Creative Writing Commons^™

A New Home In The Wilderness, Amana C. Katora

English Theses & Dissertations

The collection of stories that make up New Home in the Wilderness plus are held together by the place that is the Amana Colonies in Iowa This place and people are a part of my family's past and has influenced my development as an individual and a writer. It was important to try to honor the culture the best way I could. This work of fiction pulls from the unique traditions, stories, and voices that still exist in the Colonies today While the Colonies continue to adapt and curate their history, this collection attempts to capture the soul of the …

Outdoor Life, Joshua Burt Norman

English Theses & Dissertations

The stories in Outdoor Life are those of the people who inhabit the hilly region between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. A place, within my own lifetime, that has changed immensely. Animals are, and always have been, at the heart of life in the piedmont. Like cave paintings, they persist, beyond our individual memory.

Dictation From Chrysanthemums, Kevin J. B. O'Conner

English Theses & Dissertations

Enclosed in this thesis is a collection of poems entitled Dictation From Chrysanthemums. Although the poems vary in scope and subject material. they convey unity: the unity that arises from the unknown, the unexplored, the undiscovered. To call the poems wholly "new" would be incorrect-after all they draw strongly on tradition as well as on the work of contemporary writers: Rimbaud, Yeats. John Ashbery. Philip Levine, Louise Gluck. To name all the influences would be impossible. but these are starting points. In addition. critical theory undergirds the project: everything from culture studies to theories of “hybridity" and "marginality." The end …

New Tricks (2014), John Nelson, Katie Miller, Stacey Berry, Deana Hueners, Ashley Geditz, Brianna Prill, Ashley Rieger, Mary Metzger, Sarah Sproul, Dillon Dwyer

New Tricks

It is an exclusive secret if one knows a muse and it is an even more exclusive ability if said person is able to channel her beauty. For most people, seducing a muse is no easy task. It takes a special kind of creative mind to attract the personification of art. Frequently, the rigorous process of invoking one of the muses often involves a set of rituals that resemble courtship displays. Muses demand undying attention and affection from their vessel before they will allow themselves to flow through a mortal instrument and onto a medium of art. In those rare …

Do I Dare Disturb The Universe?, Ryan A. Bonner

Student Publications

This memoir investigates the roots of my core anxiety, the incessant but impossible ability to achieve perfection. It is framed by my experience getting a second tattoo, which is a line from T.S. Eliot's modernist poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and ties together both my internal struggle and my affinity for physical pain. This memoir draws a line between the past and the present, seeking to find a connection between struggling with anxiety and engaging in self-mutilation as a source of relief.

The Ballerina, Natasha M. Dones

Student Publications

Little in the world can be as delicate and poised as the small

ballerina you bought me. She dances motionless upon my

bookshelf, as she did for many years before...

Fiction Fix 15, April Gray Wilder, Mame Ekblom Cudd, D E. Smith, Denise Emanuel Clemen, Dennis Must, Sally Deskins, Nicolas Poynter, Sara Rauch, Timothy Day, David Gaither, Bruce H. Hinrichs, Michal (Mitak) Mahgerefteh, Tina Tocco, Louis Gallo

Fiction Fix

No abstract provided.

A Wavering Prayer, Sarah E. Gorski

Student Publications

Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina" Imitation; Sarah Gorski's "A Wavering Prayer."

Artemisia In The Metro, Emily A. Francisco

Student Publications

The “art poem” is an intriguing form of poetry. In writing about something that is inherently visual, a poet must remold a work of art into new material, drawing upon the work’s elements of form such as color, line, use of light, contrast, and composition to make his or her own reflective statement, beyond simply describing the artwork’s own content. In my poetry I aim to take this model of the “art poem,” and, through extended experimentation with this idea of ekphrasis (writing about art in a poetic context), intend to suggest a more intimate connection between art and language. …

Minor Characters With Major Impacts : Examining Giovanelli’S Role In Henry James’ Daisy Miller 2014, Zachary Lang

Master's Theses

Henry James’s first journey into the world of the American girl came in the form of one of his most read novellas, Daisy Miller. Through the eyes of Frederick Winterbourne, the reader begins a study of Daisy Miller, a character whom James uses to showcase many of the issues that were prevalent at the time including the role of women, societal standards, and class mobility. Winterbourne and Daisy are the principal characters, and as such they are given the most attention from readers and critics alike. The minor character Giovanelli, however, has received little critical attention. Despite being a minor …

Zenventures: Unwind Your Imagination With Guided Meditation, Darlene Kent

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project was designed to create guided meditation to enhance creativity. Research was done to gather information on guided imagery, meditation and storytelling to gain a strong understanding of meditation in general, and to determine the themes of the various meditations. The guided meditations for this project were called, Zenventures, a combination of peace and adventure. The guided mediations take the person on a journey where they connect to their creative potential. A success plan was created to ensure the project stayed on track. There were several outcomes from the project: seven written meditations, seven Zenventures (recorded meditations with music), …

Out Of Reach [Short Story], Kathleen Fowler

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Anderson Family: Lives With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Lorraine Wynn

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Her Body Breathes Into Mine, Zarah C. Moeggenberg

All NMU Master's Theses

This collection of poetry highlights the complex human experience of what it means to be a woman who loves women. Adding to the discourse of lesbian poetry, within spoken word poetry and for-the-page poetry, these poems doubly voice silenced perspectives and identities. A large portion of the work is spoken word poetry, which seeks to make the subgenre more accessible to a larger audience. Set primarily in the Midwest, these poems voice queer identity that asks us to consider what makes someone a person, as identity is much more than sexuality. Love, sex, loss, sexuality and gender expression are themes …

Art And Literacy, Tara Hemelgarn, Sherrie Henderson, Patricia Thompson

P-12 Lesson Plans

This lesson prepares students for a visit, virtually or in person, to the Zuckerman Museum of Art. Using art images from the ZMA permanent collection as displayed in the See Through Walls exhibition, students practice skills in language arts and visual arts.

Theological Creative Nonfiction: Christian Literature For Christian Life, Elizabeth R. Hurt

Senior Honors Theses

Since the Christian worldview is composed of more than theoretical truth, Christian literature should reflect these other aspects, such as how that truth is applied in the lives of the saints. Furthermore, the praxis element of worldview is reflected in literature more naturally in narrative genres than in more expository writings like systematic theology. Narrative genres mirror the complex, temporal way a person lives his life, and because of this are able to show how objective truth is applied in subjective situations. For this reason, Christians need contemporary writing that reflects the process of everyday Christian living to offer a …

Argument In Poetry: (Re)Defining The Middle English Debate In Academic, Popular, And Physical Contexts, Kathleen R. Burt

Dissertations (1934 -)

The core problem that drives my dissertation is to find a definition for what has been called Middle English “debate poetry” that accounts for the wide variety of themes, topics, and styles which poems labeled as ‘debates’ cover. The limitations of overly focused and restrictive definitions of the term ‘debate poetry’ encountered by previous scholars illustrates the initial problem of using a generic term that lacks a common vocabulary or framework for discussion. The result has been that each scholar who investigated a poem linked to this tradition used a different definition suited to his or her particular text(s) of …

The Love That Ended Yesterday In Texas: A Family Memoir, Jodi S. Denny

English Theses & Dissertations

In 1959, my mother left Texas at the age of twenty-eight, leaving behind a complicated past in the cowboy town of Grapevine, to build a new life for herself on the Tidewater Peninsula of Virginia. I was the first born into my mother's Virginia life. Throughout my childhood, I experienced glimpses into my mother's Texas life, providing enough insight to let me know that something not-quite-right lurked there. The details of her life remained mostly hidden to me, until forty years after my mother Ieft Texas, when I was thirty, I sought to reconstruct her past out of fragments from …

Rain In My Blood, Sarah Pringle

English Theses & Dissertations

I really appreciate the subtlety and finality of a poem, the experience of being able to focus in one place. When I write, I search for the moment in a poem that says "yes," the moment where the poem becomes something more than just what is on the page. I see writing a poem as an experience much more than an activity. It is not so much a release or outlet as it is a platform, confessional, understanding friend, or a way to express or find meaning in the sometimes mechanical, cyclical, or mundane routines of existence. Rain in My …

Through The Green Briar, Geoff Watkinson

English Theses & Dissertations

Through the Green Briar is a condensed version of a longer memoir that follows the narrator over the course of approximately a decade, beginning at the age of 16, as he tries to find meaning and purpose. The setting moves from New Jersey, where the narrator grows up, to New York, where he goes to college, and Virginia, where he ultimately moves. It's a coming-of-age story without a redemptive ending. The New Jersey coast is destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, and this destruction ultimately reflects the narrator's self-destruction over the course of the narrative. And yet, the narrator learns that it …

An Island Between: Growing Up In East Texas, William Dillon Tripp

English Theses & Dissertations

An Island Between: Growing Up in East Texas is a collection of short stories from a larger memoir focused on the life of the narrator growing up in the backwoods of East Texas. Through different stories focusing on the narrator's relationship with his father, the "blue collar" work environment, and the surrounding people, the collection strives to show the reader the uniqueness of an East Texas life. It is the coming-of-age story of a young man struggling to find his place in a world that feels strange, but it is the only one he has ever known. He never feels …

Diaz Wins Brittingham Prize In Poetry, Kim Hill

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

March 30, 2014: Nagle Presents On Queer Theory In The 18th Century, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Romance And Reason: Contextualizing The Arthurian Romances Of Chrétien De Troyes, Alexandra Borkowski

Graduate History Conference, UMass Boston

The twelfth century saw the birth of the romance in literature, as well as the intellectual and social developments of humanism. The romance often involved the adventures of the knight, focusing on the behavior of the knight using the ideals of courtly love and chivalry. Chrétien de Troyes (c.1135-c.1183) contributed to the discussion of chivalry and courtliness by writing narrative poetry involving the Arthurian legends. He focused on the consequences of his knightly characters’ choices in order to show examples of how a proper knight should behave. This emphasis on the choices of each knight conveys a humanistic perspective, which …

March 29, 2014: Maisha Winn Visit A Success, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

Volume 9, Issue 2: Full Issue

Manuscripts

Full issue of the January 1942 issue of Manuscripts. Includes work by: Joan Fuller, Jack Kilgore, Fred W. Michel, Betty Murnan, Isadore Camhi, Mary Wiley, Jeanne Gass, Alfred Brown, Ione Colligan, Jack Retherford, Catherine Cunningham, R. Gordon Moores, Alice J. Fisher, Norma Jackson, Thelma De Boer, Betty Lee Snyder, John Gumerson, Richard Jowitt, William Hickson, Bob Harris, Rachel Whelan, Edward N. Redfield, Anshelm Schultzberg, Willard L. Metcalf, and John Bundy.

Excerpts

Manuscripts

Excerpts of unknown authorship.

Dictator, Rachel Whelan

Manuscripts

We stood between the giant columns of the mighty triumphal arch high above the riotous crowd of rejoicing people. Three of us, the spokesman, Comrade Jones, and I, stood on the decorated platform waiting for the cheering to cease, for the bands to stop playing, for some semblance of order so that the ceremony might begin.

Soliloquy At Dusk, Bob Harris

Manuscripts

Turn low the lights

Half shut the shutters

Seek out the comfort

Of your favorite easy chair

And there

In the intermingled mists

Of lights and shadows

I shall relate to you

The Story

Of Robert Lee

Pity The Poor Artists, William E. Hickson

Manuscripts

Sometime, when I have a few years to spare, I am going to run down the fable that has grown up around artists. I always wondered just when and where the idea started that artists were a people set apart, not just a section of our race in general. Being an artist myself, I resent both the idealism and the degradation that the world has endowed upon this simple everyday man who has chosen art as a profession.