Creative Writing Commons^™

Hypha, Emily Ruth-Diehl Brooks

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For hundreds of years, Ona and her people have been unknowingly enslaved. Ona has given everything she is to the spiritual people on the mountain, including her own son. So when rumors spread through the swamp’s magical mycelium that she and her people are slaves, Ona must find the truth and, if possible, reunite with her son before he becomes as evil as those who raised him. Meanwhile, her son has his own doubts after his people leave his friend to die. As he and Ona journey separately to save the people they love, they find everything they believed to …

Fistful Of Shovel, Marcee Wardell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

My thesis project is a draft of a novel. It is literary/realistic fiction telling the story of a single father of a young daughter who struggles with navigating complicated relationships and building a meaningful life for himself and his daughter in their small town. In this draft, the protagonist, Clint, deals with developing new romantic relationships while managing his relationships with his daughter’s mother, her family, and his, as well as recognizing his portion of the blame in the dissolution of his romantic relationship with his daughter’s mother and the biases and expectations that prevent his healing and development.

The Sad Kitchen And Song Of Neon: Two Novellas, John Paul King

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Sad Kitchen, a work of magical realism, tells the story of a saintly woman named Helen. She opens an underground kitchen where people who feel guilty can come to be comforted and nurtured in the middle of the night. The story is, at its heart, a reflection on forgiveness. Song of Neon, also of the magical realist genre, is an existential work about a nurse named Avery and her husband, an owl house maker, named Saul. Their town, Milliard, is under a trance. Avery and Saul struggle with their respective identities in the quiet, vacuum the town has become.

Kentuckiana, And A Dash Of Cambodia: A Collection Of Short Stories, Brodie Lee Gress

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The following is a collection of five short stories set in regions familiar to me: “Dewberry Park,” “YouLead,” and “The Color Violet” in Indiana; “Mens Rea” in Kentucky; and “Tory Ride” in Cambodia. Gay identity plays a role in many of these stories, and other themes explored include family, region, socioeconomics, gender, mentality, and change. These stories are concerned with people on the brink, failing and surviving all the same. Some of them are intended to weigh, and some to satirize. I hope they all nick their readers.

Nicole Sumida And Alex Yu Interview, Laraib Malik

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Nicole Sumida is a co-founder and co-publisher of Riksha Magazine, an online magazine featuring creative work by and about Asian Americans. Alex Yu is a co-publisher of Riksha and both have been involved in community arts organizing since the 1990s in Chicago.

“Riksha provides a space for capturing the Asian American experience through compelling writing, commentary, and artistic expression. We curate an online magazine that presents poetry, fiction, non-fiction, fine arts, and video and audio pieces. We also comment on and curate the bric-a-brac and ephemera of Asian American life.”

Ada Cheng Interview, Zishuo Wang

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Ada Cheng is the host of the storytelling show Pour One Out, a monthly storytelling series at Volumes Bookcafe. She is also the producer and host of the show Am I Man Enough? a storytelling/podcasting show, where people tell personal stories to critically examine the culture of toxic masculinity and the construction of masculinity and manhood. In addition, she is the co-producer and co-host of Talk Stories, an Asian American/Asian diaspora storytelling show, along with Randy Kim, a show where they showcase Asian/Asian American storytellers and performing artists.

Volume 3, Issue 1

be Still

No abstract provided.

Editor's Introduction

be Still

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Musings From The Dean, Elaine Wallace

be Still

No abstract provided.

Fairy Tale, Divya Pandya

be Still

The imagination of a child- one of the most fantastic things.

A Child's Curiosity, Quynh-Nhu Tran

be Still

A curious 5-year-old girl placed a stethoscope against her chest in St. James, Jamaica on the December 2018 medical outreach trip. Even though this was my second time returning to Jamaica, I remained amazed at the fearless children not cringing and even smiling during the physical exam. I recalled a brave 10-year-old girl seeing the medical and optometry teams by herself as her father volunteered on-site. Such positive attitudes were reflected among numerous community members through their great respect and continuous gratitude towards healthcare professionals. They touched my life as I touched theirs.

A Warm Ode To Children, Sean A. Friefeld

be Still

A poem encouraging children to embrace the world that they create every day and to live with a sense of wonder.

The Gift Of A Stranger, Angel Mauricio Marquez

be Still

As we are taught in our physics classes, energy is neither created nor destroyed it is simply transferred. Whether that energy manifests itself as power to fuel an engine or as knowledge to fuel a life of passion and intimacies, the energy influences one in the same. I simply seek one thing out of life, that those who come into contact with my energy find themselves transformed in the subtlest of ways so that they may, in turn, inspire another so that the cycle continues on and on.

A Child’S Innocence In Healthcare, Alicia L. Kilian

be Still

A child’s innocence can be deceiving. Their beauty, laughter, and carefree nature can easily blind anyone from seeing and understanding a childs true reality. On my first pediatrics rotation as a third year medical student, I met a little girl with Ebstein’s Anomaly, a rare and serious heart condition. A condition that can present with bluish discoloration to the lips and skin due to lack of oxygen. When this little girl first walked into the examination room, her smile lit up the room and her laughter instantly made me forget why she was even there. After getting lost in her …

War And Climate Refugees In Lesvos, Greece, Zachary Burns

be Still

No abstract provided.

My Future Patients, Peter S. Troccoli

be Still

No abstract provided.

Across The Fence, Alex Waziry

be Still

ARTIST ALEX WAZIRY inspired by the movie, “The BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS”. Having Jewish roots, it deeply touched the Waziry family.

Universe Of Things: A Human Presentation Of Food-For-Thought., Madeline Halpern

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

I present this statement under three loose categories: People, Objects and their Environment. I consider People as human, Objects as art objects, domestic objects, and food, and Environment as the shared space of the former groups. Food directs this statement as I present each concept and creative process as a metaphorical dish. Material exploration carried me from a direct practice of reorienting acrylic paint and questioning object functionality through personified sculptures into theoretical thesis work in which I use interpersonal relations and the idea of consumption to translate tactile, gustatory and olfactory sensations into digital film. In this meal I …

For Cheryl: The Long And The Short Of It, Rachel Lebo

Graduate School of Art Theses

Short stories are an indirect way of creating a truth by showing instead of telling. They are a way to observe and communicate a single idea. A short story for me is a vehicle for hiding my truth behind a character, exploring myself in the safety of an identity that is not my own. When I read Chunky in Heat, author A.M. Homes and I hide together behind her character, Cheryl, and find solidarity.

The following writings, paintings, and sculptures are collaborations between myself and the women of short story fiction. Those women being the authors, the subjects, and …

Painting A Biblical Worldview In Children, Brook Blackwell

Senior Honors Theses

Children are impressionable beings shaped by the changing world around them; this has become increasingly more true as the years progress and the impact and prevalence of media rises. Television shows, movies, music and books, no matter how insignificant they may seem, can play a tremendous part in the growth of children’s worldviews. It is important for authors and artists to delve deep into the impact of media on the growth and development of children in today’s media-rich world. In doing so, they should hope to find the best way to implement a Christian worldview into the media a child …

When The Party's Over, Sophie Harris

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Maybe It's Better That Way, Ren Zimmerman

The Echo

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The Lampshade, Evan Myers

The Echo

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Blush, Gabby Villagran

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Lipstick, Gabby Villagran

The Echo

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Front Porch Dolor, Sarah Miller

The Echo

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Tree Terrain, Caroline Bass

The Echo

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In This World There Are Many Living Things And Lots Of Dead Things Too, Paul Bryant

The Echo

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Trash Bucket, Mary Shelley Reid

The Echo

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Out Fishing, Sarah Miller

The Echo

No abstract provided.