tasks. The pieces included here were chosen from a number of genres, including poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, to reflect and explore some of the countless ways that we use words. The title of the collection reflects the elements of space, light, and darkness that appear as motifs throughout the larger body of work, which discusses:

• Family
• Nature …

Episode 09: Killer Heels, Rachel Collinsworth

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

Episode 08: Ghost In The Rearview Mirror, Kate Devantier

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Perennial: An Undergraduate Thesis In Poetry, Austin Wines

Honors Theses

A chapbook of poetry that explores sexuality, gender identity, mental illness, naming, and the experience of the contemporary non-binary, male bodied, Queer. "Perennial" functions as a force of resistance to hegemony, celebration, mourning, and eroticism. Through the cultivation and implementation of a personal and/or familial folklore, the poems culminate a century of inter-generational knowledge as the author draws upon the symbols of their childhood to explicate the violence and tenderness of their own Queer experience. These poems serve as a poetical feminist history and reclamation of the author's matrilineage, and the simultaneously paramount and arbitrary nature of language as it …

Episode 07: Flirting Under The Influence, Binglin Wu

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 06: Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Ginned, Austin Williamson

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Episode 05: Who's To Blame, Laylah Funk

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Second Safest City In America, Liam Cassidy

Theses

Second Safest City in America is a collection of short fiction set in Midwestern cities and suburbs, as well as the Gulf Coast. These stories explore the untethered expectations, broken promises, and absurdity of American life. The characters are violent, funny, emotionally unstable, politically wrong-minded, and compassionate. They implore empathy or actively avoid the pain of others. They search out security or take matters into their own hands. They sacrifice and they seek revenge. They are not outliers in this country. They are part of the mainstream weirdness that permeates everything.

Episode 04: Fresh Blood, Elizabeth Kyle

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.

Crafting Fear: The Horror Film Trailer, Courtney Dreyer

Honors Theses

My research project investigates horror film trailers in an effort to define the characteristics of this genre and discuss its ideological implications. Focusing on theatrical trailers for American wide-release horror films between 2013 and 2017, I closely viewed a sample of forty trailers to inform my investigation. Horror trailers create an intense emotional experience of both dread and fear, tending to follow a similar narrative structure and employ a common set of stylistic techniques to achieve this emotional intensity. The shared stylistic techniques include elements such as tight framing, innocent imagery, and genre misdirection. The repetition of these elements promotes …

17th Edition Of The Laureate, Jessie Fales

Honors Theses

The Laureate is an undergraduate literary journal sponsored by the Lee Honors College at Western Michigan University. As Editor in Chief of the 17^th Edition, I coordinated the journal’s publication over the course of an academic year. The editorial process follows methodical stages, which have become standard over The Laureate’s lifetime—recruiting submissions, selecting submissions, coordinating with the design center, and hosting a launch party, etc... Of course, every editor has a unique experience, but we must honor the journal’s entity as something larger than ourselves—this journal has existed long before my time, and I hope it keeps on …

Mental Illness As Portrayed Through Art, Brianna Brown

Honors Theses

I was thinking of what to do for my thesis while taking classes with Vin about Anthropological Research and I realized how flawed it all was. Anthropology was born from colonialism where scholars from the United States would go to some far-off places to study the people there in hopes that they have found an interesting enough culture to get common people like you and me to want to read a book they later publish. The only way it would sell though is if this story, emphasis on story, read like a book of fiction, so far from what we …

Episode 03: Livin' La Vida Loko, Nancy Pertierra

Season 3: Standards of Behavior

No abstract provided.