Fiction Commons^™

The Lantern And The Sword, Michael Chisholm

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

A creation myth of a new universe where brother deities of light and darkness battle for dominance. Light creates a Lantern to illuminate all reality and Darkness creates a Sword to help control the extent of the light. The god of light then creates a champion to lead his forces against his dark brother and the war intensifies. In his struggle the champion discovered he could control not only light but the darkness as well. He created a dark fire with great power to match the deities. Light and darkness come together and create peace and a balance. The champion …

Front Matter, Toyon Literary Magazine

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

No abstract provided.

Haiti And The Early American Imagination, Michael Drexler

Faculty Contributions to Books

No abstract provided.

Blend It Like Beckett: Samuel Beckett And Experimental Contemporary Creative Writing, Sam Nicole Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Samuel Beckett penned novels, short stories, poetry, stage plays, radio plays, and scripts—and he did each in a way that blended genre, challenged the norms of creative writing, and surprised audiences around the globe. His experimental approach to creative writing included the use of absurdism, genre-hybridization, and ergodicism, which led to Beckett fundamentally changing the approach to creative writing. His aesthetics have trickled down through the years and can be seen in contemporary works, including Aimee Bender’s short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel House of Leaves[1]. By examining these works …

Fruit Fly, Amie S. Reilly

English Faculty Publications

A fruit fly has been hovering around my face for days, though maybe it isn’t the same fruit fly, since I’ve been told that fruit flies only live for twenty-four hours, yet there it is ...

Satori 2020, Shannon Laurance, Sara Severson, Hailey Seipel, Mike Desch, Annette Deyo, Nicole Tompos, Jena Archer, Megan Martin, Abbey Johnson, Carly Weber, Sara Severson, Mike Desch, Kimberly Coffee, Dahlia Garofalo

Satori Literary Magazine

The Satori is a student literary publication that expresses the artistic spirit of the students of Winona State University. Student poetry, prose, and graphic art are published in the Satori every spring since 1970.

Caught In The Middle: Existentialism In A Contemporary Fantasy, Hannah Depauw 20

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Entertainment Media Perceptions Of Minorities In Young Adult Adaptations, Kynnadie Bennett

Honors College Theses

This is an exploration of stereotypical and racist portrayals of minorities, specifically African-American, Latinx, and Native American communities, in film and television in the past and how that has affected representation in film adaptations of young adult literature. Young adult literature is one of the highest-selling genres in literature, purchased by both young adults and actual adults. In recent years, young adult literature has been adapted into film and television series and while representation has improved since the early years of entertainment history, there are still problems in the industry: many of the stereotypes remain, some minorities lack representation, and …

The Music Of Character Development And Point Of View, Rebecca Padgett

English Creative Writing Theses

For my thesis, I have written a novel and (accompanying analysis essay) that examines Nashville’s country music scene from Broadway to Music Row. Through the use of a third person narrator and multiple points of view, I delve into the lives of Broadway musicians, songwriters and touring artists.

Volume 52 (2020), C.V. Davis

The Broad River Review

The 2020 edition of The Broad River Review was edited by C. V. Davis. The publication contains fiction, non-fiction, art, poetry, and photography. The cover, "One More Cup of Coffee Before I Go to the Valley Below," was photographed by Peter Kahn. The Foothills Poetry Award is chosen among submissions from regional high school students. The winner of the Foothills Poetry Award is Myla Athitang for the poem titled, "Sticky Rice." The Rash Awards, named in honor of Ron Rash, a 1976 graduate of Gardner-Webb University, are awarded annually for outstanding works in poetry and fiction. The 2019 award recipients …

Primrose And Other Stories, Demetra Koras

Graduate Thesis Collection

Primrose and Other Stories is a short story collection that explores themes of family, loss, and legacy.

Zephyrus, Western Kentucky University

Student Creative Writing

The fine arts magazine of Western Kentucky University at Bowling Green.

Unsettling The American Old West: Women Of Color Write The Archives, Alison Turner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation gathers Louise Erdrich’s Four Souls (2004), Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men (1977), and Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive (2019) into a literary corpus that I call postwestern histories. Building on scholarship that situates these novels in Native American, Chinese American, and Mexican/American literary traditions, I show how these novels simultaneously cross bounds of ethnic literary genres to unsettle a dominating narrative of the United States West that roots Anglo expansionist experiences as foundational in archives, historiographies, and literary canons. This unsettling occurs in postwestern histories through three shared characteristics: prioritization of communities that are underrepresented in archival holdings, …

Going For Wood, Molly Vaux

Bryant Literary Review

I.

I would never have chosen a window seat, but there I was, staring at great banks of clouds while the plane, rocked by invisible currents, sailed upward.

Mud And Truth, Hannah Kass

Bryant Literary Review

Tsofi knew the story since her mother began telling it to her and her brother almost every night. Other villagers would notice how her people did not eat the same meat or observe the same day of rest. In her mind those differences were as arbitrary as preferring to eat lamb or chicken. Yet such arbitrary reasons had sparked the most violent of reactions.

An Open Letter To The White Feminists Holding A Literary Panel On Toni Morrison, Matthew E. Henry

Bryant Literary Review

look to your left, your right—where

are her sisters? why are they missing?

A Sweet Kid, William Torphy

Bryant Literary Review

I wait anxiously in the United terminal sipping a cup of coffee and feeling ungrounded. My nephew’s flight from Baltimore is late because of a severe weather system over the Midwest. My sister Kat tells me that Justin has become very selfish, even for a teenager, and that he lies and constantly tries to manipulate.

The Cast Of A Giant's Shadow, Angela Kay Steineman

Masters Theses

Adapting fairy tales and folklore has been an ongoing endeavor by storytellers and artists since the very first story was repeated. The evidence can be seen in the many versions of fairy tales like those of the sleeping beauty, from Giambattista Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” to Walt Disney’s Maleficent. However, unlike their European counterparts, adaptations of American tales outside of children’s literature are not as ubiquitous. My writing rectifies this by adding to the resurging interest as seen in recent retellings like Matt Bell’s Appleseed: The Monstrous Birth (2019).

In an effort to reframe the American tall tale …

Jaffa Coffee, Tehila Wenger

Bryant Literary Review

The waitress placed the cappuccino down carefully on my left, next to the open computer. I glanced into the mug and noted that there was no design in the foam. My anticipation for the caffeinating process dropped immediately by several degrees, along with my belief in the basic goodness of mankind.

Weeds In Her Curly Hair, Hareendran Kallinkeel

Bryant Literary Review

“I need a dagger,” Shiva says, “double-edged…and razor-sharp.”

The blacksmith turns from his furnace and stares at him in
surprise. What the hell is a renowned writer doing here? he thinks as he
stands up and walks towards Shiva.

Dreams Of Flight, Beth Paulson

Bryant Literary Review

A man with wings large enough and duly attached might learn to overcome the resistance of air. Leonardo da Vinci

No Icarus, you knew pulleys and winches would keep a man tethered
to earth though he rise high above a stage for a duke’s entertainment.
In your fabrico you built mechanical birds of wood and bright-dyed
linen, then raised men up on ropes to fly and float, angels with dark
curls, gilt-edged wings.

That Thing, Susan Taylor Chehak

Bryant Literary Review

My pap’s eyes are bad. It’s not the books or the computer, not the
peering at small letters on a page or on a screen. And it isn’t just a
consequence of age either. His peepers went bad a long time ago, when
he was young.

Raul, Paul Lamar

Bryant Literary Review

On the twelfth day of his new job as a security guard outside of S–, one of M–’s finest men’s shops, Raul B– stumbled upon a unique answer to the question of store security, though he was never to be aware of his particular gift or its profound impact on crime in M–.

Amends, Renay Costa

Bryant Literary Review

Quinn searched the chalkboard menu of the café deliberating what the appropriate beverage would be. What does a soon-to-be-divorcée drink while composing a letter to the man she separated from about a month ago? Wine would be the obvious option, but she was now a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the letter was part of the ninth step, which required her to “make direct amends” to those she had harmed, and tonight she was attempting her amends to Gil, her soon-to-be ex-husband. A pumpkin spice latte, her regular order, seemed too saccharine and sentimental.

The Messenger - Spring 2020

The Messenger

The objective of The Messenger is to encourage the appreciation and exploration of the creative arts on the University of Richmond campus. Since 1876, The Messenger has celebrated student work by publishing submissions in a literary and visual arts magazine. More information on the magazine, as well as past publications since 1987, can be found on messengerur.wordpress.com.

MEMORY

the act or fact of retaining and recalling impressions, facts, etc.

to draw from memory.

- -

“I think it is all a matter of love:

the more you love a memory,

the stronger and stranger it is.”

Vladimir Nabokov

Abjection In Fiction: A Study Of Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, Emily Jobe

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Julia Kristeva’s focus on understanding what the abject is and how it is manifested plays a key role in this essay. This essay argues that abjection informs the representation of dual personality and addiction in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By determining what is an abject for Jekyll through an analysis of the characters and plot development, this essay argues that not only is abjection possible for an individual, but it is a necessity of fiction. Using literary and psychoanalytic scholarship and theory, this essay demonstrates key factors in figuring out what, how, …

Treading The Winepress; Or, A Mountain Of Misfortune, Clarissa Minnie Thompson Allen, Gabrielle Brown, Eric Willey, Jean Macdonald

Undiscovered Americas

“Every life hath its chapter of sorrow. No matter how rich the gilding or fair the pages of the volume, Trouble will stamp it with his sable signet.”

So begins the novel Treading the Winepress; or, A Mountain of Misfortune by Clarissa Minnie Thompson Allen, which, had it appeared in book form in 1885–1886 instead of serialized in The Boston Advocate, would have been the second novel published by a black woman in the United States. Instead, Allen has been mostly forgotten by literary history. Now, thanks to the painstaking efforts of editors Gabrielle Brown, Eric Willey, and Jean …

An Intergalactic Diplomat, Arianna Marie Sanchez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This manuscript tells the story of Princess Luna McGlothen as she travels to the Eighth Galaxy Alliance as part of Earth’s first attempt at intergalactic diplomacy. Set in the distant future, Princess Luna is the heir to the throne of the Royal Republic of North America and is trying to prove to her authoritarian mother, and to herself, that she is worthy of her birthright. Across the universe she makes friends and enemies, experiences true betrayal, and realizes that she has what it takes to be a great leader.

“Called Forth By Imminent Dangers”: The American Gothic In Mysteries Of Detection And Detective Fiction (1799-1929), Keli Masten

Dissertations

The period from 1799 through 1929 marks a remarkable era of development for gothic themes in American mystery and investigative fiction. From early “mysteries of detection” through more structurally formalized detective stories, this project examines the differences in the gothic modes and devices employed by Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Anna Katharine Green, Mark Twain, and Dashiell Hammett, and their significant contributions to the progression of the popular gothic detective genre. Through the study of each author’s specific style and focus, there is much to learn about literary development and cultural influence. All of the authors mentioned here address …

How About Noah?, India Worthy

Honors Projects

How About Noah? tries to bridge the gap between old picture books and today’s society by showing children the intersectionality between Noah’s identities as an African American and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. There are very few books that show this concept especially containing a strong female lead. Most stories are always about a boy wanting to be a girl instead of a girl who identifies as a male.