Nonfiction Commons^™

Have You Considered?, Gloria Frimpong

Emerging Writers

This creative nonfiction piece explores the impact of humanity on the environment and argues that humanity bears great responsibility for its actions.

The Diagnosis, Thomas Montroy

Emerging Writers

This creative nonfiction piece explores the author's memories of his mother's cancer diagnosis.

Mr. President, Andrew Friedman

Emerging Writers

This creative nonfiction essay describe the author's memories of running for senior class president in high school.

The Walkout, Lucy Lansdowne

Emerging Writers

This short essay explores the author's memories of participating in a school walkout to protest gun violence.

Untitled, Dani Calix

Emerging Writers

This creative nonfiction article is of the writer's childhood memories of her relationship with her brother.

The Lindenwood Review, Issue 11 (2021), Full Issue, Lindenwood University

The Lindenwood Review: a journal of literary prose

No abstract provided.

Imaginary Things, Heather Gardewine

Masters Theses

Imaginary Things is a coming-of-age memoir about growing apart from one’s family and struggling with identity and independence. This story draws from predecessors in the family dysfunction subgenre of memoir, such as Educated by Tara Westover, The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. The narrator tries to find her own identity in the things she loves while navigating familial opposition and rejection. “Imaginary things” such as films, plays, and video games become markers of identity and guide the reader through the story and towards growth, resolution, and sense of self.

Milk Tooth, 2021, Bemidji State University, Tobiloba Aiyedun, Ardaschir Arguelles, Geneva Basye, Owen Besancon, Emily Comstock, Shawn Cruze, Nathan Datres, Joy Eastman, Misty Fear, Austin Fiedler, Greg Gentry, Alex Goehring, Luna Harbour, Kassandra Hart, Ashley Kinnard, Jewel Kraus, Adam Lacrosse, Jennifer Lavin, Daltyn Lofstrom, Stephanie Martin, Lauren Moberg, Danae Moksnes, Erin Muenter, Natalie Nelson, Alex Polchow, Tyler Solheim, Coralie Swedburg, Meghan Trimble, Sam Walker, Faith Weber, April Westlund, Sarah Williamson

Milk Tooth

"Writing by Bemidji State University Students". Sponsored by the Bemidji State University English Department

Can We Make It? Coming-Of-Age In A Covid Kitchen, Maila Erickson

Senior Honors Projects

The Covid-19 pandemic has shifted how we interact with our communities and how we carry out our daily lives. If stories in the news and in social media are any indication, food seems to be a surprising focus of the pandemic for young and old. Personally speaking, I delved into cooking. I experienced the tensions at the grocery. I adjusted my food shopping habits. I felt like I grew up. I began to wonder how other people my age might have modified their food preparation habits and what the experience of cooking in quarantine meant to them. In this honors …

T. Hanks For Everything, Anissa Johnson

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis is an excerpt of an in-progress, full-length memoir. T. Hanks for Everything celebrates the myriad of ways art molds and shapes who we become and interrogates the nature in which mere appreciation transforms into fandom. The writer reflects on the impact actor Tom Hanks has had on her life through narratives that blend the personal with the biographical, developing both the writer’s and Hanks’ characters side-by-side. The writer uses humor as a mechanism to navigate the world, to deflect pain, and to find healing in the midst of it. This thesis hopes to be a safe place for …

Seepage, Kelly Norah Drukker

The Goose

This creative nonfiction essay explores the interrelatedness of place—in this case, the island of Inis Mór in Ireland—with time, memory, and emotion, tracing how a landscape as we experience it in the present can also intersect with the physical and mnemonic landscapes of our past.

Skeletons In My Closet: A Collection Of Personal Essays And Short Fiction, Macey Howell

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

My thesis will be a collection of personal essays and short fiction centered on examining the ties between fashion and identity and told through a Gothic literary tradition. I seek to explore my identity by examining my personal style using the mode of the Gothic. Through this project, I will encapsulate my sense of style, and therefore my sense of self, in words and explore the nuances of my identity through creative nonfiction and fiction.

I have a distinct sense of style that is inseparable from my identity as a woman, as an artist, as a human drawn to beauty …

To Drown Or Not To Drown: Self Discovery Through The Lens Of Formalist Theory, Sierra Correia

Capstone Research Projects

The purpose of this project was to discover whether or not using creative nonfiction writing as a strategy in narrative therapy can aid in the process of self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-reflection. To begin, I selected creative nonfiction pieces for analysis: Underwater Blue, Forever Blue, and The Knowing, all of which come from a portfolio completed in Fall 2019 and contain traumatic subject matter. Literary formalist criticism, the Narrative Process Model, and narrative themes and the concept of self were the chosen methods of analysis. I found commonalities in writers' craft tools as well as in themes and self in all …

Mountains To The Sea: How Climate Change Influences People, Cultures And Communities, Stephanie L. Maltarich

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

New Journalism: Roots And Influence, Samantha Bainer

Liberal Arts Capstones

New Journalism is a genre of journalism that broadly falls under the feature story category in many newspapers and magazines. The form was pioneered in the 1960s and 1970s by Tom Wolfe of New York Magazine, and it strove to tell nonfiction stories in the style of a novel. New Journalists used elements of fiction such as point of view and dialogue to tell the stories of their subjects. Although they were works of nonfiction, these articles and books more closely resembled fiction in style and form. In this project, New Journalism is defined and characterized by its core …

Skin: Stories, Poems, And Essays, Amanda G. Hadlock

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis begins with a critical introduction which analyzes the use of objective correlative and varying points of view in creative writing in order to generate dialogue on cultural issues. I relate theories from Edward T. Hall, T.S. Eliot, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Lubomír Doležel to my own writing. Additionally, I situate my own multi-genre writing with work of contemporaries such as Maggie Nelson and Claudia Rankine. My hypothesis is that writers can use an objective correlative (Eliot) from the top of the cultural iceberg (Hall) as an entry point to representing deeper, more fraught cultural issues. Additionally, by experimenting with …

The Lantern, 2019-2020, Colleen Murphy, Jeremy Moyer, Adam Mlodzinski, Samuel Ernst, Lauren Toscano, Gabriel Tenaglia, Griffin Banks, Madison Mccolgan, Ria Malones, Rachel Thornton, Gabby Demelfi, Liam Worcheck, Ryan Savage, Vanessa Worley, Aviva Schuh, Emily Bradigan, Kiley Addis, Shayna Kushner, Kevin Leon, Tommy Armstrong, Matthew Schmitz, Millie Drury, Jenna Lozzi, Sarah Buck, Cyn Ercole, Morgan Mason, Janice Partee, Madison Rodak, Daniel Walker, Jordan Gagan, Brooke Yanaga, Kate I. Foley, Matthew Li, Zach Brink, Jessica White, Anastasia Dziekan, Jadidsa Perez, Ian Abrahams, Lindsey Reilly, Kalina Witkowska, Kristen Cooney, Julia Paiano, Kylie Halko, Tiffini Eckenrod, Kelsey Gavin

The Lantern Literary Magazines, 1933 to Present

Cochlea, Greek for Snail • That Light in the Sky • Overview Effect • The Running Man • Sunset • Rabbits • What Happened While You Were Drunk Last Saturday Night • 21st Century Frankenstein • Passing • I Saw the Veil • Star Crossed • Subtle Hints • Hungry • Basement High • The Night Who Lost Its Stars • Remnants • Nostalgia • I Want to Go to Bed • Wooden Car Blues • Silver Honey • The Breakup • Here's to Losing You • Marfa • Cold Wind Blows • Last Week • 6/12/2019 • These Feather …

Cultivating Convergence Through Creative Nonfiction: Identity, Development, And The Metaphor Of Transfer, Wendy Ryden, Danielle Sposato

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

The authors explore the role of the creative nonfiction course in the development of a writerly self and propose a paradigm of developmental convergence to supplement composition studies’ metaphor of traditional transfer tied to outcomes-based education and assessment culture. The paper further considers the idea of CNF as method rather than genre and its ties to expressivism in composition studies and pedagogy.

Conceptualizing The Unspeakable: A Conceptual Metaphor Theory Analysis Of Sexual Assault Trauma In Creative Nonfiction, Ariana Ciamaricone

West Chester University Master’s Theses

This paper explores the use of conceptual metaphors (CMs) in two works of creative nonfiction, namely Laurie Halse Anderson’s (2019) Shout and Elissa Washuta’s (2014) My Body is a Book of Rules. Anderson’s (2019) poetic memoir centers on her experiences with sexual assault throughout her childhood and the process of writing her young adult novel Speak (1999). Washuta (2014) writes on her experiences with rape and mental illness via prose. Both memoirs detail their authors’ reckoning with the experience of sexual assault, and this paper investigates how trauma narratives attempt to “resolve what cannot be resolved, to generate meaning, …

Growing Pains, Madeline Myers

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My Creative Nonfiction honors project consists of a series of short essays about pain, physical and otherwise. I explore how it has appeared in my life and the lives of those close to me. With these essays, I reflect on ideas about generational trauma, fear, loss, relative pain, collective pain and more. The title "Growing Pains" speaks to the ways ideas of pain evolve throughout the text and in our lives. The essays are honest, vulnerable, and at times heavy, but never without the attentive joy I aim to pay to the people and places I write about. This project …

Small Worlds: A Collection Of Creative Nonfiction On Relationships And Our Connections, Nicole H. Conner, Colin Burch

Honors Theses

Small Worlds is a collection of creative nonfiction, personal essays, and memoir essays detailing the connections between relationships, love, and music.

The Lantern, 2018-2019, Madison Rodak, Griffin Banks, Kieran Demelfi, Tommy Armstrong, Isaiah Braugher, Sophia Dibattista, Courtney A. Duchene, Samuel Ernst, Sarah Howell, Michael Kibblehouse, Daniel Walker, Robert Wilf, Kiley Addis, Kim Corona, A. J. Cutrufello, Taahira Davis, Sarah Defelice, Matt Dwyer, Sydney Gonzalez, Rachel Haas-Gutin, Jenifer Joseph, Kevin Leon, Amy Litofsky, Janice Partee, Thea Pastras, Maddie Ressler, Julia Stern, Ren Toscano, Liam Worcheck, Clara Baker, Anastasia Dziekan, Valerie Eichler, Lola Holcomb, Alexa Beacham, Emily Counts, Millie Drury, Sophie Gioffre, Melanie E. Lee, Lilly Mcqueen, Robert Varney, Taylor Wilson, Kristen Cooney

The Lantern Literary Magazines, 1933 to Present

The Treasure Buried in Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park • High Cards on the Low River • Sestina of a Vagina left in the microwave too long • Keeps on Tripping • The Auction • Nuclear Meltdown on Seedship C5B.6 • Cock Fight • An Interview with God • Minimum Wage • Star-Crossed Lovers • Romeo Echo Alpha • PM Entertainment, or Action Beats • The Gospel of Aggregates • Hel Hath no Fury • Crossing the Line • Mango de la hora • Stress Judgment • Perception (Part 2) • Rain Falling Up • Church: the …

"Free Indirect Suicide: An Unfinished Fugue In H Minor", Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

In this lyric essay/work of creative nonfiction (listed among “Notable Essays & Literary Nonfiction” in Best American Essays 2020), Seo-Young Chu uses poetry, autotheory, and creative nonfiction to explore the generational trauma/postmemory han she inherited from her parents and the importance of destigmatizing mental illness through dialogue.

Growing Abroad, Emily Miller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For my Honors Project, I wrote a creative nonfiction essay about my study abroad trip to Le Mans, France last summer. In the essay, I broke up the narration with three sections, each highlighting a personality trait I gained from my experience: independent, overcoming fear, and adventurous. Because this is a creative work and something I may consider publishing later on down the road, I am not submitting the main essay. Following this abstract is my Critical Essay and Personal Essay.

Baby Fat -- A Legacy, Brandi M. Gard

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

To Whom Occurs The Haunting: A Singular Exploration Of A Disturbed Femme Psyche, Meghan E. Addison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

By utilizing critical experimental writing, my capstone project will be an exploration of the haunting effects of transgenerational trauma and its lasting impact on the present-day psyche of one disturbed female subject - myself. Relying on multiple formats of writing, including but not limited to: memoir, autobiography, diaries, letters, poetry, and prose, as well the incorporation of multiple disciplines including the likes of: psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, and critical theory, I will make an attempt to utilize the micro in exploration of the macro: to explore my unconscious realm in order to understand a larger political context surrounding female madness and …

Redactándome A Mi Misma: Writing Place, Process, And Identity Across Two Languages, Jenna Ziegelmayer

Senior Honors Projects

Emily Dickinson once wrote a poem titled “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” where she advises writers to do just that. One should tell the truth about their experiences, but tell it through their own unique perspective in order to make it “dazzle” on the page. My slant? Una segunda lengua.

As a student of Spanish, learning a different language has impacted the way that I see the world and my place in it. Studying abroad taught me about the language and culture of Spain, but it also taught me a lot about myself, my own native language, …

The Lantern, 2017-2018, Solana Warner, Chiara Demelfi, Emily Shue, Matt Dwyer, Clara Baker, Jason Bennett, Brandon Carey, Kim Corona, Millie Drury, Courtney A. Duchene, Samuel Ernst, Giselle Horrell, Sarah Howell, Nicole Kosar, Malcolm Loh, Morgan Mcafee, Johnathan Myers, Ren Toscano, Daniel Walker, Robin Gow, Albert Hahn, Rae Hodenfield, Paige Szmodis, Madison Bradley, Teddi Caputo '18, Faith Carson, Taahira Davis, Chiara Demelfi, Mya D. Flood, Sophia Driscoll Gamber, Jada A. Grice, Kevin Leon, Joseph Makuc, Valerie Osborne, Janice Partee, Megan Sear, Kara E. Travis, Julian Barocas, Sarah Defelice, Olivia Glover, Mario J. Heitman, Robert Varney

The Lantern Literary Magazines, 1933 to Present

On Dissociation • Untouchable • After "Rocket Man" • The Science Fair • Cardinal Rule at Stephen J. Memorial • Quentin & Sylvie • Cabello • The Get Out • Painting Day • Black, White and Grey • Family Pruning • How to Remove a Stain • Becoming Ourselves • Wonderbread U • Overture • Pescadero • Gross • Stage Fright • Lucky Daddy • Sarah • Rumble • Silvermine • The Green Iguana • A Poem for Ghost Children • A Poem for Lost Boys • Mother • Drop of Grease • Don't Wanna be White • I • …

The Immortal Jellyfish And Other Things That Don't Know About Love, Tianli Kilpatrick

All NMU Master's Theses

My thesis is a collection of creative nonfiction essays that play with form and language in an attempt to show that trauma can create beauty. This thesis originated with trauma theory and specifically deals with sexual assault trauma, but it also covers topics including international adoption, self-injury, and oceanic life. Jellyfish are a recurring image and theme, both the physical jellyfish itself and the mythological connection to Medusa. Jellyfish do not have brains, but they have developed complex stinging tentacles that for all their beauty make them dangerous. I chose jellyfish because their dual representation fascinates me. I think they …

Form Follows Function, Lyn Baldwin

The Goose

Natural history. Teaching. Writing. All have form, all have function. But just as no architecture is risk-free, no architecture is neutral. In this personal essay, I explore the surprising connections that develop when university students engage with natural history as way of knowing the ground underfoot.