Nonfiction Commons^™

Graham, Haley G. Weaver

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

The Touch, Christiana L. Fattorini

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

The Fall, Valerie C. Nigg

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Sustained, Drew T. Ciminera

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

The Mercury 2015

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Floral, Victoria J. Reynolds

Student Publications

Floral is a personal essay that explores the speaker's relationship with different flowers and floral elements, ranging in time from early childhood to present day.

On Getting Dressed, Sharon L. Stephenson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

I lean against the chalkboard and wait for the young woman to speak. I feel especially put together because I am wearing an outfit; I bought all three pieces at the same time, indicating my financial stability and dedication to appearance.

It is a Friday, and this introductory physics student is casual in her sorority letter jersey, jeans and sneakers. Her hair is long, her skin porcelain; these traits do not distinguish her from her sorority sisters. She is exceptional, however, in her habit of obsessively leaning forward in her front-row desk, as if preparing to dive over the top. …

Souvenir, Kathryn Rhett

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

A collection of autobiographical essays

Souvenir, a collection of autobiographical essays rooted in the present, investigates travel, staying put, and how it is that our experience of being here right now includes so much of being elsewhere at another time. Rhett reconciles present to past in serious encounters with birth and death, alongside lighter observations. In a world that makes no sense except the sense we make of it, Souvenir plays with the dynamics of home and away to represent the fullness of daily life. [From the publisher]

Raising Their Children, Janelle R. Thompson

Student Publications

This personal essay depicts the story of an after school program established in the heart of a low-income neighborhood. It details the struggle the local children face in their failing schools district, and shows how the program, known as Little Wise Child, has been instrumental in making a positive difference in their lives.

Compagno Di Viaggio, Sophia K. Reid

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

The Lost World Of The Past, Sophia K. Reid

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Atticus, Peter W. Rosenberger

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

On Loss, Abigail E. Ferguson

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Newburgh, Rachel E. Barber

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

The First Run, Darcie E. Connors

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Black & Blue, Anthony Mccomiskey

The Mercury

No abstract provided.

Doe Dose, Sharon L. Stephenson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

A plastic fawn, palm-sized, lives on my office desk. He gazes at my open office door. His right front hoof is raised, poised for haste.

The deer of my Mississippi childhood were the Virginia whitetail, Odocoileus virginianus virginianus. As a child ten years or so, fresh from reading Felix Salten’s Bambi, I rested my forehead against backseat car windows and took in miles and miles of Mississippi forest. Commutes between school and our isolated house were long. I imagined myself a whitetailed doe, keeping up with the car through those woods, a blur of velvet hide and muscle. …

Approach, Sharon L. Stephenson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

This short nonfiction piece is about my interaction with a woman on the streets of Kiev.

All Skate, Sharon L. Stephenson

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Let me go back. I am in sixth grade, I am eleven. It is a springtime afternoon, I am the only child still wandering the halls of Mary Ida Raines Elementary School. My stepfather and all the other teachers are required to stay until some designated time, hemmed in by state guidelines.

A friend has lent me roller skates. I must have told her that I had never roller skated, never gone to the skating rink for a birthday party on a Saturday afternoon or with my family on a Friday night for a dinner of greasy cheese pizza. And …

Hold The Cracks, Chandra R. Kirkland

Student Publications

My medicine has its own special place in our downstairs bathroom. It rests on a little metal shelf by the shower, standing among the bright orange bottles of multivitamins, B12, vitamin C, and calcium chews. My mother is obsessed with natural healing practices – she slathers on bitter goldenseal for infections, feeds us capsules of powdery white willow bark for headaches, and strange clay mixed with water for stomach aches. My little bottle of pink goo looks lost and confused amidst the hand-written labels and bottles of earth-colored liquids.

I feel guilty taking it, but almost proud at the same …

Precious Knowledge, Stephen Lin

Student Publications

An essay about my name and its true meaning...

Red Rose, Sara Lauren Purifoy

Student Publications

Red Rose follows the narrator’s innermost thoughts and feelings of abruptly being immersed into a culture very different from her own. While hiking with her brother, a second year environmental Peace Corps volunteer, to visit the home and garden of a Nicaraguan native, she reflects on the changes she sees in her brother and her inability to communicate in a foreign country. She struggles to overcome her feelings of linguistic isolation while still being fascinated by the culture around her. The piece ends on a lovely image of universal understanding.

Cultured, Cara L. Dochat

Student Publications

This memoir piece comprises three parts, each of which tells a humorous and perhaps slightly embarrassing story of interpersonal upsets the narrator experienced while studying abroad in Europe. Their telling exposes the narrator as a naïve American tourist, despite her conscious attempts to be culturally sensitive and respectful. The intent of this piece was neither to make a political statement about being American in Europe, nor to present yet another trite account “the best four months of [my] life.” While my primary goal was to share these stories for their entertainment value (if self-effacing), my hope was to transform the …

What We Find In The Sea, David E. King

Student Publications

Personal essay in which the author recounts his struggle to come to terms with his lack of grief over his grandfather’s death.

Just Another Girl, Julia D. Marshella

Student Publications

A non-fiction piece that explores the causes of the author’s depression while in college. While she is able to pinpoint specific events that have led to her unhappiness, she realizes that accepting her life in spite of these obstacles will allow her to move forward.

Cold And Calculating, Kathryn E. Slezak

Student Publications

This nonfiction essay investigates the relationship between eye contact and power in different situations. It brings up the idea that animals and humans are less different than often thought to be, and how body language is transcendent. It uses this underlying theme to investigate the author’s changing relationship with her father.

Everything, Hannah M. Frantz

Student Publications

This is a memoir piece that details a tumultuous period in my life between departing for my study abroad experience in Rwanda and Uganda, struggling with what I encountered there, and then attempting to reintegrate into the same life prior to my departure. Specifically, it focuses on my time in northern Uganda, and a women I met in an IDP (internal displaced persons) camp who really made me think about what my role should be both there and at home. This piece explores a number of themes including guilt, blame, and, ultimately, a certain amount of forgiveness.

Abuelito, Margarita C. Delgado

Student Publications

An outsider’s perspective of the Spanish funerary process and the universal grappling with grief.

Pinning The Daffodil And Singing Proudly: An American's Search For Modern Meaning In Ancestral Ties, Elizabeth C. Williams

Student Publications

This paper is a collection of my personal experiences with the Welsh culture, both as a celebration of heritage in America and as a way of life in Wales. Using my family’s ancestral link to Wales as a narrative base, I trace the connections between Wales and America over the past century and look closely at how those ties have changed over time. The piece focuses on five location-based experiences—two in America and three in Wales—that each changed the way I interpret Welsh culture as a fifth-generation Welsh-American. Each travel experience contains characters, places, and interactions that shape my conception …

Ashes, Matthew Haines

The Mercury

No abstract provided.