Fiction Commons^™

The Story So Far…, Devin Mitchell Durbin

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

Arrow Rock, 2014-2015, Full Issue

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

What’S In A Word?, Brian Thomas

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Salutations, Bret Lundstrom

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

Collateral Damage: Exploring The Metaphors And Realities Of War In Three Fictional Narratives, Jessica N. Dancisak

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Since earliest recorded history, human beings have been going to war with each other. It seems that this is an integral and inescapable part of our existence. As humanity has advanced and expanded over time, our wars have advanced and expanded in stride, to the point that we are capable of destroying all life on the planet “at the push of a button.” This awesome power, coupled with an impulse so primal that we struggle to understand it, is a dangerous and terrifying prospect. It is vitally important that, in this age of drone strikes and nuclear proliferation, we do …

Lavender Bride, Robert Kostuck

Bryant Literary Review

Svetlana and Valery at the late edge of a summer weekend, aligned vacations, rented bicycles, wool sweaters, damp air spilled inland from the half-empty beaches.

Hitler Stamp, Paul Hostovsky

Bryant Literary Review

I traded ten triangular
Mongolian stamps for Hitler,

Moving On, Joyce S. Brown

Bryant Literary Review

Twenty minutes into death
and whatever happens there,

This And That (For Coleman Barks, October, 2008), Lisa Starr

Bryant Literary Review

A while back you said, You know, one of these days
you're gonna have to write that poem about that deer,

Ginger, Charles Butterfield

Bryant Literary Review

After Sam's truck clears the hill, all Lucius hears is the cooing of wild pigeons in the cavernous haymow.

Gerstler's Triumphant Return (1972), Julie Zuckerman

Bryant Literary Review

Sitting among the malodorous teenagers--boys ripe with day-old sweat, girls thick on jasmine scents--Jeremiah Gerstler tried to check his mounting vexation.

Gift-Wrapped, Daniel M. Jaffe

Bryant Literary Review

Will there come a point during your El Al flight home from Israel when you can politely question the elderly man in the middle seat beside you as to why, during taxi yet before take-off, he ensconced himself toe-to-head within a 30-gallon, heavy-duty, clear plastic trash bag?

The Strap, Ruth Latta

Bryant Literary Review

"Carmen? Carmen Lawrence? Where are you, girl?"

I peeked through the planks of the porch stairs

Phantom, Adam Matson

Bryant Literary Review

The pinky finger betrayed her. It sent a signal to Martin, who reached out from beneath the frilly cuff of his costume and grasped it.

Class Mate, John Kristofco

Bryant Literary Review

"Hey, has anybody seen my Hawthorne?" Terrence Terrill poked his head into the small living room.

The Woods Ate Them, Amanda J. Burgess

Senior Honors Projects

For this project I set out to write a hybrid novella-memoir, while reading novels by authors generating work of a similar aim. I also took an offset printing course to learn how to print completed work, because I was interested in being able to myself make a book. Throughout, the intention of this work was an exploration of the density of the imagination and the self - all the lives we create, even if we never live them.

During my time at the University of Rhode Island, I have made repeated visits to cetain arguments and ideas, questions that intrigue …

Short Fiction: Ulmus, Ward Heilman

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Offensive, Hope Jordan

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

No abstract provided.

Excerpts From Television's Greatest Hits And Other Stories, Zachary Stephen Williams

Master's Theses

The short stories contained in this manuscript are mostly of the realist stripe, with a few concessions made to my more fabulist tendencies. Each is about men and women being forced to relive their old lives or finding themselves at the cusp of new ones, propositions which prove simultaneously attractive and repulsive. By the end of each story, it is my hope to transmit that the characters have survived somewhat intact, though reconstituted. There is a man in grief over the death of the wife he couldn’t stop cheating on, adults trick-or-treating at the expense of their children’s youths, a …

Looker: Stories, George Robert Hargett

Master's Theses

The following stories, completed by the author between August 2013 and February 2015, deal with love, obscurity, isolation, failure, vulnerability and insecurity, looking and losing, the fears tied up in all these, and, once in a while, gaining.

Neon Tiger, Taylor Lea Hicks

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

A Drop Left, Oliver Diaz

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

The Modern And The Celestial: Re-Imagining Hawthorne’S ‘The Celestial Railroad’, Connor J. Bell

Honors Theses

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s commentary through his works of fiction are said to be timeless. However, what would his fiction look like in response to the direction that society has taken since he has passed? This thesis seeks to illustrate Nathaniel Hawthorne’s sentiments in regards to modern society. Through close analysis of Hawthorne’s works, his life, and his morals, his ideas have been illustrated in a contemporary reimagining of one of Hawthorne’s most profound satires, “The Celestial Railroad.” In this re-write, modern technologies and mentalities are brought into consideration in accordance to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ideals.

Past The Edge Of The Forest, Emily M. Suess

All NMU Master's Theses

This fictional work traces the superstitions around No Name Forest as members of the town just beyond the forest begin to disappear. While set in present day, the piece draws on the way fairy tales use the inexplicable and strange to engage readers in questioning the human experience. The story details the disappearances of several people from the town of Little Haven. While each of these disappearances are presented in individual tales, they are linked together through the voice of a girl who has been tracking the disappearances. In search of the father who abandoned her, Gwynn Halpert is interested …

The Fable And The Fabulous: The Use Of Traditional Forms In Children's Literature, John Joseph Hill

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

To the outside world, Northern California might be trees, granola, hippies, rivers, snowboarders, environmentalists, farming, beaches, diverse wildlife, and wealth. Through a series of loosely interlocking fiction stories, this thesis explores the Northern California below the surface where people work as garbage collectors by day and attend community college by night, where teenage girls scam people in the park for free alcohol, where lovers spend their date night as part of a nude human-chain to protect an old growth redwood from being cut down, and where animal rights activists smoke cigarettes and seek love. Informed by personal experience and a …

Ann Marie, Emma Haynes

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

No abstract provided.

With The Light Caught Between, Albert M. Jacoby

All NMU Master's Theses

Although Henry and Claire Lumens are twins, their high school lives couldn’t be more opposite. Henry enjoys sketching, looking at handsome boys, and reading about fantastical places, but his shy and pensive nature means he battles demons of his own every day in the gym locker room. Claire, however, loves the world she lives in, which is easy because she’s bossy, clever, and stunning. On their seventeenth birthday, their grandmother gives them a gift that will take them to a fantastical world. Despite their ignorance of the world’s existence, their grandmother insists it’s their birthplace, and the only way they …

16-Bit Ghouls: A Novella, Alyssa M. Bersine

All NMU Master's Theses

This novella follows twenty-something phone psychic and recluse, Jane, whose dead brother haunts her Super Nintendo. When he prompts Jane to find his killer, she must learn how to navigate a world where he is absent. Jane struggles not only with the ghost, but also with letting go of the nostalgia and anxiety that prevent her from moving on with her life. 16-Bit Ghouls is a story about grief and growing-up.

Missing Photos, Angela Rollins

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.

The Contract, Elise Silverstein

Gandy Dancer Archives

No abstract provided.