Creative Writing Commons^™

College Slasher Novel, Jeff Hill

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project was completed in hopes of creating a new novel that combines the research and craft worlds of composition and creative writing while merging the social worlds of teaching and campus Greek life, as well as making relevant contemporary commentary on the genres of satire and horror. In preparation, beyond necessary course work completion and time to outline, write, workshop, and revise, I read numerous novels and articles and watched dozens of films and television episodes as well as conducted research regarding current campus demographic to compose the best novel I could write in my time within the program. …

The Evans Family: Familial Relationships In George Eliot's Life And Fiction, Hailey S. Fischer

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Biographers of George Eliot, when writing about her childhood, have focused on her close and complicated relationships with two of the most important men in her life, her father Robert Evans and brother Isaac Evans. Less discussed are Eliot’s relationships with her immediate female family members, her mother Christiana Pearson Evans and her sister Christiana (Chrissey) Evans Clarke. This thesis reviews the predominant interpretations of Eliot’s relations with her father and brother. It also pulls together the known information about Christiana and Chrissey from several major biographies and adds new insights from Eliot's letters in combination with two of her …

Ghosts In The Wood Pile, Susannah Rand

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

GHOSTS IN THE WOOD PILE is a creative thesis comprised of an artist statement, statement of creative influences, and five short stories. The artist statement serves to depict my goals in writing this collection—namely, to provide investigatory, critical, and joyful fantasies for a young queer audience—and addresses what work still needs to be done to complete this collection. The collection itself explores dystopian and fantastical alternate realities in which characters struggle with desire, selfhood, and societal expectation. A sample of the collection is included here.

Advisor: Jennine Capo Crucet

The Only Way Forward, Michael Reed

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Only Way Forward is a creative thesis with a combination of Poetry and Fiction. There is a short introduction that shows the form and styles Michael has used as well as his back story into the creative writing world. He talks about many different authors that have helped him through his journey as well as many other peers and mentors. His biggest take away with his education is to “Just Keep Writing.”

A Critical Analysis Of History’S Best Wishes, Jeffery Keene Short

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This is a critical, reflective analysis of a work of fiction by the author Keene Short, as a means to assess and analyze the artistic and creative development of the project as a whole. The creative work is collection of nine historical fiction short stories, some connected by characters and others standing alone in the collection. The analysis actively explores and engages with several facets relevant to the author’s creative goals, including theory, influences, background, motive, form, genre, and content. The analysis is divided into a summary, critique, and sample of one story from the collection, History’s Best Wishes.

Advisor: …

Redwoods, John Joseph Hill

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

To the outside world, Northern California might be trees, granola, hippies, rivers, snowboarders, environmentalists, farming, beaches, diverse wildlife, and wealth. Through a series of loosely interlocking fiction stories, this thesis explores the Northern California below the surface where people work as garbage collectors by day and attend community college by night, where teenage girls scam people in the park for free alcohol, where lovers spend their date night as part of a nude human-chain to protect an old growth redwood from being cut down, and where animal rights activists smoke cigarettes and seek love. Informed by personal experience and a …

Cumberland [Abstract], Megan Gannon

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Set in a fictional town on the coast of Georgia in July of 1972, Cumberland is the story of two fifteen-year-old twin sisters, Ansel and Isabel (“Izzy”) Mackenzie, who have lived with their frugal, eccentric grandmother since the age of eight when their parents were killed in a car accident and Isabel was paralyzed. Over the years, the burden of caring for her sister has fallen increasingly on Ansel. However, as Ansel cultivates a romantic relationship with a local boy, as well as an artistic apprenticeship with a visiting photographer, her growing desires for selfhood and independence compromise her ability …