Creative Writing Commons^™

The Mercury 2022

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Try Again, Peyton Newell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In my thesis collection, Try Again, I aimed to explore the consequences of choice. Through four short stories and one novella, I focused on close relationships between two focus characters and how both large and inconsequential choices can shape futures. In the novella, Try Again, I practiced game writing and learned how to shape a character when perhaps the largest signifier of character—choice—is left in the hands of the reader, rather than the author. The construction of this thesis and its stories developed my abilities to find high tension in lower stakes.

Figural Solidarity: Grappling With Meaning In Comics, Jean Braithwaite, Kai Mikkonen

Creative Writing Faculty Publications

Thierry Groensteen 's concept of iconic solidarity (IS) is one of the most familiar terms in comics studies. This article introduces a new term and new theoretical concept, figural solidarity .(FS), as a critical adaptation of Groensteen's notion (1999; 2011); FS provides additional explanatory power especially in the central cases of narrative comics. FS is based on the co-referentiality of sequential figures, which ensures the cohesion of the visual narrative and provides its driving force. The introductory section compares empirical eye-tracking data with the hypothetical top-down strategies of FS-influenced readers as they focus on recurring characters to understand the …

Review Of The Twilight World, Michael Russo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

To The Bone And Back, Noelle Christine Thomas

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

To the Bone and Back, a memoir by Noelle Thomas explores Thomas’s college journey while struggling with mental health conditions. To the Bone and Back primarily focuses on how anxiety, depression, and eating disorders can impact friendships. Thomas documents her journey through college and grad school in four parts. In a way, Thomas’s memoir is a story of self-assembly.

Part one, made up of poems, narratives, letter excerpts, YouTube transcripts, and text messages, mirrors the clutter and chaos of Thomas’s brain at that time. Part one establishes the friendship between the main characters: Thomas and Jenna.

Part two begins to …

We Take Back The Moon, Zoey Jean Adam

Selected Full-Text Master Theses 2021-

My creative manuscript, tentatively known as We Take Back the Moon, is an in-progress fantasy novel in verse. Set in a world not like our own where the only bipedal inhabitants are elves, it is a tale of two best friends contending with a society where those who lack the ability to use magic are sentenced to the Colony—essentially a prison camp. Chkal, one of the protagonists, was a child prodigy in magic and still lives in the Capital, while her best friend, Esari, was sent away at age thirteen to the Colony. The story follows Chkal’s struggle with her …

Spellbound: A Collection Of Poems, Julie Alden Cullinane

The Graduate Review

This collection was written in the Fall 2021 semester of the Poetry Workshop given by Professor John Mulrooney. These 10 poems were a collection I worked on this semester and completed a cyclical personal cycle of work regarding the life of a student-mother-sister-daughter-employee.

Dispatch From Flipping A Record, Nicholas Howard

The Graduate Review

“Dispatch From Flipping A Record" is a flash creative non-fiction piece written in first person. It opens with me holding a vinyl record between my two hands, poised to flip it over, but not rushing through this liminal moment. I ruminate on the intentionality of this space between songs. Next, I cast my gaze down onto the tracks carved in wax and compare them to a poem I am drafting back on my desk. The former is fixed and finished. The latter is rough and fluid. I draw hope for my poem that it too can have space to step …

Little Sun: A Poetry Collection, Lillian Aff

Scripps Senior Theses

N/A

The Bad Place And The Not Place, Andrew Maudal

Dissertations and Theses

Do we, as an audience, gravitate toward apocalyptic settings to connect with outlying characters that defy the odds to survive the impossible? Or is it instead to fantasize about what we would do without societal norms, without rules, and without anything to hold us back. In my writing, I endeavor to walk the line of absolute bleakness and hopeful change while focusing on the compassion forged through friendship. Literary critics have long argued that society oppresses the lower class through laws, social upbringing, and cultural institutes. In youth a struggle forms within us between how we want our true selves …

War: A Short Story, Raghav Sinha '24

Distinguished Student Work - Visual Arts

On a cold, dreary November night, the United States Air Force Base at Maui, Hawaii prepares for another mission. The year is 1941 and the world is in a complex war. Pilots and bombers sprint to their assigned planes, preparing for takeoff. The sky is gray with dark clouds and an overwhelming feeling of dread hangs in the air. The wind was beating against the aircraft. The planes gathered into a line before the runway. The third warplane in line for takeoff, a spotless steel B-17 bomber, held a crew of ten. The plane was called “Bugs” as it was …

Hymnal Of Teeth: Southern Stories Of Folk And Fey, James E. Phillips Iii

Honors Undergraduate Theses

We are the stories we tell. Folk and fairy tales are reflections of the cultures that pass them down. Contemporary literary traditions, such as the Southern Gothic and tales of magical realism, also provide unique ways of responding to concerns within our society. This thesis attempts to merge these literary traditions to create a collection of Southern folk and fairy tales. These stories vary in style from very traditional fairy tales to more modern styles of magical realism and lyrical poetry. This collection was crafted after studying an extensive reading list of novels and short story collections written by masters …

On Your Painted Wings, Sandra M. Ford

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore historical issues of Cuban restrictions on emigration through a magical realism lens. Drawing inspiration from Cuban-American writer Ana Menéndez and Columbian writer Gabriel García Márquez, this thesis focuses on family relationships, especially how grief shapes those relationships and the people in them. The thesis approaches these issues of family, grief, and Cuban emigration by weaving a more grounded central narrative with an original fairytale.

La Carroza Dorada (The Golden Carriage), Camila Cal Mello

Honors Undergraduate Theses

La Carroza Dorada (The Golden Carriage) is a collection of essays and poetry that details the narrator’s life growing up as an immigrant from Uruguay in the United States. Through each piece, the narrator explores themes in her own life relating to family, grief, self-identity, gender roles, language, distance, and more that directly relate to the perspective of a young immigrant. Inevitably, these personal themes connect to broader issues that affect every immigrant such as the Latinx experience, familial hardships, social/economic class differences, and cultural differences. The narrator explores the American Dream and the balancing act between dream and reality …

Good Patients, Susan Mesler-Evans

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis is the first 21 chapters (approximately 150 pages) of a novel, Good Patients, accompanied by a complete synopsis. Good Patients is a social satire which seeks to touch on the flaws of the American healthcare system and social media culture, and how these two intersect for many people. To prepare for writing, I spent my first semester completing a guided reading list and preparing the synopsis, both of which were approved by my thesis chair. While writing, I consulted several medical articles to make my work as accurate as possible. The novel explores the way social media …

Authoring Inclusion: The Sonnet's Shifting Form, Aloysius Devine

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The history of canonical love poetry is inaccurate without the inclusion of minoritized groups. The relevance of the sonnet’s incomplete history and its lingering impact on contemporary poetry are not examined enough within academia. The sonnet is taught through white-, straight-, and cisgender-centered lenses, contributing to the erasure of historically relevant sonneteers who do not align with these identities. This thesis celebrates the diverse history of sonneteering, while drawing attention to the remaining narrow-mindedness within the poetic community. This thesis dismantles traditional elements of the sonnet through varying form, subject matter, and stylistic choices.

When viewed in the physical form, …

I’M Not A Tragedy: Speaking Up About Ableist Microaggressions, Kasandra Marguerite Colwell

Communication Senior Capstones

Have you heard of ableist microaggressions? Let me tell you about them, as someone who has experienced them. I have a bi-lateral dislocating knee condition that I was born with. I can walk, but sometimes I need additional stability or reduction of pain while getting around, in which case I tend to use a cane. I have had many othering interactions while using a mobility aid in public, whether that be a knee brace, a cane, or crutches. While it often seemed the stranger didn’t mean any harm, the question is how many invasive questions and comments from strangers can …

The Influence Of Words, Emilie Hewgley

Emerging Writers

"The Influence of Words" tells the tale of a young writer overcoming her fear of mediocrity and discovering validation within an art form. She tells of how she first discovered her talent, why she pushed it away, and how she learned to embrace it again. The piece argues that words have the ability to impact many in several ways and lists several examples from her own life to illustrate this point. This creative nonfiction story serves to encourage others to continue to pursue their dreams despite their own doubts.

And The World Will Keep Spinning, Jasey Seitz

Emerging Writers

This creative nonfiction article is a study in grief and what it means to lose a friend.

Joanne Kyger And “The Kook Strain” In Olson: A Reading, Patrick James Dunagan

Gleeson Library Faculty and Staff Research and Scholarship

Jerome Rothenberg's "that dada strain" at once hilarious grandiose epic lyric historical and ever adventurous charts the highs discovered in his reading of the dada era. In like occurrence this writing seeks to poke around in the occult cupboards of Olson's mystical leanings. Looking not only at his work and assorted readings/engagements but delving also into the works of various others (Joanne Kyger, Jack Hirschman, Paul Blackburn, Gerrit Lansing, David Meltzer, Robert Duncan, Diane di Prima, Robin Blaser et al) who fell in alongside as well as after his work's star-eyed haul. Loquaciously gifted as a talker, how much (if …

Drift, Pilar Randolph

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

A Strange Object That Breaks Your Heart: Short Stories, Annie Sheneman

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Pagan Poets, A Dream, And The Beautiful Young, Michael Hass

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Three poems that were published in volume 64, issue 3-4, "Psyche Speaks", of the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Perspectives.

Bodies Of Clay, Noor Ur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

A little boy named Armaghaan grows in a fictional tribal village Kashmala along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan during the seventies and eighties. His father Roshaan Khan and mother Shandana are living together in a conflicted marriage. Their desires and needs are at odds with each other, and their children suffer at the cost. Armaghaan observes his parents and elders, explores the physical environment of Kashmala and tries to grapple with his circumstances. The story of Armaghaan's childhood and adolescence plays in the backdrop of the USSR-Afghan War. Though the war itself doesn't become the focus of the narrative, …

All Scientists Should Write Poetry: Creative Writing As Essential Academic Practice, Mariya Deykute

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Creative writing in undergraduate academics has often been regarded as an elective practice that has benefits primarily for students who plan to pursue creative or literary majors. However, poetic inquiry specifically offers crucial benefits to STEM students, owing both to the transformative nature of poetic process and to the way poetic inquiry can stimulate innovative, ethical, multilingual and interdisciplinary growth. The author frames the issue through individual experience of teaching poetry to STEM undergraduates in the context of a rich multilingual environment, in which many students are fluent or proficient in several languages. The author argues that due to the …

Front Matter - Jaepl Volume 27, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Front Matter

Spring Break In Chernobyl: Urbex, Apocalypse, And Materiality In Writing Classrooms, K Shannon Howard

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The practice of urban exploration, or urbex—an activity in which we confront and document landscapes of ruin and make meaning from them—acts as a focal point through which students may investigate and write about the world surrounding them by gaining new perspectives of physical spaces and objects that often go ignored in daily living. More importantly, urbex inspires writing that responds to existing problems in our world (resource scarcity, lack of sustainability, and environmental trauma) while also helping students to conceptualize a better one.

Toward A Decolonial Creative Writing Workshop: Mbari As A Case Study In Examining Intercultural Models For Arts Education, James W. Ryan, Steve Westbrook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The creative writing workshop has been the subject of sustained critique for its tendency to reproduce dominant cultural norms, especially in spaces where admissions to the workshop do not reflect local ethnic and cultural diversity. In an effort to aid the search for alternate models/foundations for creative writing instructions, the authors turn to the history of mbari, a cultural practice among the Owerri Igbo of Nigeria, which was briefly adapted into the pedagogical foundation for a visual arts workshop conducted between the time of Nigeria’s independence and the onset of its civil war. In its original form, mbari was a …

Jaepl Vol 27 Table Of Contents, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

TOC

A Meditation: Why Teach?, Joonna Smitherman Trapp

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

What makes teaching a vocation that continues to draw smart and talented people even though the pay can be less-than-great, the workload damaging, and the rewards from societal and political opinion currently nonexistent? Frederick Buechner, a presbyterian minister, talks about the notion of vocation in his well-known book, Wishful Thinking. Our English word “vocation” comes from vocare, a Latin word meaning “to call,” and Buechner further defines the word as signifying “the work” we are “called to do” (118). I’m always amazed at my university that teachers haven’t heard about this idea. To them, vocation smacks of career-mindedness and doesn’t …