English Language and Literature Commons^™

Fanfiction As Performative Criticism: Harry Potter Racebending, Khaliah A. Petersen-Reed

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Fanfiction anatomizes a text and in this textual nakedness fanfiction writers recognize gaps in their chosen source texts and seek to supplement these deficiencies through literary disruption. This essay focuses on the kind of fanfiction that critically disrupts through artistic cultural production—a practice that I am labeling performative criticism. I look at Racebending fanfiction that intervenes in the gaps of the Harry Potter series—specifically the gaps related to race. Using fanfiction produced by Harry Potter fans, I will show that by reading and writing fanfiction these writers are blurring demarcation between creative writing and literary criticism.

This Is (Not) A Game: The Adjunct Experience As Playable Fiction, Lee Skallerup Bessette

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

How can a never-ending running 8-bit game be a piece of protest art? In examining her own experience in a related netprov protesting the treatment of adjuncts, the artist explores issues of agency, exploitation, and the very nature of games and playing in her artist’s statement on her game, Adjunct Run: https://adjunctrun.readywriting.org/.

Machine Co-Authorship(S) Via Translative Creative Writing, Aaron Tucker

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This paper argues that machine translation and a symbiotic ecosystem of authorship are central to the poetic works of Aaron Tucker and reveal larger ethical paths for machine-human relationships. In particular, the elements of chance alongside the intersemiotic translative acts that are the nature of human-computer relationships give space to a potential futurity that challenges a human-centric understanding of “reading” and “writing” and generates a type of literature that encourages a reader to better understand their own interactions within their daily digital environments.

The Many Authors Of The Several Houses Of Brian, Spencer, Liam, Victoria, Brayden, Vincent, And Alex: Authorship, Agency, And Appropriation, Zach Whalen

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

The Several Houses of Brian, Spencer, Liam, Victoria, Brayden, Vincent, and Alex is a computer-generated children’s book of 53,651 words and 350 unique illustrations arranged over 800 pages. The text is a cumulative poem in the style of the nursery rhyme “This is the House that Jack Built,” but with a house for each of the eponymous seven individuals, and with each of their houses containing many more types of things. These houses, these things, and these words were chosen by a Python script that I wrote, and the resulting novel--which can be viewed on my Github repository--is …

Atari, Creative Making & Zombie Computers: Robbo. Solucja., Piotr Marecki

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

In 1989, Janusz Pelc wrote the game Robbo on an 8-bit Atari, one of the first personal computers, which enjoyed a cult-like status in Poland before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Robbo, a small robot, collects screws and has to get through 56 planets. The game has achieved cult status, spawning hundreds of remixes and modifications. Beginning in the 1980s, fans (once mainly young boys, today adult men) played this game, collecting screws and running away from enemies such as bats, flying eyes, devils etc., while drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, eating crisps and telling jokes. One …

Digital Participatory Poetics And Civic Engagement In The Creative Writing Classroom, Liza D. Flum, Emily Oliver

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This article explores the ways a team-taught course, “Public Poetry in a Digital World,” supported community-building through participatory action and digital creative making. Using digital texts responding to current events, this course fostered students’ civic imagination and invited them to make connections among their own lives, their communities and poetic civic media. This class facilitated critical community engagement through digital pedagogy and final projects in which students performed public scholarship. Ultimately, this course serves as a case study of how teaching born-digital texts with digital tools can expand the capacity of the creative writing classroom.

Toward Disruptive Creation In Digital Literature Instruction, Michael D. Clark

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Given the multimodal and collaborative nature of digital literature along with the ways it often embodies the theories informing its artistic production, approaches to exploring both the creation and study of the form must abandon legacy pedagogies in favor of disruptive, student-driven course experiences. This work must further include explorations of digital culture, means of production, multimodal literacies, and connections with various definitions of literature ranging from print to auditory to visual forms. To accomplish this, instructors must move from more traditional hierarchical roles to those of facilitator and participant, committing consistently to returning decision-making work to the students.

Creative Writing Across Mediums And Modes: A Pedagogical Model, Saul B. Lemerond Phd

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

This is a creative practice (pedagogy) paper outlining the current formulation of my multimodal introduction to creative writing course. In this paper, I describe the course in detail, address the tensions, tradeoffs, and workarounds inherent in abandoning the traditional workshop model, describe instances of student engagement and success to illuminate this process, and endeavor to explain why high amounts of engagement and enthusiasm I get from my students concerning the content of my course is justified. My multimodal course is a generative course where my students are required to produce work in different creative modes on a near weekly basis. …

These Places We Walk : Stories Of Mental Illness In American Society., Rachel Grace Trimble

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This paper examines research on mental illness and mental health literacy as well as an examination of literary elements in interlinked stories in order to write a linked collection of five short stories about mental illnesses. Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Exploring The Academic/Creative Writing Binary, Jessica O'Leary

Honors College Theses

I began to work on this study in my ENG 201: Writing in the Disciplines class during my junior year at Pace University. After being asked to write a paper on what writing looks like in my discipline, I realized that my perceptions of the kinds of writing done by faculty and students in a university English department were limited and constricting as a result of the binary way in which I viewed academic and creative forms of writing. For instance, I had trouble believing that my creative writing professor studied pre-med in undergrad. I continued my research on this …

Poetically Composed, Educationally Imposed: Exploring Imagination And Poetics In Curriculum—A Memoir, Whitney J. Presnal

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Through the use of memoir, my work centers on how poetry is situated within public education curriculum. I explore the curricular context of poetry through the lenses of my lived experiences in early childhood, as a K-12 student, and as an early career classroom teacher. My dissertation draws upon a wide array of literature, honing in on the poetic perspectives of philosophers (Aristotle, 1996; Heidegger, 1947 & 1971/2013; Plato, 1955/2007), poets (Hall, 2003; Eliot, 1920 & 2009), and curriculum theorists (Leggo, 1997 & 2018; Pinar, 1994; Sameshima, 2007). The foundation of my work is drawn from my own circular experiences, …

The Creative, The Critic, & The Tutor: Tutoring The Creative Process, Nate Hardy

Tutor's Column

The creative writing session presents tutors with the unique opportunity to become an integrated part of the writer’s creative process, a system balanced between both the writer’s creative and critical voice. The former spontaneously invents material while the latter crafts it into a final product. While the creative session can be daunting for general tutors as it requires stepping away from the familiarity of the traditional academic setting, embracing the uncertainty of the session allows the tutor to play imperative roles as a student of the writer, audience to their work, and creative voice for their creative process.

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

The Sting In The Green City, Nicole Tsakoumagos

ETD Archive

In an irradiated, alternate earth, where a mysterious supernatural phenomenon caused a near-apocalypse, the human race is back on it’s feet. Four major cities dominate the landscape: New Sparta, The Mel, The Nocturn and Oz. In the first installment of “The Sting” series, explore the emerald, Greene Mob run metropolis, Oz. Gun-slinging, Ex-mercenary Kyra `The Sting’ Lee is living quietly in the outer part of the city with her dog, Doogie. The only family she has are the Castellanoses, a Greek four-part ensemble that own Kyra’s favorite greasy spoon diner. Maria Castellanos is Kyra’s best friend and her seemingly unobtainable …

Creative Writing In Digital Spaces: Digital Story Book, Christian Tipton

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

Christian Tipton has been working with Dr. DaMaris Hill for multiple semesters now, and a majority of their projects emphasize making literature accessible for the digital generation. The Digital Storybook is a personal favorite of the two of them. This project combines the visual techniques of a traditional comic book with the contextual elements of free verse poetry. The aim for this particular project was to present poetry in a way that would capture non-traditional poetry readers and present the comic book genre in a way that would capture non-traditional comic readers.

A Steady Journey - Critical And Self-Analysis, Ashley Gonzalez

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Analysis of the composition of A Steady Journey, a young adult fantasy novel featuring a disabled protagonist by Ashley Gonzalez.

Arizhio: Tales Of Glorious Manifest Destiny, Clinton Craig

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This is a book of short stories with a critical introduction. In theme, the stories seek to find the border between the Midwest and the Southwest of America by focusing on Ohio and Arizona. Some of the stories seek to exemplify “experimental” fiction, while the critical introduction seeks to define “experimental.” In addition, the introduction theorizes about the role of setting in linking collections and characterization.

Apples Decay, Lauren Rigor

The Tuxedo Archives

The following article was taken from the last issue of The Summerland Courier, a major newspaper published in Summerland, a city located twenty miles outside Avalon across the Lake. It was found at the bottom of the newspaper’s regional section.

Sink Hollow 2017 Creative Writing Contest Edition

Sink Hollow

This special edition of Sink Hollow presents the winning entries of the Utah State University Creative Writing Contest, which is open to all USU undergraduate and graduate students from all departments and disciplines. We want to thank all our contestants this year for yet again raising the bar with their excellent work, and for helping to create such a vibrant and inclusive writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.

Many thanks for the generosity and discriminating taste of our contest judges: Alex Baldwin, Matt DiOrio, Mary Ellen Greenwood, Brian McCuskey, Bonnie Moore, Paige Smitten, and Isaac Timm. Thanks …

Engl 352: Intermediate Fiction Writing—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Chigozie Obioma

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Absent the elements of effective writing, there has been a strong debate on whether or not other aspects of creative writing can be taught. Many practicing writers like myself who teach have concluded that a student writer can be guided towards fully actualizing their talent, and this “guidance” is what mostly constitutes teaching. How then do we evaluate the effectiveness of this teaching, and to what extent do students’ individual talent help or stand in the way of effective instruction? How do we plan various learning outcomes and test the success of such strategies over the duration of the ENGL …

Voices Of Ancient Women: Stories And Essays On Persephone And Medusa, Isabelle George Rosett

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis combines art historical analysis and creative writing in a collection of essays and short stories centered on the myths of Persephone and Medusa. Ancient art, text, and context is considered in the essays, while the stories approach these subjects on a more contemporary and personal level.

An Echo Of Swelling Voices, A Meta-Fictional Novella, Adolfo Danilo Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Horacio P. is an exiled Nicaraguan American poet living and teaching in Austin, Texas since the 1970s. Despite his enormous reputation and highly supportive wife, he feels incapable to write his last, and best, novel. This novel is about the life of Asdreni, an Albanian poet who was also exiled in Romania during the time before World War II, and his quest to find out who sent him a mysterious box containing the unpublished manuscripts of an unknown poet. One day, Horacio himself also receives a mysterious box containing the unpublished manuscripts of an unknown poet. His novel and his …

Of Mermaids, Metal, And Maine: An Illustrated Memoir, Mercedes Mclean-Wheeler

Honors Theses

This creative literary thesis consists of the first chapters of a memoir, offering readers a glimpse of my childhood world and self in rural Maine. The memoir's overarching theme is the interplay between person and place. The work also explores the ability of memory and imagination to shape perception. Included are several of my own drawings to help illuminate my imaginative and lived experiences, evoking the odd but artful whimsy of childhood. While still rooted firmly in memoir, the project draws from fantasy, magical realism, and graphica, reflecting modern literature's inclination to transcend traditional boundaries of genre and style.

The Lightbringer: A Novel, Brett L. Butler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Lightbringer is about a collision of two worlds: the world of a contemporary South Florida town and the magical world of Zariel, bringing with it the universal threat of the Terra. Childhood friends, Breck and Tom, are thrown into the middle of an ancient conflict between the Terra—a collection of alien races that have been transformed by darkness—and the forces of good. After an encounter with a magical pool of golden water, the boys must learn to use their new abilities to protect against the growing Terranox army. In the midst of their struggle, however, a mysterious companion—the Lightbringer, …

El Más Fuerte De Los Ruidos, Gianfranco Giusseppe Languasco Bellido

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tesis para optar por el título de Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing In The Classroom, Melissa Tombro

Milne Open Textbooks

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom is dedicated to the practice of immersive ethnographic and autoethnographic writing that encourages authors to participate in the communities about which they write. This book draws not only on critical qualitative inquiry methods such as interview and observation, but also on theories and sensibilities from creative writing and performance studies, which encourage self-reflection and narrative composition. Concepts from qualitative inquiry studies, which examine everyday life, are combined with approaches to the creation of character and scene to help writers develop engaging narratives that examine chosen subcultures and the author’s position in relation to …

The Attic, Brandon S. Jones

Student Theses and Dissertations

The Attic is a Contemporary fiction novel set in the town of Bitter Springs, Arkansas. Death is the ultimate end to all stories, but death darkens the center of Jonathon Duke's story. Orphaned in 1987 at the age of twelve because of the death of his parents, Jon moves in with his grandparents in the small town of Bitter Springs, Arkansas. Soon he, his best friend and their girlfriends spiral into an abyss of self-destruction with terrifying consequences. Troubled by nightmares spawned by an acid trip and a drug dealer whose payment is taken in flesh, Jon is sent to …

Petrocan, Madelaine C. Longman Ms,

The Goose

Poetry by Madelaine Longman

Heaven's Disco Dances, Savannah Leigh Osbourn

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Heaven’s Disco Dances is a collection of poetry about finding identity through defamiliarization and displacing oneself from reality to better understand it. Within the literary community, there is a great deal of derision toward writing that fails to be “real” or “serious” enough, and poetry is an excellent example of how sometimes the extraordinary speaks to us in ways that realistic fiction cannot. The marvelous and fantastic might serve as an escape from the world, but not necessarily from reality. Rather, they give readers a different lens on life, and sometimes that makes it a more powerful one, because people …

Jameson's Story: A Tale Of The Human Condition Through Fiction, Steven Kubitza

Honors Projects

A work of fiction focusing on two characters living in the same world, but under much different circumstances. One must try and find out who he is while the other is attempting to uphold his way of life in a society threatening to take it away. The story delves into the ideas of a somewhat dystopian world; one in which our society could ultimately mirror in the near future. The work is unfinished, which is explained in the reflection paper at the beginning of the document.