Fiction Commons^™

Beaches Without Sand, Connor Mcelwee

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

You Are What You Write, Yumeng Wang

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This creative thesis consists of six short stories with different lengths and styles. For the introduction, I discuss how my work is influenced by various aspects of cultural background, with examples including writers from Zitkala-Ša and Richard Wright to Celeste Ng. Cultural background is the key to understand most of the characters in the different stories. After the critical introduction, readers will have a general idea of my stories with a sense of how the relationship between different groups of people shape them to act and live under the influence of their cultural backgrounds and environment they were brought up …

Tracing Writer/Reader Identity In, And In Response To, Queer Latinx Autohistoria-Teorìa, Corrina Wells

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project examines how diverse representation changes the discourse around queer latinx identities. This project extends theories of representation that show how a text changes the imaginary of the reader through a two-part methodology. First, through explicating Spit & Passion and A Cup of Water Under My Bed, this project examines how these texts construct a readers’ imaginary. Then, through a corresponding qualitative assessment on readers’ responses to the texts, this project identifies the extent to which the texts change the beliefs and understandings of a small group of students. Articulating an ecology of identity using the texts under examination, …

The Messenger, 2018

The Messenger

No abstract provided.

The Friendly Crocodile, Katia Karadjova, Emily Fernandes

Fiction and Poetry

The Friendly Crocodile loved to show off his big toothy smile.... But his marsh friends didn’t know it was friendly! What can he do to keep his friends around?

Al cocodrilo amigable le encantaba mostrar su gran sonrisa de enormes dientes, pero sus amigos del pantano no sabían que era amigable. ¿Qué podrá hacer para mantener cerca a sus amigos? (Translation by Dr. Lilianet Brintrup)

Le gentil crocodile aimait se vanter de son grand sourire avec ses grosses dents… Mais ses amis du marécage ne savaient pas que c’était un sourire sympa ! Que pouvait-il faire pour garder ses amis? …

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 Contradictions Of Exile : Escape, Testimony, And Ethics In Gao Xingjian’S One Man’S Bible, Sebastian Veg

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

The present essay proposes to focus more closely on One Man’s Bible as encapsulating some of the tensions and contradictions of exile as a theme in Gao’s work and worldview.

Anxiously Awaiting: A Novella, Alexander Bartlow

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Throughout my childhood and secondary education growing up in rural Indiana, I found that, in a town of less than 2,000 people, mental illness and teenage suicide were all too common. Upon researching the sad state of mental healthcare in rural America, I felt obliged to bring light in my Honors thesis to the overlooked and under-treated thoughts that plague the minds of adolescents experiencing depression, anxiety, and suicidal contemplation. In this fiction novella, I follow the life of Lincoln Phillips, a 14-year-old boy who lives with anxiety in an unchanging, inescapable town that stigmatizes mental illness. He experiences the …

Loose Light, Logan Lane

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My honors project is a 9,600-word collection of two short stories. The first story, Loose Light, is a character-driven narrative about an astronomer who has spent his life chasing an outer space phenomenon he saw as a graduate student and what he does when he rediscovers the phenomenon. The second story, Lost Light, is another character-driven narrative about a young man who, after an automobile accident, begins losing his memories. Both stories examine the perspective of the lost, the obsessed, the isolated, and the angry. In the accompanying self-analysis, I explore how my time as a reporter for The University …

Cut And Run, Hamish Rickett

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of The Psyche In "Era Of Black", Haley M. Karabasz

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I propose three parallel projects. The first is an introductory exploration of the narrative conventions that have become, over time, established tropes in Fantasy Fiction as a brief discussion of my conscious strategy to reject the normative structures set in modern fantasy literature in my own fiction project “Era of Black.” Second is an excerpt from my novel-in-progress, in which I deploy specific stylistic and narrative gestures that mark my effort to move beyond the received “rules” of the Fantasy mode. The third and final project here is to frame an analysis of my protagonist’s complex psychological …

On Nature's Prototypes: Character Design And Worldbuilding, Taylor J. Bardon

Theses and Dissertations

Nature’s Prototypes is an ongoing narrative series that blends realism and fiction to create both dialectic plot structures and image sets. For substance, the series utilizes biological inquiries into fields, like ecology, pathology, and bioengineering, to imagine action-centric vignettes, where animalistic to monstrous characters become the predominant actors in a post-dystopian worldscape. Throughout these vignettes, these characters are subjected to the trials and tribulations of the catalysts and flux that are imposed upon them. In the series’ larger scope, these vignettes are sequential events within a larger timeline and an original mythos that delve into the implications and the intrigue …

Your Iphone Cannot Escape History, And Neither Can You: Self-Reflexive Design For A Mobile History Learning Game, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter focuses on the design approach used in the self-reflexive finale of the mobile augmented reality history game Jewish Time Jump: New York. In the finale, the iOS device itself and the player using it are implicated in the historical moment and theme of the game. The author-designer-researcher drew from self-reflexive traditions in theater, cinema, and nonmobile games to craft the reveal of the connection between the mobile device and the history that the learners were studying. Through centering on this particular design element, the author demonstrates how self-reflexivity can be deployed in a mobile learning experience to …

Out Of Many: Multiplicity And Divisions In America Today, Camille Goodison, Racquel Goodison

Publications and Research

An anthology of new U.S. fiction and nonfiction, as well as transnational writing. A wide variety of fiction writers and essayists describe what it means to be American in a world of changing borders. A bright showcase of progressive literary style, personality and content. Contributors include Tope Folarin, Alia Yunis, Maurice Emerson Decaul, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Patricia Park, Sonny Singh, Aisha Sabatani Sloan, Zeeva Bukai, Courtney Zoffness, and others.

Broken Toys, Robin Eliot

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This novel is about a character, Felicity Gourd. She's Cinderella, but she lives in twenty-first century Boston and knows the Cinderella story as well as anyone else. She's also one of a small number of people who are able turn into the creatures represented by their childhood toys. Felicity's toy was a mouse. Her godmother's was, of course, a fairy. Through her godmother, Felicity enters the community of Toys, where she finally finds a home. But the Toys are the only people who stand in the way of Clarity, a secret organization that wants to place humanity under the rule …

Small Nothings, Leah Washburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small Nothings is a collection of ten short stories exploring the connection between place, friendship, and family. Set in Missouri's capital, a variety of characters grapple with different types of separation and loneliness. Couples struggle with emotional distance, children try to reconnect with their parents, and an old woman faces the loss of her independence. Through small conflicts and choices, these stories revolve around isolation, disconnection, and absence. How do missing presences affect family and friendship? How do people deal with change through everyday choices?

No Longer Home, Douglas L. Thomas

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A father and his wife struggle to adapt to their son just home from the long War on Terrorism.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Articles, stories, and other …

Aftermath, David Aldridge

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

On his first day in the Vietnamese bush, a soldier takes upon himself to recover the body of a fallen comrade.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Quang Tri Rain, Larry Meier

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A Vietnam vet waits for another soldier in his therapy group to open up.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Don't Take 'No' For An Answer, Beth Liechti

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

Two veterans, an retired Army officer and a World War II Women's Army Corp veteran. find common ground in the bonds of shared military service.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience …

Collateral Damage, Pat Clark

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A quick glimpse by a combat LT of his first firefight in Vietnam.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Detected, Christopher Knaggs

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A Navy sub commander plays hide-and-seek with a Soviet sub.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Greater Love, Pat Clark

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

When a grenade falls into the midst of this LT’s squad in Vietnam, one soldier leaps to action.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Good Game, Greyory Blake

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and its corresponding art installation, Lessons from Ziggy, attempts to deconstruct the variables prevalent within several complex systems, analyze their transformations, and propose a methodology for reasserting the soap box within the display pedestal. In this text, there are several key and specific examples of the transformation of various signifiers (i.e. media-bred fear’s transformation into a political tactic of surveillance, contemporary freneticism’s transformation into complacency, and community’s transformation into nationalism as a state weapon). In this essay, all of these concepts are contextualized within the exponential growth of new technologies. That is to say, all of these semiotic …

Beak Doctor, Bryn L. Agnew

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Beak Doctor is an excerpt from a novel in progress concerning the life of Brennan Madigan as he grows up in northeastern Ireland and later works as a plague doctor in Venice during the Thirty Years War. The excerpt's primary themes are loss, madness, mythology, religion, and mortality.

Notes For A Speech: Stories, Matthew Greene

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.