Fiction Commons^™

Learn To Speak Japanese In Three Excruciating Steps, Jason A. Bock

Creative Writing Programs

Gary, a middle-aged Midwesterner, lost his first wife and the mother of his only son to a terminal illness ten years ago. His son, Brent, has been living in Japan for five years and barely speaks to his father. After Brent receives a life-threatening diagnosis of his own, Gary travels half-way across the globe to be with his son and attempt to repair their tattered relationship.

The Terranauts By T.C. Boyle And The Addlands By Tom Bullough, Carly E. Thomas

The Goose

Review of T.C. Boyle's The Terranauts and Tom Bullough's The Addlands.

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Margaret Wade Deland Materials, Margaret Wade Deland, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

The collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, and first publications of Maine writer, Margaret Wade Deland. The bulk of the collection consists of letters written by Deland to various correspondents between 1884 and 1944. The collection also contains manuscript items of varying length, clippings, published writings, and a few photographic prints. Born Margaret Wade Campbell near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1857, Deland moved to Boston in 1880. She is known principally for the novel "John Ward, Preacher" and her 'Old Chester' books, based on communities where she grew up. She received a Doctorate of Letters from Bates College in 1920, and had a …

A Reflection On A Dhc Senior Project: "Silvie Danger", Breann Watterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This is a reflection about an Honors College Research Project. The project was a work of historical fiction concerning the coming-of-age of a young woman in mid-nineteenth-century New England.

Bibliography For Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion And Ai, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Displays and Bibliographies

An annotated list of materials in the Leatherby Libraries to accompany the Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion and AI event held at Chapman University in February 2018. The event featured Lisa Joy, co-creator and executive producer of HBO’s Emmy winning hit series Westworld, Jon Gratch, Director for Virtual Human Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies and Caroline Bainbridge, a Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton London. The Leatherby Libraries also hosted two book club discussions of The Positronic …

The Montagnards, Jarred J. Marlatt

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Dinner At Eight, Anastasia M. Berkovich

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This creative thesis is comprised of six short stories of fiction in various styles and lengths, as well as a critical introduction wherein I discuss the various influences on my work, ranging from Charles Baxter and Karen Joy Fowler to Doležel and John Gardner. All of these stories share a theme of family and loss. Each story also grapples in some way with changing times and places. I have endeavored, by using rhyming action, repeating images, and melodrama, to give each story a great sense of emotion, a feeling both specific to the story but connects to the wider reading …

A Wood Comes Toward Dunsinane: The Synthesis Of Traditional And Constructivist Methodologies, Randall L. Kaplan

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Education professionals now favor Constructivist and project-based strategies for learning over Traditional methods, which include such frowned upon practices as rote memorization and recitation. The Constructivist approach is being taken to its natural apex by educators like Larry Rosenstock who have created Constructivist utopias such as High Tech High in San Diego, the school put under the microscope in the 2015 documentary film Most Likely to Succeed. Project-based, experiential units of study are effective, exciting, and edifying for both students and teachers. They promise to prepare students for the type of world they will inhabit, a world whose economy …

A Scholarly Fictional Narrative Portraying The Stigma That Surrounds Mental Illness And Its Place In Literature, Adrianna Robinson

Honors Theses

The purpose of this scholarly fictional narrative is meant to reveal the struggles that individuals with mental illness go through, not only in their personal lives, but also with their place in society. I lay out research around the stigma that surrounds mental illness first, defining both public and self-stigma in relation to mental illness. I also briefly mention Girl, Interrupted and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” to show how authors have addressed the stigma that surrounds mental illness in literature in the past. The research is an important part of understanding why I write the fictional narrative the way I do, …

The Geographic Center Of Nowhere, Sharon Mauldin Reynolds

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

The Geographic Center of Nowhere. A collection of short stories exploring the perseverance of several women in varied situations.

A Theory Of Veteran Identity, Travis L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations--English

More than 2.6 million troops have deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, surveys reveal that more than half feel “disconnected” from their civilian counterparts, and this feeling persists despite ongoing efforts, in the academy and elsewhere, to help returning veterans overcome physical and mental wounds, seek an education, and find meaningful ways to contribute to society after taking off the uniform. This dissertation argues that Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans struggle with reassimilation because they lack healthy, complete models of veteran identity to draw upon in their postwar lives, a problem they’re working through collectively …

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Text And Paratext: Analyzing Edith Wharton's Hudson River Bracketed In Its Periodical Context, Paige Szmodis

English and Creative Writing Summer Fellows

Studying a novel in the context of its paratexts — including the illustrations, advertisements, and captions surrounding the fiction — reveals how the publication context can shape a literary work. This project examines Edith Wharton’s Hudson River Bracketed (1929) and its paratexts by comparing the final version of the novel with textual changes made in its monthly periodical publication in the magazine The Delineator (1928-1930). As mass-consumerism and advertising increasingly targeted women during the 1920s, examining Wharton’s work in a popular middle-class women’s magazine like The Delineator illuminates how paratexts affect audience perceptions of the novel’s characters, conflicts, and themes. …

Master Buddha & The Jolly Golly Fun Time Gang., Todd Edward Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the first two chapters of a novel. The novel parodies the capitalist and consumerist United States of the 21st Century in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Donald Barthelme.

I Am Adele Bloch-Bauer, I Am Hester Prynne, Laurie Lico Albanese Mfa

All Student Scholarship

I AM ADELE BLOCH-BAUER, I AM HESTER PRYNNE is a compilation of fiction and nonfiction. This cross-genre thesis includes two excerpts from historical novels with female protagonists, and an essay on women’s historical fiction. For the study and creation of female-centered historical fiction I researched and wrote in a wide range of areas, both intellectual and temporal. First, I read and traced the emergence of female-focused American historical fiction that began with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and continues today with historical fiction based in fact such as Lily King’s Euphoria and Paula McClain’s The Paris Wife and Circling the …

The Color Of Memory: Reimagining The Antebellum South In Works By James Mcbride Through The Use Of Free Indirect Discourse, Janel L. Holmes

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of interior narrative techniques such as free indirect discourse and internal monologue in two of James McBride’s neo-slave narratives, Song Yet Sung (2008) and The Good Lord Bird (2013). Very limited critical attention has been given to these neo-slave narratives that illustrate McBrides attention to characterization and focalized narration. In these narratives McBride builds upon the revelations he explores in his bestselling memoir, The Color of Water (1996, 2006), where he learns to disassociate race and character. What he discovers about not only his mother, but also himself, inspires his re-imagination of the people who …

Home And Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America (2013), Shaun O’Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

From the 2013 Editor's Note by Padraig O'Malley: Shaun O’Connell has lost none of his touch. In “Home and Away: Imagining Ireland Imagining America,” O’Connell juxtaposes two novels: Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy (1998) and Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (2009) and reveals the parallels and contrasts that enrich the discussion of Irish and Irish American identities. Toibin, an Irish writer, would have us see an America, land of the free, as an open, inviting place but exacting in redeeming promises made; McDermott, an American writer, portrays an Ireland that is magical, a little bit of heaven, but finally a closed and bitter …

"Casting Aside That Ficticious Self.": Deciphering Female Identity In The Awakening 2015, Anne L. Dicosimo

Master's Theses

Kate Chopin’s female protagonists have long since fascinated literary critics, raising serious questions concerning the influence of nineteenth-century female gender roles in her writing. Published in 1899, The Awakening demonstrates the changeability of the various representations of woman. In the nineteenth century, the subject of women may be divided into two categories: the True Woman and the New Woman. The former were expected to “cherish and maintain the four cardinal virtues of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity” (Khoshnood et al.), while the latter sought to move away from hearth and home in order to focus on education, professions, and political …

Daisy And Frederick: An Exploration Of Innocence And Its Consequences In Henry James' Daisy Miller: A Study 2015, Mark Andrew Meyer Ii

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

"Carried Away": Love, Bly, And Secrecy In Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw 2015, Natalie G. El-Eid

Master's Theses

The function of the prologue in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is decidedly ambiguous, as the characters in the prologue, much like the uncle of the main text, are seemingly never seen again. For this reason, the purpose of this prologue is much debated.1 As Rolf Lundén states in his article “‘Not in any literal, vulgar way’: The Encoded Love Story of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw,” “The openness of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has invited more analytical attempts, and more critical controversy, than most literary texts” (30). Lundén summarizes four schools of …

Blood At The Root, April Schofield

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This is a coming of age story about two very different boys – Jason, a Northerner who ends up stuck in a small Southern town and Billy, a Southern boy with an abusive father. The boys become friends and grow up learning the dark secrets that are allowed to fester in a tiny southern town ruled by the Good Ol’ Boy System of justice. The story chronicles how their shared experiences change them in ways they never imagined and ultimately destroys their friendship and their lives. Through a history of violence and prejudice, Billy and Jason learn who they really …

Scenes From The Gaijin Life, Ian M. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Scenes from the Gaijin Life contains eight interconnected stories about foreigners (gaijin in Japanese) living and working as English teachers in urban Japan. It recounts their daily lives and initial struggles, their jobs and their nights out, their formal conversations and their personal ones. The first five stories use a detached, neutral narration that forces readers to interpret sensory details on their own, while the latter three use an omniscient narration that helps readers understand the characters’ interactions with Japan. Though the eight scenes are all different, they’re connected by estrangement, longing, uncertainty, and the characters’ ever-present dissatisfaction with …

Animals Among Us: The Lives Of Humans And Animals In Contemporary American Fiction Edited By John Yunker, Ashley E. Reis

The Goose

Review of Animals Among Us: The Lives of Humans and Animals in Contemporary American Fiction, edited by John Yunker.

After Alice By Karen Hofmann, Dania Tomlinson

The Goose

Book review of Karen Hofmann's After Alice.

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Thomas Bailey Aldrich Materials., Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

Thomas Bailey Aldrich -- poet, novelist, traveler and editor -- was born in New Hampshire in 1836. His father's death in 1849 caused him to abandon his idea to attend college and move to New York to work with his uncle at age 16. Soon he became a constant contributor to newspapers and magazines and the intimate friend of many Bohemian poets, artists and writers. He was editor of various major newspapers and magazines in New York and Boston from the 1860s to the 1890s. During this time he was also a prolific, published writer of prose and verse. He …

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Booth Tarkington Materials., Booth Tarkington, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and other materials relating to the life and work of Booth Tarkington. Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was a writer from Indiana, well known for his novels of life in the midwest. Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to him for The Magnificent Ambersons and for Alice Adams. He attended Purdue University and Princeton, where he was a well-known literary and social figure. In later life he divided his time between Indiana and his estate, Seawood, in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he became friends with neighbor Kenneth Roberts.

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Sarah Orne Jewett Materials., Sarah Orne Jewett, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, and first publications of 19th-century Maine writer, Sarah Orne Jewett. The bulk of the collection consists of letters written by Jewett to various correspondents between 1879 and 1908. The collection also contains manuscript items of varying length, an Anecdote Book, clippings, published writings, and a few photographic prints. Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) of South Berwick, Maine achieved note as an author and poet. The daughter of Dr. Theodore Jewett, she was educated at Berwick Academy, though her studies were frequently interrupted by illness. She never married and lived most of her life in her home …

Finding Aid To The Collection Of James Brendan Connolly Materials, James Brendan Connolly, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

The Connolly Collection contains the writings and personal library of James Brendan Connolly (1868-1957). The collection includes Connolly's reminiscences, newspaper articles, and galley and page proofs as well as scrapbook clippings. There are also notebooks containing holograph notes on schooners and the navy, letters from Connolly's personal correspondence, and books from Connolly's personal library. James Brendan Connolly (1868-1957) was an Irish-American author of sea-related stories, novels, and nonfiction such as The Book of the Gloucester Fishermen. Born in South Boston, he attended Harvard and was a medal-winning athlete in the first modern Olympics, held in Athens in 1896. He …

The Cyborg Griffin: A Speculative Fiction Literary Journal, Hollins University

Cyborg Griffin: a Speculative Fiction Literary Journal

Notes:

copyrighted

Hollins Student Publication

Scope: short stories, artwork, poetry, essays, and comics

Paper copies shelved in University Archives.

Male Development In Young Adult Novels: Mapping The Intersections Between Masculinity, Fatal Illness, Male Queerness, And Brotherhood, Ruth Nelson

Departmental Honors Projects

Since 2000, Young Adult (YA) literature has grown exponentially. The subgenres of cancer novels (teen “sick-lit”) and LGBTQ fiction, in particular, have experienced a recent surge in popularity. The novels in these subgenres that feature young men as the affected characters (diagnosed with cancer and/or identifying as gay or queer) are particularly interesting because of the threats that these experiences pose to heteronormative masculinity. Because this fiction is directed at an impressionable audience in the process of forming their identities, the novels’ representations of gender could have a strong influence over readers’ gender identity development. Researchers have begun exploring the …