Creative Writing Commons^™

An Open Letter, Frances Shemelson

Manuscripts

Dear Frank:-
You always were a tall girl in comparison with others your age. I remember you when you were eight-rather skinny, extremely long-legged, and long brown curls, not the warm vibrant brown of an autumn leaf, but a plain ordinary brown which was very common. And you haven't changed a bit, except to shoot up to five feet nine inches, and you've lost your long curls. You are still comparatively tall, still have those long legs, and that ordinary brown hair. And your eyes - they still look as if you had rubbed them too far into your face. …

On Entering Prize Contests, Ed Mcnamara

Manuscripts

"Now girls, here is all that you have to do to enter this exciting contest. Simply scrape out the inside of a five pound can of Pete's Peanutbutter and mail it together with a short essay of not more than five hundred words telling us 'Why I like Pete's Peanutbutter' to radio station E. A. T. Remember girls, this thrilling contest closes when the company has sold a certain amount of back stock. Act now girls, this may mean a down payment on a fur coat."

Two Pilots Of The Silver Wing, Robert L. Harris

Manuscripts

"She's ridin' high, okay."
"Yeah! Look down there!"
"What is it?"
"Can't make out?"
"Looks like a city 'bout a mile away.
Let's pull her 'round a bit!"
"Okay!"
"Down closer.
Not so steep!
Too steep!"
"There, pull her up a bit.
That's it."
"Yep, she's a city, big one too I'd guess."
"Looks kind'a dark.
So dark and dreary."
"Naw, just a fog.
Lift her up a bit."

Days' Ends, Rachel Whelan

Manuscripts

With shadow fingers of yellow and rose, Dusk slowly touches the marshland changing mucky water to molten gold, and dull green reeds to crimson spears. The golden wavelets dance and whisper to each other while the reeds bend and sway to overhear their secrets. Dusk holds her breath. Upon the mirror surface poises a dragonfly with silken wings motionless, an elfin airliner. With a final flap of wings the march bird glides to her well-concealed nest. A green striped snake slips silently and ominously through sand and seaweed disappearing into the silent ripples. Finally all is still as a moment …

Utopian Ideas And Everyman, Elizabeth Clark

Manuscripts

This isn't my house, nor his house; no, it isn't your house either. It belongs to us. When I live in it, it's mine; and when I move away it's his and then yours. By rights, it is Everyman's. The fields in back of the house that I have planned so carefully, and the young green things shooting up in them are not mine. I did the work, yes, it was my turn to do it. But that doesn't make the fields nor the crop mine. It too is Everyman's. Next month when I leave this house and the fields …

Broadening Your Education, Dean E. Wildman

Manuscripts

American minds have been coddled in school and college for at least a generation. There are two kinds of mental coddling. The first belongs to the public schools and is one of the defects of our educational system that we abuse privately and largely keep out of print. It is democratic coddling. I mean, of course, the failure to hold up standards, the willingness to let youth wobble upward, knowing little, and that inaccurately, passing nothing well, graduating with an education that hits and misses like an old typewriter with a torn ribbon. America is full of "sloppy" thinking, of …

The Old Market Woman, Jean Bowden

Manuscripts

A conservative air envelopes the old market woman. Her small oval face, deeply lined with wrinkles, is strikingly set off by the brilliant sparkle of her dark eyes. Her slightly rounded nose protrudes just enough to lend a small particle of curiousity to her determined facial expression. Her sunken cheeks add some noticeable shadows to her rough skin. Three deep wrinkles encircle her neck as an adornment of age. A thin horizontal crevice forms her firm mouth, which only supports her reserved personality. She is sitting quietly; perhaps, she is waiting for a passer-by to purchase the last of her …

Question On A Bus, Jack T. Kilgore

Manuscripts

"May I - ," George cleared his throat. "I wonder if I could take Jean to the show with me tonight." His words were engulfed by the silence that spread over the table. "(Why doesn't somebody say something'? They can't say no, they just can't. What are they waiting for?) I wouldn't be in late and there is no school tomorrow."

The mother looked up and smiled, and looked to the father for the first word. He said, "Jean who?"

"Jean Newcomb. She is in my English class. (And she smiles when she looks at me, and when she smiles …

The Awakening, Harriet Bishop

Manuscripts

And there I stood, a useless, living form
With roughened hands in worn out pockets pushed
And felt some force, not mine, had changed my will,
I turned my face up toward a darkened night.
There at my feet was spread an ancient world,
While high above there whirled a universe;
And far within the depths of treasured years
Strange, kindly voices dimmed the call of space.
For far below was all that used to be
While out in space stood life's futurity.

Felice, Marijane Badger

Manuscripts

I had been working hard all summer. When my vacation finally came, I decided to get "away from it all" and rented a cabin on a small lake. I arrived at the resort in the late afternoon of a warm September day. The lake was choppy and angry, little waves slapped at the shore.

"You should have come up sooner, Miss Morgan, we had a lovely summer. All of the vacationers are gone now, although we have a man in the cabin next to yours. I didn't think you would want to be left absolutely alone. He won't bother you, …

Thinking Makes It So, Jean Pastor

Manuscripts

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the above statement, but before proceeding with the analysis, a backward glance at its history will prove interesting.
Although popular opinion generally attributes the origin of "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" to William Shakespeare, this idea must come under the heading of a "popular fallacy." In this instance, as in numerous others, Shakespeare has merely articulated one of the commonplaces of the time. In other words, the Elizabethans might have been …

The Blind Man, Helen E. Hughes

Manuscripts

I know you as you walk among my rooms,
Your head turned thus, your shoulders moving so,
Your hands made busy with the sound of brooms,
The many little tasks that women know.
Dear brilliant lady, as you come and go,
Is light lent to my days. In you I find
A roof against the rain-let winter blow!
Look on me, love, with kindness; for my mind,
My heart, my searching hands that clasp you-are
not blind.

Tradition, Mary M. Schortemeter

Manuscripts

Katherine Schneider Sat in the large, ugly, black leather chair that stood by the parlor window. She touched the worn chair arms with hesitant, reverential fingers. This had been Papa's chair, and now he was gone. All she had left was the square oil portrait so faded from the suns of many years that she could scarcely define the stern lines of his German face.

She lifted her eyes to Papa's picture and saw how stubborn was his chin, how coldly keen were his eyes. He always looked just that same way, she knew. He never changed anything. He never …

Greek And Latin In College Curricula, John E. Ross

Manuscripts

One of the changes in college curricula has been the lessening emphasis upon the study of the classics in literature and language. R. Freeman Butts discusses the historical setting of this change in his recent book The College Charts Its Course. Mr. Butts places an emphasis upon two aspects of this condition in education: "the origins of the traditions that a liberal education should be predominantly linguistic and literary in character," and "the rapidly changing social and intellectual conditions of the nineteenth century weakened this conception of a liberal education in the American college and gave rise to many innovations …

They, Inc., Jeanne Gass

Manuscripts

"Well, look who's here. Our new tenderfoot himself." Abby eased gently into the big wine-colored chair.
The man across the room scowled and fiddled with his hands and looked at the floor.
Emmie sighed ever so slightly. "I told them we could handle this assignment ourselves."
The man muttered. "Well. This was an important case."
Abby sniffed delicately. Emmie put her hand up' to her mouth and whispered, "It's all right, Abby. They probably had to give him something to keep him busy. He won't hurt anything."
"Mustn't have professional jealousy, you know," the man added defensively.

After Diana, Mary Wiley

Manuscripts

The clink of coffee-cups is pleasant here.
See, I have drawn the curtains fast, and shut
The moon's distracting light from our bright hearth.
Your grave brown warmth is heightened so
And I do not remember with such pain how sweet
The star's carress falls on the traveller's face,
When first he lifts it up to worship them.

The Concert, Joseph Berry

Manuscripts

The small, quiet man sat before a great sparkling mirror and swore quietly as he rubbed prodigious quantities of rouge onto his sallow complexion. He surveyed his rosy cheeks in the glass, stood erect and made a mocking bow, very deeply, very slowly.

"And you also, you ass? I'm extremely delighted to hear you say so. Really, you're too kind. Really. Why, it couldn't have been that fine, you're just flattering me. You fool, you wouldn't know a bow from a mute. All you ever look at is my shoes. 'Performance in proportion to square of brilliance.' Is my tie …

Volume 9, Issue 1: Full Issue

Manuscripts

Full issue of the March 2014 issue of Manuscripts. Includes work by: Joseph Berry, Mary Wiley, Jeanne Gass, John Ross, Mary Margrette Schortemeier, Helen Hughes, Jean Pastor, Marijane Badger, Hariet Bishop, Jack Kilgore, Jean Bowden, Dean Wildman, Elizabeth Clark, Rachel Whelan, Robert L. Harris, Ed McNamara, Frances Shemelson, Josephine Rosenfeld, Geraldine Staley, Tom Wagle, Keith White, Betty Lee Snyder, James Hawekotte, Riley Sullivan, Ardath Weigler, John Rock, and Jim Mitchell.

Front Matter

Manuscripts

Front Matter includes: front cover, table of contents, and masthead

The Laureate, Nicole Burchette

Honors Theses

The Laureate’s mission is to provide undergraduate students at Western Michigan University a place in which to publish their works of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and other creative works. The Laureate strives to be a professional and engaging journal that appeals to all. The opportunity to serve as Editor-in-Chief for the thirteenth edition of the The Laureate has been an honor and a privilege. Along the way I have worked with a variety of team members to select and build the collection. Working close with my fellow editors, this edition of The Laureate came together as the result of much hard …

Aprc2014, Robert Kelly

Robert Kelly Manuscripts

From April 2014 Robert Kelly Archives

April 11, 2014: Where Is The Neil Degrasse Tyson Of The Humanities?, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Ferradáns Publishes Bilingual Collection Of Spanish Poet's Work, Kim Hill

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

Fire Within, Anonymous

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

I've always had a dilemma with being "The Good Daughter." I still do. Much of my first-generation experience has revolved around sacrificing myself for those who sacrificed themselves for me. For my success. I, however, at times, desire to be free. To chose what I see fit. To choose what I think I love. To have pride. To have the pride to ignite my fire within. I see pride, and I have attained it. But for myself, for others.

Don't Let It Sink, Anonymous

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

I trip, I fall, and then I pick myself back up again. This has become a daily routine for someone like me. There are days when the easiest thing to do is give up--plain and simple. But, as I tease with the idea, something always turns me, aligns me, back on track. No one said a journey was easy. No one said an ocean calm. After all, "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor."

Personal Statement, Alvaro Gonzalez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

The art of a well crafted Personal Statement.

A Quasi-Prose, Quasi-Spoken Word About The Mullings Of A First Gen Girl, Diana Delgado

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

There are many types of first generation students. I happen to be of the immigrant sort, with parents that have degrees that mean very little on this soil. The "kingdom of the lingua franca" mentioned—the land of English—was very difficult to navigate without first conquering the language, but even afterwards there are some immovable disadvantages. You'll find rich Peruvian references in this piece—Manco Cápac, the founder of one of the longest lasting Inca dynasties, referred to himself as “the son of the sun”; since the sun was a god, Inti, this gave him and succeeding rulers much political power. "Pachamama" …

Natural Resources, Chris Rodriguez

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This poem describes the imposter syndrome I had to struggle through as a first-gen student. There are so many extraneous distractions and worries that can lead us astray, make us feel overwhelmed and useless, at least in my case, and I still do get distracted sometimes, but that just takes time away from my day’s study time. I recall my studies at the university bringing up social justice issues and grim histories that I could do nothing but learn about, and it seemed as if the only control I had over my life was to look down upon it. I …

Your Path Versus Mine, Genesis Montalvo

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This poem uses fairytale references to show the differences between first-gen college students and those whose parents have gone to college.

To Be Where You Are, Genesis Montalvo

First-Gen Voices: Creative and Critical Narratives on the First-Generation College Experience

This piece is about my leave of absence that I had to take last spring for financial reasons, which I think most first-gen students can relate to because finances get difficult for us.