Creative Writing Commons^™

Old Rooms And Older Memories, Samuel Erickson

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Samuel Erickson is a junior at DePauw University. They have a passion for writing poetry and creative fiction, and had a poem, “The Park Bench,” published in A Midwestern Review in the fall of 2022. Erickson is a non-binary author and often incorporates their life experience as a queer person into their works.

Eternal Colleagues, Audrey Ickes

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Audrey Ickes is a junior at DePauw University, majoring in English writing and double minoring in history and communications. She is a member of the sorority, Alpha Phi. She is also the Outreach Coordinator for Tiger Catholic and co-hosts a WGRE radio show. These are her first published works.

Learning To Shower, Taylor Cripe

A Midwestern Review: A Magazine of the Arts and Issues at DePauw University

Taylor Cripe is in DePauw's class of 2026. She is pursuing an English writing major with a religious studies bridged major. Although she dabbles in fiction writing, she prefers poetry for the nuanced and intuitive way it conveys its themes. She is excited to be a part of this semester’s edition of A Midwestern Review.

Illuminations, Kristina Michelle Thoman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Abstract: Illumination is the multi-general story of a Jewish family, and their oral traditions. The story will trace the family from just before the biblical exodus, through the holocaust, and follow them to modern day America. The family will face antisemitism at each place in history along the way, losing a child to the pharaoh's cruel decree to slay the male children of the Hebrew slaves, narrowly escaping a death camp in the holocaust, and finally facing growing anti-Jewish hate in America. In the last act of the story, the family will be faced with the question, if you are …

A Million Little Griefs, Justine Hayes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A Million Little Griefs is a poetry collection that explores themes of time, place and identity through personal experiences and observations of a young mother living cross-culturally in Malawi, Africa. The book is divided into the three sections, Embrace, Ground, and Release (EGR,) which create a cyclical trajectory that serves as a guide for walking through transitions and new experiences.

Coffee Black & Melancholy Bright, Lisha Elizabeth Mccurry

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A hybrid memoir encompassing a collection of personal essays and poetry that tells a story of depression, grief, and family intersecting in a journey through destruction and healing.

The Quiet And Other Fantastical Tales, Emily Nicole Cerda

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis briefly discusses the genres and subgenres of speculative fiction—focusing on fantasy, horror, and science fiction—and is primarily a short story collection that also includes a few novel chapters. The critical introduction delves into the present and overly complex subgenre categorization methods, how and why new subgenres are created, and provides simple definitions for the main genres of speculative fiction and fantasy subgenres.

The subgenres that will be discussed through either a short story, novel chapter(s), or definition include, but are not limited to: fairytales, portal fantasy, paranormal romance, dark fantasy, historical fantasy, magical realism, epic fantasy, mythic fiction, …

The Wackiness Of Wacky World, Michael Dan Mccormick

Theses and Dissertations

This critical introduction takes a closer look at the situations presented in my manuscript “Wacky World” and offer insight on the actions seen from the main character. This insight is meant to clear confusion as to whether or not the character can be viewed as a heroic figure and explore his personality to draw conclusions. “Wacky World”, a full-length play, tells the story of a man with an obsession with a defunct theme park and the deranged actions that he takes in order to prevent its demolition.

I explore the topic on whether or not sympathy …

Smoke And Mirrors, Adara London

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

When a human trafficking ring comes to town, a grieving graduate student must choose between investigating on her own to save her sister or leaving the investigation to her impassive cop boyfriend.

A Scorpion's Sting: Coming-Of-Age Vignettes Focalized On Modern Las Vegas Youth Culture, Vlada Stark

Undergraduate Research Symposium Podium Presentations

Explored themes: mother and daughter relationships, large immigrant community in Las Vegas, adolescent platonic and romantic relationships, hardships of girlhood, abundancy of sex work, increased substance abuse, importance of creative youth culture, disparity between Las Vegas as a city and local life.

Dish Pit, Leah Beecher

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Serenading Flesh, Zoe Lavallee

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

An Ode To The Not-Me // Some Of The Things That I Do Not Know // To The Weeds That Might Be In...My Garden, Kendall Cruise

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Lethal // Boiling Over, Mollie Mcmullan

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

As Mother's Flowers Rot, Elianiz Torres

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Overdose, Lauren Basile

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

The Black Garden, Madalene Klocke

Theses

“The Black Garden” is a novel-length fantasy fiction work. It follows the narrative of Ryan, an 18-year-old girl, who has great expectations for what her first year at university will hold. Her entire world view is tilted when she attends a party with her new roommate, Blair, and wakes up in an unfamiliar place. Ryan must fight to keep her sanity as she is thrust into the world of faeries, witches, and far worse creatures than she could have ever imagined: including her parents.

Big Screen Heroes With Paper Voices: A Superhero Adaptation Research Essay, Zachary Green

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Superheroes may have taken over your phone, tablet, and television screens through the endless adaptations that pelt us from upon high mouse-shaped ears, but their rich history goes back much further than that; they have gripped the public imagination since their creation in comic strips published in newspapers almost one-hundred years ago. But, why exactly has their effect on popular culture, and their subsequent adaptations in various forms of media been so pervasive in the last twenty-five years? What makes these stories and comic book characters, and particularly Marvel comic book characters, so interesting to modern audiences? This essay demonstrates …

F Is For Frida: An Illustrated Guide Of Women Artists From A To Z, Emily Kohls

Master of Liberal Studies Projects

F is for Frida: An Illustrated Guide of Women Artists from A to Z is an illustrated children’s book that aims to teach young readers the alphabet and about art history by presenting to them a diverse range of women artists from the Baroque period to the modern day.

Each letter of the alphabet is accompanied by a portrait and brief biographical description of a woman artist whose name corresponds to that letter. The visuals of the book were designed to make the reader feel like they are viewing artwork in a gallery. For example, each portrait has been made …

Arts & Literature: The Haunts Of Biafra Photography, Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Reflecting On Academic Freedom Through Fiction: A Theatrical Exploration Of The Blurry Contours Of The Freedom To Teach, Julie Paquin, Maude Choko

The Qualitative Report

This article aims at exploring the contribution that creative forms of research can make to the study of a little-known aspect of academic freedom in the Canadian context – academic freedom in curriculum development. It seeks to address the methodological challenge posed by research on academic freedom, that is, the fact that any academic writing on this topic necessarily draws initially, though not exclusively, from the researchers’ own experiences and perspectives. The article brings to life a fictional faculty meeting, during which questions about academic freedom in teaching are discussed. Although this meeting is the product of our imagination, its …

In Yellow: A Solo Poem-Play, Emily Kitchens

Faculty Articles

“In Yellow” was developed in the INKubator residency at Art House Productions (Jersey City, NJ) in 2019 with the following blurb:

In Yellow is a solo poem-play about a relationship between a young woman and a ceramic doll her grandmother made that she has just accidentally broken. It is about grief. It is about breaking out of generationally instilled feminine values. It is about the color yellow. It’s all true.

“In Yellow” is an experiment of a poem and play for one voice. I was in New York City for about 10 years, before that The Bay Area, but am …

Truth From Fiction: The Apologetic Use Of Christian Allegorical Literature In The 21st Century, Terri Nicole Boutte

Masters Theses

Christian allegorical literature is a genre that explores apologetic claims in a unique and creative way. Although this genre has attracted many readers over the years, there is hesitation and reluctancy to accept Christian allegorical literature as a genre that should be used as an apologetic method. Namely, the didactic intent of this genre has caused some critics to question whether Christian allegorical literature promotes critical reading and thinking skills in a way that leads readers to make their own spiritual decisions. Some skeptics believe that sharing theistic truths that are disguised by fictional storylines is a creative way to …

Baby Steps, Amy Neufeld

The Goose

A creative non-fiction piece about childbirth and walking, situating the self and the new child, and climate anxiety and fear for the future.

Fungi Moves, Night Crawler, Tree Futures, Petra Kuppers

The Goose

Three Gothic Eco-Poems by Petra Kuppers.

Reflections From A Maternity Leave: The Complex History Of Beaver Dam Flats And Refinery Park, Emily Ursuliak

The Goose

A personal essay reflecting on my relationship with Refinery Park and Beaver Dam Flats in light of its complex history.

Because The Muddiness Of Mud Must Be Uttered: A Personal Essay, Dorothy Ellen Palmer

The Goose

"Because the Muddiness of Mud Must Be Uttered," by disabled senior writer Dorothy Ellen Palmer, is a personal, braided, nonfiction essay tracing how her access to and understanding of moving on land has been shaped by ableism, ageism, and the pandemic.

Tetrapod: Adapted For Locomotion Across Land, Amy Wang

The Goose

Poetry by Amy Wang.

Two Poems, Nicholas Bradley

The Goose

Poetry by Nicholas Bradley

Surface Tension, Kerry Ryan

The Goose

"Surface Tension" is a piece of creative nonfiction by Kerry Ryan.