Creative Writing Commons^™

Everyday Monsters: Stories, Brian Druckenmiller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These seven short stories explore characters either at war with themselves or living in a delusion, unaware that their skewed sense of self projects a subjective version of the universe. When one operates in a world that doesn't quite exist, their real world is destined to crumble, and, for many of these characters, the challenge is understanding the mirage's existence before it's too late. By slightly bending the parameters of reality as well as inviting these characters and conflicts into absurdity, Everyday Monsters offers wholly unique commentary on familiar struggles, including marriage, occupation, grief, destiny, and societal expectations.

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Forsaken Trust, Meredith Doench

English Faculty Publications

Book 2 in the Luce Hansen Thriller series. Third book forthcoming.

Description from the publisher:

Wallace Lake, Ohio, takes care of their own. Unwelcoming of outsiders, the community closes ranks when four women are found murdered along the water’s edge. Agent Luce Hansen of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation must find a way in before another woman loses her life to the ruthless serial killer.

With the help of her new team—a hot rookie and a smart, beautiful medical examiner—Luce uncovers a ring of devotion surrounding the prime suspect. As Luce works to unearth the dark secrets of this …

Metaphysics Of Mania: Edgar Allan Poe's And Herman Melville's Rebranding Of Madness During The American Asylum Movement, Alexis Renfro

All Master's Theses

The “madman’s” place throughout history has tended to be a mystery on both ontological and epistemological levels. From the perception of the madman as a crazed oracle in the sixteenth century to the perception of the madman as a criminal in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the nineteenth-century madman was even more difficult to define. Because insanity was deemed the inverse of bourgeois normativity and conservative moral standards, those categorized as mad in America during mid-1800s were institutionalized in reformed mental asylums, establishments which sought to homogenize human behavior through moral treatment. Both Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville drew …

Alexandre Goes South: A Novel – And – An Essay, ‘The Modern Adventure Novel’, Samima Dindar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

When asked what sort of novel I was writing, I always said ‘a modern adventure novel’. And then I began to question myself about the meaning of these three words together, the substance and the definition of a modern adventure novel. Does such a thing exist? In my novel ‘Alexandre Goes South’, Alexandre is a thirty-year-old Parisian from a family that enjoy wealth and privilege, facts that provide a setting but play only incidental roles in the events that unfold. Alexandre goes through a series of crises, which propel the journey that launches him onto the road to manhood. The …

God Is An Animator, Mitchell Gregory

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

The Whole World To Please, Elena Leith

Audre Lorde Prize

This is a fictional piece derived from stories of women who have experienced abortions for different reasons.

The Genetics Of Morality: Policing Science In Dudintsev’S White Robes, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The Men and women in White Robes (Belye odezhdv), Vladimir Dudinstev's fictional account of the banning of genetics in the Soviet Union, are acutely aware that in the 20th century, the study of the fruit fly is the study of man. The key to unraveling the mystery of human nature lies in the easily observed chromosomes of the forbidden fly (drosophila melanogaster). Under Stalin, the banned geneticists were branded “Morganists” after their hero Thomas Hunt Morgan, the Columbia University researcher who pioneered the technique of mapping locations on drosophila chromosomes to specific traits in the flies. To …

Dismas, Emily Bradford

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Wearing Bare Feet, J. P. Schlottman

Stonecoast MFA Theses and Capstones

Wearing Bare Feet is a linked collection of wry short stories about a family of three on fictional Eel Island, three miles off the coast of Maine, an island that revolves around lobstering, tourism, billionaire movie stars, department store heirs, jewelry store heiresses, people who houseclean for snowbirds ... and the old, rich and entitled summer people who come back from Florida for the annual Fourth of July Parade, and then die. Because it is easier to die there. It is why the 13-mile-long "rock off America" has more ambulances per capita than anywhere else in New England.

It also …

Daffodils: A Completely Unrelated Collection Of Short Stories, Sawyer E.P. Henshaw

Scripps Senior Theses

“Daffodils” is a collection of three fictional short stories without obvious thematic connection, yet all containing tenacious female characters. “The Winner” is told from the unflinching voice of a young wife in her struggle for control within the newfound environment of a Massachusetts boarding school. “The Seers” is a dystopian story, taking place in a world with months of “Sun” and months of dark at a time, intimately describing the effects of this phenomenon upon the civilization. Lastly, “Plastic Flowers” examines the loss of love and comfort within a relationship, depicting the insecurities of young adult life in New York …

Return To Sender, Katherine Noelle Nypaver

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Return to Sender is a fictional short story that illustrates the potential consequences of neglecting to take others seriously. River Ellison, a high school senior at St. Jude’s Academy struggling with depression and habitual self-harm, receives a note from his peer regarding his thoughts on suicide. His ordinary school day transforms into twenty-four hours of repercussions that force River to see his peer for what she is—an equal. Prefacing the short story, my critical essay explains why I find C.D. Payne, John Green, Jesse Andrews, and J.D. Salinger so inspiring to the young adult literature world. I also analyze how …

"The Mouth Of The Void," "Hum", Hannah L. Comeriato

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project presents two distinct pieces of short fiction, linked through intentional stylized language, grammatical patterns, and a sectionalized narrative structure. Each individual piece of short fiction functions independently – as separate and distinct from the other, with no explicit connection in content (i.e. recurring characters, parallel timelines etc.). However, each narrative also displays a kind of complex interaction with the other, each crafted to produce, when read alongside one another, a shared indistinct aesthetic and emotional experience. This aesthetic and emotional experience is crafted, specifically, by the use of stylized verbs, the em-dash, and alternating dialogue-based and image-based sections. …

Only The End: A Collection Of Connected Short Stories, Lucy Sneeringer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In a series of connected short stories, the author explores the funeral industry by following a body as it is prepared for its final resting. The EMTs, mortician, funeral director, and cremators offer their unique perspective on the many faces death can take. However, it is the eyes of the mourners and Benny himself that see the deeper impact of his passing. By uncovering who Benny was in life, a man struggling with marriage and fatherhood, the author shows just how far the impact of his death reaches.

The Eliminate, Beenish Riaz

English Honors Projects

My honors project is a dystopian novella centered on a quest for progress. Created by her society as a second-class citizen, an Auxiliary devoid of emotions, the protagonist, Adinamos, was designed to serve the higher class of Guardians, but she hopes more than anything else for the impossible, namely to become a Guardian herself. Immediately after the death of her lover and protector, Guardian D, Adinamos gradually starts to feel, giving her hope that she too may rise in society. As society places obstacles in her path and threatens her with death, the Eliminate, if she perseveres Adinamos must make …

The Incident, Nathan Schiller

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Fourth Time’S A Charm, Ardennes Vickery

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The sources I used to create my short story, Fourth Time’s A Charm, were essential for all aspects of its development. My story concerns the awkward first meeting of King Henry VIII and his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. As with all historical fiction stories, striving for period appropriate details and accurate representations of historical events was crucial. The resources that I was able to access through the UNLV University Libraries not only assisted me throughout my project by streamlining the research process, but proved indispensable for obtaining various primary sources that I may not have been unable to access …

Beneath The Foundation, Michele Cooley

Graduate Thesis Collection

Beneath the Foundation is a work of fiction, a detective novel that follows protagonist Cheryl Simpson as she’s thrust into the middle of a murder mystery. Cheryl lives a quite life, an attempt at hiding from her past, but when she arrives at work one Saturday morning and finds her boss dead of a gunshot wound, she finds herself pulled into the middle of the investigation. Clues start popping up all around her, and once they start showing up in her apartment, she realizes there’s more at stake than figuring out who killed her boss. As Cheryl works through the …

A Monstrous Tomorrow, Ty Noel

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Moving Water, Alexandra Arend

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Moving Water is a novella in which the characters must reckon with grief, time, the divine, and the mysterious bonds forged and broken with each other. Phoebe and her family come to terms with the death of Jason, Phoebe's older brother, and with themselves. Around them, the universe moves in ambivalent splendor, dying and being born anew.

Modern Arcana, Kaitlin Kolhoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modern Arcana is a collection of eleven short stories, totaling 124 pages, and was written in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. This collection was written through multiple stages of planning and revising work in response to the feedback of peers and instructors. Through writing this thesis, I explored my own relationship to the craft of creative writing and composition, as well as the familiarized myself with the current work being published in my field and genre. This collection is made unique through the sharing magical elements between pieces and the themes of agency in relation …

Natural Disasters, Rebecca Cobb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural Disasters is a collection of twelve short stories that feature a variety of narrators as they interact with the ones they love. In these stories, characters experience puberty, friendship, love, loss, trauma, and the everyday magic of living as they fight to master their own failings. Those lucky enough find solace in the forgiving beauty of nature, while others succumb to the untamable power of its disasters. This thesis is useful, important, and unique as it focuses on the stories of a variety of characters, mostly women and children, and displays the beauty and fearsome power of nature as …

Wait Until I'M Dead! A Novel Of Family Secrets By Elda Dawber, Cordelia Anderson

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Shirley, Kathleen Harrison

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A marine colonel recalls her best friend, murdered by her veteran husband.

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.

What Did You Do In The War?, Charles Krumbein

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A young Army lawyer has to stop an officer from executing protesting soldiers.

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.

Color Red, Dan Thompson

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A young veteran gets a call from Special Forces to come back to the Vietnam War.

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.

The Execution Of Private Mcguffin, Clay Mountcastle

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A fictional take on the discipline meted out by a cavalry unit fighting on the Great Plains.

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.

Reed Issue 150, Tobias Wolff, Holly Pekowsky, Laine Cunningham, Au-Co Tran, Vukasin Streker, Andrew Lam, Paula Paige, C.R. Resetarits, James Valvis, Kris Faatz, Barbara Mujica, Cristina García, Fatema Elbakoury, Marrie Stone, Nick Taylor, Arlene Biala, Liz Lampman, Laura Schulkind, Alyssa Hanna, Janet Joyner, Scott Withiam, Robert Demott, Rosemerry Trommer, Jerome Gagnon, Ron Riekki, Steven J. Rogers, Chris Knight, Gwen Mcneir, John F. Buckley, Martin Ott, Arlene Biala, Lauren Coggins, Maja Zmyslowski, Matt Hohner, Lee Landau, Jen Clem, Lesa Le, Richard Tinoco, Camille Miller, Gracie Ct, Dottie Lo Bue, Jean Davis, Julie Barrett, Alex Purdy, Allen Forrest, Michael Katakis, Andrew Irvine, Christopher Woods, Suzanne Rico, Shanee Stepakoff, Sasha Vasilyuk, Stephanie Collier, Rebekah Chan, Jillian Weiss, Vendela Vida, Timothy Corrigan, Alison Townsend, Peter Nathaniel Malae, Sharon Simonson, Kimy Martinez, Gary Singh, Kelly A. Harrison

Reed Magazine

No abstract provided.

Prone To Wander: A Novel, Daniel Patrick Mathewson

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Daily Bread, Andrew C. Nosti

The Mercury

No abstract provided.