Creative Writing Commons^™

Everyday Monsters: Stories, Brian Druckenmiller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

These seven short stories explore characters either at war with themselves or living in a delusion, unaware that their skewed sense of self projects a subjective version of the universe. When one operates in a world that doesn't quite exist, their real world is destined to crumble, and, for many of these characters, the challenge is understanding the mirage's existence before it's too late. By slightly bending the parameters of reality as well as inviting these characters and conflicts into absurdity, Everyday Monsters offers wholly unique commentary on familiar struggles, including marriage, occupation, grief, destiny, and societal expectations.

Prone To Wander: A Novel, Daniel Patrick Mathewson

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

House, Lisa Ann Spears

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Baby Doll, Abigail L. Hancher

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Women Of The Apocalypse: Afrospeculative Feminist Novelists, Bianca L. Spriggs

Theses and Dissertations--English

“Women of the Apocalypse: Feminist Afrospeculative Writers,” seeks to address the problematic ‘Exodus narrative,’ a convention that has helped shape Black American liberation politics dating back to the writings of Phyllis Wheatley. Novels by Zora Neale Hurston, Octavia Butler, and Alice Walker undermine and complicate this narrative by challenging the trope of a single charismatic male leader who leads an entire race to a utopic promised land. For these writers, the Exodus narrative is unsustainable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because there is no room for women to operate outside of the role of …

Retracing John Muir's Thousand-Mile Walk To The Gulf, Chadwick N. Gilpin

Theses and Dissertations--English

In 1867, the budding naturalist and future father of our national parks, John Muir, embarked on his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf from Jeffersonville, Indiana, to Cedar Key, Florida. Almost 150 years later I undertook the same journey, retracing the wilderness advocate’s footsteps through the South to catalog all that has changed in a century and a half of progress, to try and better understand the inception of his environmental ethics, and to learn to see the world as he did, harmonious, interconnected, rejuvenating and imbued with a pervasive spirituality. The chapters of this thesis retell selected legs of that …

New Year, Old Blues, Joy Bowman

Theses and Dissertations--English

This collection aims through the use of folktale and familial history to investigate the bounds of gender and memory against a rural Appalachian landscape. The work utilizes superstition, myth, and the commonplace to search the shadows for the forbidden and unspoken, in an attempt to redefine and reconcile personal dissonance through an observational and at times, voyeuristic lens.

Forsaken Trust, Meredith Doench

English Faculty Publications

Book 2 in the Luce Hansen Thriller series. Third book forthcoming.

Description from the publisher:

Wallace Lake, Ohio, takes care of their own. Unwelcoming of outsiders, the community closes ranks when four women are found murdered along the water’s edge. Agent Luce Hansen of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation must find a way in before another woman loses her life to the ruthless serial killer.

With the help of her new team—a hot rookie and a smart, beautiful medical examiner—Luce uncovers a ring of devotion surrounding the prime suspect. As Luce works to unearth the dark secrets of this …

Voices Of Ancient Women: Stories And Essays On Persephone And Medusa, Isabelle George Rosett

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis combines art historical analysis and creative writing in a collection of essays and short stories centered on the myths of Persephone and Medusa. Ancient art, text, and context is considered in the essays, while the stories approach these subjects on a more contemporary and personal level.

Bendiciones, Lydia Lara

Vázquez-Valarezo Poetry Award

A poem embodying the simple yet powerful gesture of the bendicion. For many latinxs this gesture commonly occurs between older family members to younger family members as farewell, prayer, and blessings to protect the younger individual on their journies through life. The gesture of the blessing is a meaningful and deeply rooted action that carries the blessings of the ancestors who have come before us and endured colonization, dictatorship, and civil war and spiritually drives their children and children's children to fight for better in the modern day Latina/Chicana struggle. We are our ancestors wildest dreams.

Quarantine, Scott Chalupa

Theses and Dissertations

Quarantine is a collection of poems concerned primarily with pre-Stonewall and early AIDS histories of LGBT people.

God Is An Animator, Mitchell Gregory

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

What A Fat Girl Wants, Briana Lee

Audre Lorde Prize

This piece discusses my personal struggles with my weight as an obese woman, but also addresses common aspects of daily life that countless young girls and women struggle with through the prevalence of body shaming in our society. I wanted to be their voice to make people aware of how American society wants women to be shaped and molded into the ideal female body.

Being The Other Woman: Watanabe’S Unrequited Love For Naoko In Norwegian Wood, Giselle Carter

Audre Lorde Prize

Taking a look at the philosophical Other, the object of one's life that would lead to self-actualization- something that des not exist, I reflect on Naoko and Watanabe's relationship, in particular the one-sidedness of it.

The Whole World To Please, Elena Leith

Audre Lorde Prize

This is a fictional piece derived from stories of women who have experienced abortions for different reasons.

The Genetics Of Morality: Policing Science In Dudintsev’S White Robes, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The Men and women in White Robes (Belye odezhdv), Vladimir Dudinstev's fictional account of the banning of genetics in the Soviet Union, are acutely aware that in the 20th century, the study of the fruit fly is the study of man. The key to unraveling the mystery of human nature lies in the easily observed chromosomes of the forbidden fly (drosophila melanogaster). Under Stalin, the banned geneticists were branded “Morganists” after their hero Thomas Hunt Morgan, the Columbia University researcher who pioneered the technique of mapping locations on drosophila chromosomes to specific traits in the flies. To …

Age., Tess Monks

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

We Sit Complacent, Mitchell Gregory

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Three Intervals, Megan Towey

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Like, My First Suicide Attempt Turns 5 This Year, A. Anonymous

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Eve, Shabethany Sawyer

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Hung Elephants Swinging In The Room, Jhannelle Robinson

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Dismas, Emily Bradford

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

The N Word, Elizabeth Montague

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

Night Watch, Ned Balbo

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 100-101

One Of The Waves, Ellen Doré Watson

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 240-241

The Visit, Marianne Boruch

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 118-119

Value Hunger: Feeding The Need For Assessment In Poetry, Michael Theune, Bob Broad

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 63-88

My Tiger, Tom Sleigh

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 227-229