Creative Writing Commons^™

A Small Oasis Behind The Ocean, Willow Bermudez

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Pelican, Caden Vandygrift

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Preface & Table Of Contents, Furman University

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Outlook, Daniel Chen

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Cover

The Echo

No abstract provided.

Echo 2026 - Complete Issue

The Echo

No abstract provided.

The Things That Keep Me Up At Night, Kaitlyn Grace Wilson

Masters Theses

This creative nonfiction manuscript is a collection of reflective personal essays centered on ordinary experiences, curiosities, anxieties, and observations that gradually expand into larger questions about identity, memory, adulthood, faith, and human behavior. Rather than relying on dramatic plot or chronological structure, the essays move associatively through thought, humor, research, and reflection. Subjects throughout the manuscript range from fireworks, sourdough starter, dreams, and Facebook Marketplace to art history, floating the Chattahoochee River, weddings, music performances, and irrational fears. Through these seemingly small topics, the manuscript explores the emotional weight and philosophical questions hidden within everyday life.

Much of the project …

What Cannot Be Returned Witnessing Forgotten Wrongs Against Native Americans Through Narrative And Historical Memory, Haley Marie Cranman

Masters Theses

What Cannot Be Returned is a hybrid creative nonfiction thesis that examines forgotten and often minimized injustices committed against Native American communities throughout American history. Through a combination of historical research, witness literature, and fictionalized narrative, this project explores events including the California genocide, the Long Walk of the Navajo, Osage oil exploitation, Indian boarding schools, forced sterilization, the Sand Creek Massacre, the Trail of Tears, and Wounded Knee. The thesis argues that while these losses—land, language, family, identity, autonomy, and life—cannot be undone, they must be remembered with honesty and care. Grounded in archival records, government documents, survivor accounts, …

Longlines, Morgan Tharp '26

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

Morgan Tharp is a Senior English-Writing and Political Science double major. In her free time, she enjoys running for DePauw's cross country and track teams and reading.

On Mild Weather, Morgan Tharp '26

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

Morgan Tharp is a Senior English-Writing and Political Science double major. In her free time, she enjoys running for DePauw's cross country and track teams and reading.

How To Spend A Year Of Your Twenties Without A Car, Jane Duffy '26

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

Jane Duffy is an English Writing and Studio Art double major at DePauw University. She is a painter, a creative writer, and the Editor-in-chief of A Midwestern Review for her fourth year of involvement. She enjoys hiking, drinking coffee, travelling, and creating things inspired by observation of the world around her.

Creative Nonfiction Essays, Colby S. Langley

Honors Theses

To write about the present with any authority requires a keen eye for the past. To write from our lives into meaningful creative nonfiction requires a firm understanding that experience is the composite of life experience blending into the current moment. The writing is then drawn irreversibly towards emotion: indulgent and oppressive. The extremity of emotion dictates the difficulty of transcribing the experience onto the page, and violence is a source of both extreme emotion and experience. It is important to note that I am primarily considering personal violence for this essay, while societal and institutional violence have their own …

Mondays At Moore's, Jane Duffy '26

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

Jane Duffy is an English Writing and Studio Art double major at Depauw University. She is a painter, a creative writer, and the Editor-in-chief of A Midwestern Review for her fourth year of involvement. She enjoys hiking, drinking coffee, travelling, and creating things inspired by observation of the world around her.

Broken Nose, Addison Elliott '29

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

Addi Elliott is a writer based in Indiana whose work centers on short creative nonfiction. Through concise, image-driven storytelling, they capture vivid memories and explore family experiences. Drawing from lives, their work reflects storytelling as preservation and reinvention, creating pieces that linger and reveal the quiet complexity beneath everyday moments.

The Lantern, 2025-2026, Naila Twyman, Rach Wascoe, Lauren Macallister, Owen Fazzini, Sidney Belleroche, Jordyn Chaise, Christopher Gerrow, Catherine Stump, Madeline O'Connor, Shiloh Bloom, Luke Peloquin, Benjamin Warner, Sasha Schweitzer-Weeks, Andrew Mihniak, Adrienne Dyer, Gregory Dervinis, Neil Hutchinson, Olive Neri, Daniel Barry, Izabella Entrekin, Vienna Gurev, Ash Hawkes, Bowie Dake, Mike Davis, Anita Farrell, Daniel Mcgrath, Taylor Rainer, Sharon Gearhart, Sophia Bush, Caitlin Cunnane, Olive Sturm, Hayden James, Alex Kolb, Gianna M. Scotto, Casey Kracz

The Lantern Literary Magazines, 1933 to Present

Acceptance • The Negro Mermaid • Rubber Rosebud • Exposing the Smoker with Acne Scars • Alarms Down • Dress Rehearsal • Drowning in the Depths • I'm Stuck on the London Eye 'Cause My Paperwork's Got Inconsistencies and They Won't Let Me Get Off • Loose Change in a Pickle Jar • Marge Returned on a Tuesday • One Call Away • Regression to the Mean • Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold • That Which Lurks • To Write a Wrong • Vines Above Us • What Must Be Done • Lullaby to Acceptance • To Sooth …

Narratives Of Dis-Ease: A Genre Study Of Pathography, Sylvelyn Jo A. Almanzor

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

This essay establishes pathography as a distinct genre of creative nonfiction, tracing the development, form, and cultural significance of this body of literature. I have broadly defined it as narratives on personal experiences of Gabriel Marcel's "dis-ease"—covering and critiquing the human understanding and experience of sickness, pain, and grief—which has evolved from autobiographical narratives and life-writing of patients and medical professionals to a recognized form of creative nonfiction. This study will analyze the genre's structure, themes, and rhetorical strategies with consideration to cultural significance and how it negotiates the human understanding of suffering, healing, and societal attitudes toward existence and …

Learning To Love, Addelyn M. Maxwell

Emerging Writers

The article describes the author's personal memory of meeting her new baby sister.

How Losing My Phone Saved My Life

Emerging Writers

The author describes their journey through a mental health episode, choosing treatment, and concluding a stay at a health support facility. Please note that the author has chosen to publish under a pen name to protect their privacy.

Starting The Engine, Rowan Rodgers

Emerging Writers

This is a nonfiction narrative about how the author gained and grew their motivation for fine arts and education. The piece discusses early obstacles in school and how the author eventually overcame them with newfound skills and supporters.

Rooted In Silence: Listening To Landscapes That Remember, Jaylen A. Wyatt

FUSION

For this American Literature assignment, the author responded to the question: “How do natural landscapes preserve memory?” To do so, he wrote a non-fiction personal essay featuring several course selections read during the semester. The author argues that ultimately we must take care of these natural landscapes, and the environment at large, so that their memory can live on.

Everything Else You Left Behind, Anna Kate Daunt

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

My Father’S War Story, Denis Bell

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Trembling Leaf, Heart In A Cage, Tatiana Chaterji

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

When The Streetlights Come On, Bob Kelsoe

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Look At Yourself, Martha Krausz

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Conversation With My Dead Mother, Carroll Ann Susco

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Times At The Drive-In, Brian C. Petti

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Lunchtime, Judith Shapiro

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Red Snow Day, Jon Michael Johnson

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Arrivals, Leslie Theibert Cooles

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.