Creative Writing Commons^™

Punch Cigar Box, Talie Wilkinson

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Existential Fear, Kaisha Gerhardt

The Oval

No abstract provided.

The Annex, A. C. Moore

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Hilda House, Lukas Prinos

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Excavation, Loran Schneiter

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Have You Been Over Preoccupied With Heaven, Dylan Running Crane

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Unabashedly Solemn, Nance Beston

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Unabashedly Solemn, Nance Beston

The Oval

No abstract provided.

Through Undertale To Interactive Storytelling: The Effect Of Game Design On Secondary Students’ Perceptions Of Creative Writing, Terrell Page Jr.

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

Videogames have emerged as a globally influential storytelling medium, as evinced by the success of story-driven games like Undertale, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Last of Us II. This medium needs creative writers who can learn to think like game designers. But, recognizing that not all creative writers will pursue a career in game design, this project studied the impact of thinking like a game designer on the way creative writing students approach their craft. Drawing on a variety of videogames and genres, this project focused on the potential of world-building and player choice to …

In The Woods, Aron Liebig

Fiction MFA Theses

The anthology of 11 short stories delves deep into the intricacies of identity and the enigmatic landscape of the American South. Each narrative unfolds against the backdrop of the region, exploring the tangled webs of relationships, the weight of tradition, and the enduring struggle for self-discovery. In rural Mississippi, Kerry navigates the minefield of personal insecurities amidst simmering familial tensions, while Chris confronts the ghosts of his past, testing the resilience of their bond. Meanwhile, tensions escalate in a casino encounter between Javi and a predatory figure, unearthing deeper layers of trauma and prejudice, challenging societal norms and personal beliefs. …

As You Lay There In Your Blood, Eden Shulman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As You Lay There in Your Blood is a novel consisting of six interconnected stories, as well as a novella. The novel follows Levi Sterne, a Jewish bodybuilder in rural Colorado, who deals with issues surrounding mental illness, family history, and the legacy of trauma. The novel explores themes of religion—particularly contemporary modes and forms of Judaism—as well as the relationships people develop from traumatic and difficult pasts. The novel follows Levi from his childhood and details the moment at which, at age 15, he’s abandoned by his mother. The stories then follow other important moments in Levi’s life, including …

Child And Adolescent Literature: An Exploration, Debra D. Murphy

ATU Faculty OER Books and Materials

No abstract provided.

Teleios, Sandra Edwards

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis is a collection of poetry that mixes formal and free verse in order to convey the speaker’s spiritual journey in content as well as form. The work introduces a speaker who is deeply religious and who expresses her spirituality in the form of formal poetry such as sonnets as she adheres to certain principles of faith. The use of form in the thesis represents her adherence to those principles, while breaking form is symbolic of her breaking away from those principles. Through the work, the speaker experiences a shift from frustration with the world and its apparent obfuscation …

A Muzzle For The Lamb: A Novel, Scott Beggs

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Iron Curtains: A Novel Of Germany, 1989, John G. Dodson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A work of fiction. A story of Love, Treachery, and Freedom on the East German border in 1989. Iron Curtains is a story of four individuals in East and West Germany brought together by an espionage investigation and the revolution in East Germany which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Iron Curtain on November 9, 1989. Their stories ultimately intersect as the year passes and culminate in an escape through a tunnel underneath the East German border. There are four main characters and several secondary characters who help drive the story forward by their interaction with the …

Distant Suns: Eva Peng Part I, Daniel Monzingo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Distant Suns: Eva Peng Part I is the first part of a novel-in-progress. Eva Peng Part I covers the first half of one of four nested stories. It was written with a critical preface in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

Coffins And Conditioner, Mackenzie Scott

Graduate Thesis Collection

Coffins and Conditioner is part one of a modern fantasy story follows a latine, nonbinary hairdresser named Mura Saiz whose entire clientele consists of supernatural entities like werewolves, vampires, and fae. When a fight breaks out in their salon and catches the attention of a new surveillance program meant to destroy those very same supernatural entities, Mura realizes that they must give up their own peace of mind and physical safety to protect their clients. During their journey, Mura must learn how to juggle the secrets they keep within the salon with their now-suspicious chosen family while also making time …

Fling The Emptiness Out Of Your Arms, Kelsey Hennegen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of 121 pages of poetry, divided into five Books (Book I: Invocation, Book II: Jane Doe, Book III: Madwoman, Book IV: The Daughter, and Book V: For The New Year). It was developed over the course of my time in the MFA program at Boise State University.

Thanks For Watching, Hannah Lucille Phillips

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

These novel pages follow Dani, a twenty-seven-year-old middle school teacher whose life is uprooted when her high school best friend Gia—now a famous YouTuber—reappears, seeking refuge from her abusive, highly public marriage. As Dani finds herself pulled into Gia's online world, the key witness in a trial by social media, she struggles to make peace with her own buried past, as well as the devastating role Gia played in it. The novel explores a wide range of complicated relationships, both mended and torn apart at the hands of our modern Internet era, and asks: can we really forgive in a …

Lagos Will Be Hard For You, Ayotola Tehingbola

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Lagos Will Be Hard For You is a collection of short stories. The genre is literary fiction and it is about 40,000 words.

An almost-blind mother pawns her daughter off to save her. A grieving son must bury his Muslim father in twenty-four hours in the thick of winter. A doctor battles to save her partner from himself. Desperation makes a young businesswoman seek out a spiritual experience. Domi(natrix) wants to give life to her sexual kinks in her repressive household. The weight of the word “slave” is put to the test during a first date in conservative Idaho. Death …

In The Backyard, Daisy Clar Rosenstock

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

A collection of poems that explore the fluidity of the speaker’s rising and changing memories of their midwestern backyard.

The Generational Identity Crisis: A Novel, Hankun Chen

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis is a novel set in 2032 China, where people are experiencing huge social declines and identity crises, and additionally, a technology to digitize consciousness is gaining popularity. The protagonist of the novel lose contact with his friend in the digital world, and he receives an anonymous indestructible jar one day with a label that keeps changing to direct him to different locations. In his search for his friends and the secret of the jar, he realizes that the clues are all related to things he is familiar with from the old days. During that adventure, which occurs to …

Anti-Thesis: When Your Worst Moments Become Your Best Work, Abigail Williamson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

My honors capstone project expands the creative work of a major writing assignment in English 3170: Successful Freelance Magazine Writing, which was modeled after Susan Shapiro’s “Humiliation Essay.” Shapiro’s signature assignment encourages students to write about an embarrassing or upsetting moment with the aim to force sincerity and humility. She writes, “It encourages students to shed vanity and pretension and relive an embarrassing moment that makes them look silly, fearful, fragile or naked.” The humiliation essay, she claims, often leads to publication because the conflict of the assignment inspires writers, and the narrator’s self-insight that occurs during the process of …

Gertrude Stein: Autobiography And Play, Ryleigh Thornton

Honors Theses

By using Gertrude Stein’s two autobiographies, this thesis attempts to examine the use and evolution of play in writing. In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, play stands within the language and games that Stein invites her readers to engage in. By using Roger Caillois’ characteristics of play, Stein’s writing can be seen as different from the high, serious modernism at the time with writers like William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot. After the publication of Toklas, Stein reverted into a crippling writer’s block because she could no longer find interest in the world to think and write about. However, after …

Instead Of Holding, Joyce Safdiah

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

In My Free Time I Haunt The Hurricane House, Kashi Bakshani

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Downstream, Jay Green

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Watershed/Waterspout, Kirry Kaufer

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Things That Bother Me, Lauren Royce

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

Kristen Gentry’S Mama Said: A Review, Lili Gourley

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.