Creative Writing Commons^™

Why Everything Is A Whole Lot Of Nothing Worth Losing Or Getting Back, David Kinzer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In these three stories, David Kinzer answers the collection’s title with the precision of the hard sciences. In “The Humanist,” the strained relationship between a father and son becomes even more complicated when the son marries. In “Château Royale,” a young woman moves into a new home with a dark history. The final piece, “Starting After Midnight,” follows two young people in the aftermath of a one-night stand. All of everything is inside: Gatling guns and The Birth of Tragedy, Anne Rice and Taco Bell, kit foxes and sex tips. The answer is waiting. All you need to do is …

Heaven On Their Minds, Rebecca Kate Robison

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Heaven on Their Minds is a novel written from the first-person perspective of teenage

protagonist Melody O’Malley. The plot details Melody’s attempt, along with two close friends, to undermine their conservative Christian theater camp’s summer production of Godspell via the edgier songs and theology of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though ostensibly a satire of the Evangelical Christian community, Melody’s insecurities are the true heart of the novel--her fraught relationship with her best friends, her concerns about her post-high school future, and her ill-advised crush on the most prominent RFC (Robot for Christ) in the camp, a crush that has terrible consequences …

Seers In Greensand, Michael Lawrence Berger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My MFA in Creative Writing with an emphasis on poetry has culminated in a poetry manuscript of 60 pages in length. Many of the poems in this manuscript are inspired by my experiences studying English poetry and literature in this program, with a particular emphasis on devotional and spiritual poetry and poetics. A third of my thesis poem, in fact, came out of my experiences fulfilling the “study abroad” requirement in my MFA. To fulfill that requirement, I embarked on a couple pilgrimage walks through rural parts of the United Kingdom. The longest walk was the one I took from …

The Edge Of Mercury, Aurora Brackett

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Edge of Mercury is a collection of stories inspired by myth, ritual and fairy tales. Many of the stories in this collection investigate the making of meaning and the construction of identity. Others directly reference Biblical stories or Greek and Roman myths, seeking to fuse contemporary realism with the numinous, and to create in the pairing, a narrative that is focused on the liminal, the silence beneath plot. In “Brother Death” two sisters create a ritual to revive their living-dead brother, only to lose him in the current of a river. In “Ambrosia,” the ghost of Pavarotti’s mother is …

Wolf!!! Vol. 1, Jamison Crabtree

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The following manuscript, titled "WOLF!!! vol. 1," investigates the cultural fetishization of power. By placing value on power and on progress, each lauded for their own sake, distances these values from how they serve people. In a situation like this, a system of power is virtuous as far as it can't be overcome by another power. This concern is postmodern one; recognized by theorists such as Foucault, Lyotard, and Jameson. Lyotard posits that efficiency becomes the rubric for goodness in a late-capitalist society. Something is considered good if it produces the maximum amount of output with a minimal amount of …

Mouthy Bones, Shaun Leonard

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As a collection of poetry, this work interrogates the well trodden ground of the Beloved, hopefully with a modicum of originality, though the text itself wonders if, and how (and how!). Can “us” be? Amorous capability is extolled and explored, and people worry. Love happens, and everything is all right. Love happens, and nothing is alright. And then it is. The poems play with the act of writing and how that affects the reader, the subject/s, and the memories being used as fodder. The time and space of emotion and selfhood are melded and molded, through unexpected line breaks, poetic …

Tearing Up The Tallgrass, Brett Salsbury

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This creative thesis project is a culmination of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree at UNLV. The thesis—currently titled Tearing up the Tallgrass—was composed entirely during my graduate semesters at UNLV. As a book of poetry, it explores the dynamics of humans in nature, white privilege, objectivity, fact- and myth-making, and artistic practice. Written under the supervision of Claudia Keelan (committee chair) and Donald Revell (committee member), my committee further includes P. Jane Hafen (English) and Pierre Lienard (Anthropology). Their disparate subject and genre interests are meant to diversify the feedback received during this project’s composition. Some …

Keep Moving: Stories, Syed Haider Shahbaz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My thesis is a collection of short stories, all of which revolve around themes of travel, migration, and displacement. Ranging from short, one-page flash fiction pieces to longer stories, the six pieces in the collection are put together with the hope that they will thematically interact with each other and provide new meanings and interpretations for the whole collection, even as they continue to stand as distinct narratives in their own right. Through their interplay, I hope to throw light on the way human relationships are challenged by movement and migration.

Future Flowers, Eszter Takacs

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a book-length poem presented in three untitled parts.

The Body Experience, Jacqueline Sizemore

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

After a deadly disease sends a jaded college graduate to an isolation ward, a virtual technology provides all the escape she could dream of. When her life collides with an abused woman fleeing across the country, they both struggle to find each other before it is too late.

Dendron, A Collection Of Poems, Peter W. Rosenberger

Celebration

“Dendron” is the Greek word for “tree.” “Dendrochronology” is the study of a tree’s rings. “Dendrites” are the neural projections that grow like a tree’s branches in our brains so we can learn and respond to stimuli. This collection of poems, Dendron, is a poetic exploration of my growth. The collection—twenty-one poems, one for each year of my life—is a living, poetic memoir. Presented in chronological order, each of the poems is meant to capture a specific year of my life. The poems—of varying styles and sentiments—are not without quick moments of fiction, but for the most part, they coalesce …

John Mcgahern And The Imagination Of Tradition By Stanley Van Der Ziel Review, Eamon Maher

Articles

No abstract provided.

Eyebrows: A Collection Of Stories About That Family You Saw In Aldi's Last Week, Wesley D. Pena

Senior Honors Theses

This creative thesis will begin with an introduction to the idea of creative nonfiction and will also present a short collection of creative nonfiction stories. The creative body of the thesis will consist of short stories taken from the author's own life that center around the common theme of family, focusing especially on the author's role as a big sister in a family of nine children. Following these short stories, the conclusion of the thesis will briefly consider the value of personal stories like these in the larger scheme of literature. For those unfamiliar with the genre, this thesis hopes …

The Consequences Of Failing: A Memoir, Olivia M. Zajac

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Failing is part of our human nature. I have never met a person who has never failed at something. Sometimes when I look back at my failures I feel like crying, and other times I laugh at the mistakes that I have made. But no matter the type of failure I have suffered, I have learned one thing. Failures, along with successes, have shaped me into the person I am today. When I fail, I often fall. But each fall is a chance for me to get back up. I don’t plan to stop failing any time soon.

Just like …

Editor's Note, Faren Rajkumar

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Heartless, Ezana Assefa

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Numb, Tory Njardvik

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Intimacy, Ezana Assefa

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

A Midday's Contemplation, Ezana Assefa

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Everything I Am Not, Or May Never Be, Dymun Fengshui

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Death's Epiphany, Kyle Boltson

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Night, Sophie-Anne Baril

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Moonshine, Faren Rajkumar

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

A Reflection On What He’S Done, And Continues To Do, Nicole I. Chavannes

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Mcm, Julie M. Saint-Fleur

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

A Love Story In 100 Words, Grace Ducanis

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Hollow, Kyle Boltson

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

The House Of Bodies, Tory Njardvik

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.

Consummation, Daniel Arguelles

Digressions: Literary & Art Journal

No abstract provided.