Nonfiction Commons^™

Just Missed You Mom, Trista Keeton

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

Trista Keeton has always been a writer, ever since she held a pen she’s been writing little stories. The popular kids on the bus would pay her to write a survival plot line that included slight nudity. Now she’s writing at DePauw with no nudity :/ not as fun

In Yaakumech, Audrey Ickes

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

Audrey Ickes is a Junior, majoring in English writing and double minoring in history and communications, studying abroad this semester at the University of Glasgow. She fancies herself as an amateur world traveler but has only really been to two continents. This is her third published work.

Mass Deconstruction, Oliver Spencer

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

Oliver Spencer is a senior writing major from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He loves writing in many genres, but especially creative nonfiction, magical realism, and horror. He is planning on going to graduate school for a degree in library science. Oliver loves birds, theater, and researching.

Bird's Eye View-A Guide To Bird Behavior, Oliver Spencer

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

Oliver Spencer is a senior writing major from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He loves writing in many genres, but especially creative nonfiction, magical realism, and horror. He is planning on going to graduate school for a degree in library science. Oliver loves birds, theater, and researching.

You Look Nice, Lily Monnett

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

Lily Monnett is a Senior Environmental Biology major, English Writing minor, and Environmental Fellow at DePauw University. She is also a part of the DePauw Women’s Cross Country and Track teams.

The Wind Roared, The Rain Poured, And The Second Tent Flooded, Audrey Ickes

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

Hailing from Jefferson City, Missouri, Audrey Ickes is a Senior Honor Scholar, majoring in English Writing and minoring in History and Rhetoric and Interpersonal Communications. Fun fact: her whole four years of college she's been on the search for another DePauw student who's from Missouri but not from STL.

Twoothree: Uta Journal Of The Arts, Da-Shiva Francois, Sydney Gillentine

twoOthree

twoOthree UTA Journal of the Arts: Volume 1 Spring 2024

Mom, Svea I. Silverberg

Emerging Writers

This nonfiction essay gives a look into beginning the grieving process of an abusive parent.

Against Nightfall, Anna Omara Edwards

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No abstract provided.

House Of Grief, Megan Eralie

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This collection of essays examines how I house the grief for the losses of my religion and my grandfather. My first essay, “Body of Feathers,” looks at my body as a house of shame and how I transformed my body into something that could be mine instead. It explores a series of moments from my life where I felt disconnected from my body, usually because of rules or expectations set by someone other than me. In the essay, I move from feeling like I had no control of my body, to taking back control and experiencing my body as mine …

Zero, Amber Brandau

WRIT: Journal of First-Year Writing

A piece of literary nonficiton abut the struggles of learning how to read.

A Taste, Acquired, Anna Koester

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This thesis was born as a memoir of sorts. Food is something for which I have an inherent curiosity, from a specific ingredient’s origins to how a dish makes me feel. In remembering and retelling stories from my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, I’ve discovered that my modes of eating have taken on different approaches and purposes throughout my life. I’ve done my best in the following pages to describe how I learned to eat and where my idea of feeling nourished came from, how food has played a part in forming my ideas about family and sharing, and how it …

Writing Workshop In Prose, Brenna E. Crowe

Open Educational Resources

A prose workshop where students write a lyrical essay, a satirical essay, a personal essay, an informational interview, and a portfolio.

Return, Shasta Hecht

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This capstone project is a collection of nonfiction essays that work in collaboration to provide a profile of place. The place of focus is White Pass, the mountain the author has grown up on and experienced for the last twenty-one years. This collection is made up of essays that explore her physical, emotional, and spiritual connection to the land and community of White Pass, while also examining themes of family and identity. Each essay gives a different perspective in regards to the setting. The ultimate purpose of this project is to navigate the complexities of White Pass in regards to …

Engl 211w: Intro To Nonfiction (Points Of Entry And/Or Exit Wounds), Heather Simon

Open Educational Resources

We will explore the notion of creativity as it pertains to new ways of engaging familiar topics and carving out frameworks for exploring uncharted territory. We will actively read and respond to works of creative nonfiction to enrich our understanding of structure, style, and language. Assigned readings will demonstrate how creative nonfiction can encompass a variety of forms (think: reportage, braided essay, erasure, visual essay) and draw from both research and experience to offer a unique perspective and elicit an emotional response. We will develop our own creative nonfiction toolbox through a series of reflections, creative exercise, and projects. We …

The Lights In The Dark: A Covid-19 Journey, Kristen Justice Palado

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

My project is entirely focused on the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, particularly when CSUMB moved to a virtual setting, and how a global pandemic brought a family closer together. COVID-19 was a terrifying disease that began in the Spring of 2020 and instilled in all of us fear, stress, and anxiety. Families were scared to go out and have family parties, schools shut down and abruptly moved to a virtual modality for teaching, and the mental health of the world began to decrease. For this project, I will be using my own voice and experiences to create …

Evading Oblivionland, Caitlin Faria

Honors Program Theses and Projects

When I initially started this project, I hoped to tell stories in genres that I love while exploring the impact my father has had on my life. Although I prefer to write fiction, the nonfiction essays of this piece show who my father is through my eyes as well as provide me with the space to explore and find words for my own fears of losing him one day. The fictional stories interwoven throughout also show how my father inspires my writing even when it does not directly involve him, or a character exactly like him. For example, my dad …

[They], Mary Alsobrooks

Poetry MFA Theses

A poetry collection centered around the exploration of identity through the people and places that shaped the poet's childhood.

Love In The Time Of Climate Change, Alex Goehring

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Friendship In A Time Of Pandemic, Laura Reilly

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

Lost Routine, Melissa Fritz

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

And The Light Shines On: Sic Luceat Lux Vestra, Ana Schnellmann

Arrow Rock

No abstract provided.

Mother Superior, Brandon R. Hansen

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Prologue /The Lake Within

I am a fisherman. Every time I raise my arm to cast, I’m searching for an answer.

What is a lake?

I throw my lure at the lilies of my childhood, the sunken log of my crib. With every cast I hope the truth will follow it back, this little piece of me I offer to the mystery.

My earliest memories are at the bus stop, where a shroud of mist swirled about me and I listed side-to-side, six-AM eyes drooping while I waited for that big yellow ship to bust through the fog and …

A Soul's Shape Is Beautiful, Alondra Orozco

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

A memoir engaged with the seminar's theme of Change, Transformation, and Transition. It follows my story and how I came to discover my true self. This is a coming-out story, with the purpose of sharing my experiences and potentially getting others to understand non-binary or transgendered people better. It delves into my personal thoughts and experiences, as well as transphobia from my parents. Since the story begins in my early childhood, the diction and writing style change throughout the story. I also incorporate the use of stream of consciousness to show my progression from cisgendered to a non-binary person.

Hurt To Love, Christa Kaye Jishelle Casidsid

Night Flight: Online Literary Journal

Family dynamics come in many different forms. Some are regarded by society as "healthy," others "toxic," but there are instances where there is a gray line. Once an only child grown to the older sibling, this daughter watches her family relationship. More particularly, she watches her parent that has been there by her side ever since she could remember. "Healthy" or "toxic" are words lost in confusion in her home. She cannot help but feel the pain of the actions and words from the years that built up in her struggle of endurance and martyr sacrifice.

Treatise, Scripture, Manifesto: Reckoning With "Love Cake", Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

Audre Lorde Prize

This essay was written in response to Sri Lankan-American writer and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha's poetry collection Love Cake, as part of a directed study I undertook in Spring 2021. A goal of the directed study, titled "The Empire Writes Back" was to engage with and build upon work by writers from South Asia and the diaspora, of which Piepzna-Samarasinha is a vocal member. In this essay, I explore not only the sense of connection I feel with this poet and her body of work as a result of shared experiences of otherness, trauma, and nationhood, but also …

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 …

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 …

Always New Here: Essays From New England To New Orleans, Dahlia El-Shafei

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

We Used To Be Brothers: Partition 1947, Ukasha Farooq

CLAMANTIS: The MALS Journal

No abstract provided.