Creative Writing Commons^™

Synthesizing The Sublime And Beautiful: Aesthetics In Shelley's "Hymn To Intellectual Beauty", Christopher T. Lough

Student Publications

As a Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley bristled at rationalistic attempts to definitively categorize the human condition. Taking Edmund Burke’s treatise “On the Sublime and Beautiful” as his chief foil, Shelley explored aesthetic categories that certain strains of Enlightenment thought had held apart from one another. In my brief exegesis of his “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” from 1816, I build on Rudolf Otto’s concept of the numinous and the work of intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit to argue that Shelley presents a holistic account of experience with the ineffable.

Carrying Loss, Hallie S. Wilk

Student Publications

"Carrying Loss" is a creative nonfiction piece I wrote based off of someone I know, a mother who discovers that she is pregnant with a baby that has Trisomy 18, a genetic disease with very low survival rates. This piece follows the internal struggle of the mother as she deals with this information, and decides to carry the baby to full term, despite the fact he has passed inside of her. It ends on the day of the baby's birth as a still born.

The Nurturing Nature Of Nature, Katie F. Mercer

Student Publications

This piece of creative non-fiction describes my relationship with National Parks and the way their beauty and power has shaped my life.

Béchamel, Jhanvi C. Ramaiya

Student Publications

"In fluid, confident prose, this essay deftly moves through fascinating historical background on one of the ‘mother sauces’ and into a story of mother-to-daughter education before turning its focus to a story of learning through a blend of past teachings and independent experiences.” - Elissa Washuta, Author, Judge for the Virginia Woolf Essay Prize

Floral, Victoria J. Reynolds

Student Publications

Floral is a personal essay that explores the speaker's relationship with different flowers and floral elements, ranging in time from early childhood to present day.

Raising Their Children, Janelle R. Thompson

Student Publications

This personal essay depicts the story of an after school program established in the heart of a low-income neighborhood. It details the struggle the local children face in their failing schools district, and shows how the program, known as Little Wise Child, has been instrumental in making a positive difference in their lives.

What We Find In The Sea, David E. King

Student Publications

Personal essay in which the author recounts his struggle to come to terms with his lack of grief over his grandfather’s death.

Everything, Hannah M. Frantz

Student Publications

This is a memoir piece that details a tumultuous period in my life between departing for my study abroad experience in Rwanda and Uganda, struggling with what I encountered there, and then attempting to reintegrate into the same life prior to my departure. Specifically, it focuses on my time in northern Uganda, and a women I met in an IDP (internal displaced persons) camp who really made me think about what my role should be both there and at home. This piece explores a number of themes including guilt, blame, and, ultimately, a certain amount of forgiveness.

Hold The Cracks, Chandra R. Kirkland

Student Publications

My medicine has its own special place in our downstairs bathroom. It rests on a little metal shelf by the shower, standing among the bright orange bottles of multivitamins, B12, vitamin C, and calcium chews. My mother is obsessed with natural healing practices – she slathers on bitter goldenseal for infections, feeds us capsules of powdery white willow bark for headaches, and strange clay mixed with water for stomach aches. My little bottle of pink goo looks lost and confused amidst the hand-written labels and bottles of earth-colored liquids.

I feel guilty taking it, but almost proud at the same …

Just Another Girl, Julia D. Marshella

Student Publications

A non-fiction piece that explores the causes of the author’s depression while in college. While she is able to pinpoint specific events that have led to her unhappiness, she realizes that accepting her life in spite of these obstacles will allow her to move forward.

Cold And Calculating, Kathryn E. Slezak

Student Publications

This nonfiction essay investigates the relationship between eye contact and power in different situations. It brings up the idea that animals and humans are less different than often thought to be, and how body language is transcendent. It uses this underlying theme to investigate the author’s changing relationship with her father.

Abuelito, Margarita C. Delgado

Student Publications

An outsider’s perspective of the Spanish funerary process and the universal grappling with grief.

Precious Knowledge, Stephen Lin

Student Publications

An essay about my name and its true meaning...

Cultured, Cara L. Dochat

Student Publications

This memoir piece comprises three parts, each of which tells a humorous and perhaps slightly embarrassing story of interpersonal upsets the narrator experienced while studying abroad in Europe. Their telling exposes the narrator as a naïve American tourist, despite her conscious attempts to be culturally sensitive and respectful. The intent of this piece was neither to make a political statement about being American in Europe, nor to present yet another trite account “the best four months of [my] life.” While my primary goal was to share these stories for their entertainment value (if self-effacing), my hope was to transform the …

Red Rose, Sara Lauren Purifoy

Student Publications

Red Rose follows the narrator’s innermost thoughts and feelings of abruptly being immersed into a culture very different from her own. While hiking with her brother, a second year environmental Peace Corps volunteer, to visit the home and garden of a Nicaraguan native, she reflects on the changes she sees in her brother and her inability to communicate in a foreign country. She struggles to overcome her feelings of linguistic isolation while still being fascinated by the culture around her. The piece ends on a lovely image of universal understanding.

Pinning The Daffodil And Singing Proudly: An American's Search For Modern Meaning In Ancestral Ties, Elizabeth C. Williams

Student Publications

This paper is a collection of my personal experiences with the Welsh culture, both as a celebration of heritage in America and as a way of life in Wales. Using my family’s ancestral link to Wales as a narrative base, I trace the connections between Wales and America over the past century and look closely at how those ties have changed over time. The piece focuses on five location-based experiences—two in America and three in Wales—that each changed the way I interpret Welsh culture as a fifth-generation Welsh-American. Each travel experience contains characters, places, and interactions that shape my conception …

Focus, Vol. 1, No. 1, Stephen F. Austin State College

Student Publications

A literary magazine of student writing published by the Department of English of Stephen F. Austin State College.

But An Echo, Stephen F. Austin State College

Student Publications

A literary magazine of poems, essays, short stories, fiction and non-fiction works. The staff was composed of member of the Creative Writing 371 course and under the direction of Dr. Walter Kidd, professor of English and resident poet.