Department: Creative Writing/Fiction ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
26 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 26.
1.
Ayers, Megan K.
The Black Blanket: Stories.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► The story collection, The Black Blanket: Stories, is an assembly of short…
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▼ The story collection, The Black Blanket: Stories, is an assembly of short stories addressing ideas of schism and disassociation. The characters therein are at odds with the greater known and unknown communities around them, both on a personal level through their bodies, and on a greater scale, through religion and society. This collection best represents the work I have completed, working toward an MFA at Bowling Green State University.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Fine Arts
Keywords: body image; religion; schism
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2.
Balaskovits, Alison Ann.
A Girl Without Arms and Other Stories.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2011, Bowling Green State University
► A Girl Without Arms and Other Monsters is a collection focused around…
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▼ A Girl Without Arms and Other Monsters is a collection focused around the notion of the monstrous, and considering whether or not the monster is a nightmare, a dream deferred, or the realization of one’s desires. Most stories explore themes of sexuality, feminism, violence, strange bodies, family and one’s place in it and transformation. Many of the stories use fairy tale conventions or fairy tale themes, while others play on traditional ideas of what it means to be a woman, and how when she is labeled a monster she can either bow before the notion, or revel in it.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Keywords: fairy tales
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3.
Bell, Matthew D.
How They Were Found.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2010, Bowling Green State University
► A thesis in two parts: Book One, How They Were Found, is…
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▼ A thesis in two parts: Book One, How They Were Found, is a short story collection containing thirteen fictions combining elements drawn from a variety of literary traditions, including magical realism, science fiction, detective stories, fairy tales, horror literature, and historical fiction. Many of these stories include fragmented narratives with characters who have mutable or shifting identities and characteristics, experiencing a loss of self (as in "Wolf Parts" or "Ten Scenes from a Movie Called Mercy"), while others explore obsession as both reason for and response to various other kinds of loss, both structurally (as in "An Index of How our Family was Killed") and thematically (as in "The Collectors" or "The Cartographer's Girl"). Book Two, Cataclysm Baby, is a novella-in-shorts in the form of twenty-six interrelated stories, each narrated by father characters whose families find themselves in either cataclysmic, apocalyptic, or post-apocalyptic situations depicting failures of the child, the traditional family, and eventually the earth itself. These fictions use non-realist situations and unconventional language structures as a means of enstranging the reader's preconceptions of parenting, childhood, and the role of family in society so that these most familiar of experiences and structures can be seen and felt anew
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Dr. Wendell.
Subjects: Fine Arts
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4.
Celizic, Joseph S.
Beyond Stars.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► BEYOND STARS is a novel in stories, told in twelve daily horoscopes.…
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▼ BEYOND STARS is a novel in stories, told in twelve daily horoscopes. The narrator, an obsessive astrologer, finds a man whose future cannot be predicted. In his efforts to understand the man, he follows twelve characters, each belonging to a different astrological sign, as their lives intersect with the missing person. In the process, the astrologer unlocks the mystery behind a kidnapping, a new mysterious pharmaceutical, and a fraudulent celebrity author, all while his faith in his science is threatened.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Literature
Keywords: astrology; astrologer; horoscope; novel in stories; kidnapping
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5.
Denham, Amy Elizabeth.
"A Little Turned On".
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2012, Bowling Green State University
► This collection of short stories explores conflicts in class, family, gender, and…
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▼ This collection of short stories explores conflicts in class, family, gender, and sexuality. The construction and development of female identity in particular plays a heavy role in many of them. Most of these characters are dealing in some way with the ideologies they’ve been born into or brought up in versus the realities of both their individual wants and circumstantial limitations. All of these stories, on some level, question the ability of an individual to ever truly “break out” of such cultural and economic ideologies.
Advisors/Committee Members: Lawrence, Coates.
Subjects: Literature
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6.
Dunham, James.
Migrations.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2012, Bowling Green State University
► The fiction that comprises this thesis aims to explore character above all…
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▼ The fiction that comprises this thesis aims to explore character above all else. Themes, plots, metaphors, settings, and experiments with language abound, but all of those come second to exploring the experiences, choices, and motivations of the human person. The characters portrayed are connected through cultures limited (with small exceptions) to the white, North American lower-middle-class from which I draws most of my source material, and about which I feel most confident portraying cultural nuances with authority and accuracy. However, in an effort to give a wide spectrum of human experience, and to acknowledge the storytelling value of people who fall outside of certain perceived majorities, the stories are deliberately eclectic within the above framework through focusing on central characters who are young, old, and in the middle years, male, female, and transgendered, homosexual and heterosexual, modern and of fictional civilization. I’ve made deliberate effort to tell stories that are noticeably different from one another. Conversely, the character-driven nature that unites these stories is one of several literary attributes that allow them to cohere as a collection. A second such attribute is the theme of transition from one phase of life to another; the lives of the central characters are always markedly different in some way by the time each story ends, whether that change be physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, medical, or cultural. This attribute arises from my personal definition of what constitutes a “story,” one facet of which is that “something must change between the beginning of a story and its ending.” The title Migrations serves as a metaphor for the many such transitions present. A third shared attribute of these stories is the level of narrative closure present. I’ve taken effort to imitate life on that level, and the term “open-ended” describes the result well. The stories here tend to end with the implied possibility of many further changes, either positive or negative. Protagonists here neither die nor live “happily ever after.” More often than not, however, the implications of the story endings here suggest hope. There are exceptions, but I believe many of the characters whose lives deserve to be narrated are those who choose, on some level, to believe in a positive future.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: Literature
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7.
Engberg, Melissa.
Five Lines for the Traveler's Phrasebook.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► This thesis, titled 'Five Lines for the Traveler's Phrasebook,' is a collection…
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▼ This thesis, titled 'Five Lines for the Traveler's Phrasebook,' is a collection of five short stories, all of which are centered around the experience of women in developing nations. Because I have dedicated my time in this program not only to the work of writing fiction, but to expanding my knowledge of literary theory through the cross-disciplinary opportunities afforded to me by this program.Therefore, my thesis collection is significantly influenced by the work of multicultural and feminist theory, particularly Gayatri Spivak and her question of whether or not the subaltern can speak. Spivak's chief claim, made in her essay 'Can the Subaltern Speak,' is that the impermeable cultural barrier that exists between East and West make such speaking essentially impossible; the subaltern is not equipped with the tools of Western discourse necessary to 'speak' in a manner which would be comprehensible to the western world, and gaining such rhetorical tools necessitates a Western education that produces a discourse discernable to the West, but no longer representative of the subaltern. As a white woman of a privileged class, my attempts to explore the question of whether the subaltern can speak are, of course, unavoidably tied to my cultural background. Therefore, many of the stories in this collection are told from the perspective of a western protagonist. Those that are not chiefly focus on interpersonal relationships; my goal here has been to express those human experiences which might reasonably be regarded as universal, and allow the experiences of the subaltern to exist within the larger context of the stories.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Literature
Keywords: subaltern; post-colonial; feminist
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8.
Felver, Brad J.
In Ohio.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2011, Bowling Green State University
► In Ohio is a novel focused around the notion of life quietly…
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▼ In Ohio is a novel focused around the notion of life quietly repeating itself. Roughly half the stories follow joint protagonists, Raymond and Jules Eliot, and their struggles to break this spell. The other stories expand the scope of inquiry, focusing on the town of Severn and its history – a black hole of advancement. In this way, the novel covers the span of 150 years in order to depict the complexities of its long lineage of residents stuck in the orbit of repetition.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Fine Arts; Literature
Keywords: Fiction; Novel; Ohio
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9.
Hoffman, Dustin M.
Living Impaired and Other Stories of the Underemployed.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► This collection of stories explores the contemporary American work place. Many of…
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▼ This collection of stories explores the contemporary American work place. Many of the stories take place at work, within the crucible of the eight-hour shift, where characters struggle to understand their worth beyond their hourly wage. During my time at BGSU, I've sought to investigate where one's occupation can take a character, whether it be chasing the ever-elusive American Dream or confronting an inner conflict. The styles of the stories range from traditional realism to the magically absurd, because the complex story of the American worker will never be able to be told in only one way.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Dr. Wendell.
Subjects: American literature; Comparative literature; English literature; Fine Arts; Language arts; Literature
Keywords: Occupational, Work, American Dream, Absurd, Traditional, Zombies, Pushing the Knives, Silverback, House Painter, Michigan, Kalamazoo, Magical Realism, Surreal
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10.
Jennings, Brandon Davis.
Big Men.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2009, Bowling Green State University
► This collection of short stories is what I believe to be the…
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▼ This collection of short stories is what I believe to be the strongest writing I’ve done while enrolled at the university that can be linked together as a cohesive whole. Each story is an exploration of various themes: masculinity, duty, family and God.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: American literature; Armed forces; Fine Arts; Folklore
Keywords: Maculinity; God; West Virginia; Okinawa; Appalachia; Military; Arthurian Legend
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11.
Kosinec, Bess W.
Predictability of Spines.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2011, Bowling Green State University
► These stories concern, chiefly, art: the making - or not making -…
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▼ These stories concern, chiefly, art: the making - or not making - of it, its function in our lives. Some stories, such as “Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds,” “Art Thou Troubled,” and “The Many Iterations of Walter Rose,” are attempts at “ekphrastic fiction”: responses to particular songs or pieces of art. Others deal with what it means to be an artist, and yet others are about negotiating the divide between ‘art' and ‘artifice' : a young woman finds solace in a virtual world, a dog is cared for as if it's a child, a couple adopts a mouse in lieu of having a baby. In each, a character that is confused about his or her place in the world of creating finds a place to land.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: American Literature; Canadian Literature; Fine Arts; Literature
Keywords: stories; fiction; art; artifice; ekphrasis; short short
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12.
Lane, Katherine Ann.
Spectacle of the Missing.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► These eight stories are linked by setting: all the characters have originated…
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▼ These eight stories are linked by setting: all the characters have originated in Malone, New York; a real place in Northern New York that I have fictionalized for the purposes of story. Malone, New York is an impoverished, cold place that shapes the characters who live there. The characters in these stories are connected to the same place, yet they live separate and disparate lives, even when they inhabit the same household. In four of the stories one family is followed closely in a series of stories linked to their changing lives. The stories "Red Winter," "New Light,""Stillborn," and "Midway" all have the same central character named Luce. Luce shows how landscape and hardship shape lives.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: English literature
Keywords: Short Stories
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13.
Marker, Stephanie Ann.
The Game.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2010, Bowling Green State University
► Overall, I see this collection as an anti-hero's journey arc. The stories…
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▼ Overall, I see this collection as an anti-hero's journey arc. The stories are completely separate, not connected in any way other than theme, but the sections track a progression of thought, of experience, and, I hope, insight. Although these are fully separate characters, the progression of the state of being of each protagonist from story to story creates the anti-hero type feel that I believe shapes the collection. This anti-hero is a lost soul, whose story begins with ultimate loss, or destruction, of the world. It was definitely not a perfect world or a peaceful world or even a world in which the anti-hero was happy, but it was familiar and in that way comforting even in the worst of times. We meet this individual at the point when the bottom drops out and everything is violently ripped away, irreparably altered. After this has happened, the anti-hero enters into a static state of being. With nothing to go back to or any sort of future, the anti-hero is stuck in a painful place and doesn't belong. From this, the anti-hero moves toward a sense of awareness of the possibility of change and actively chooses to move away from the static state, bitterly at first, with one foot still firmly on the ground, and comes to peace with the fact that it is impossible to hold onto what was, that it's necessary to let go. Finally, the anti-hero is able to completely step away from the idea that there is only one way to interact with one's environment. I initially intended the final section to be more of a hopeful oblivion, with the world falling down around new ears to be later built back up. What ended up happening, though, is that I wrote three stories in which the characters are somehow destroyed and there's no telling what will come next for them. These characters are just as lost as the characters in the first section of the collection, and even, in a sense, static despite their transformation. In that sense, this collection is a never-ending causal loop, where it is impossible to gain new ground or any footing really, where questions remain unanswered if they are even fully formed in the first place. These stories are an exploration of some of the tragic aspects of the human condition, none provide guidance, only a sense of awareness, at best.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: Fine Arts
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14.
Mckenzie, Amy Lynne.
The True Testament of Trudy Bill Who Blew Up Heaven and Most Everyone Trapped Inside.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2012, Bowling Green State University
► On June 8th 2005, Trudy Bill sets her father's firework store on…
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▼ On June 8th 2005, Trudy Bill sets her father's firework store on fire during her little sister's wedding, killing her family and everyone in the town of Heaven. Eight years later, Trudy's fifteen-year-old cousin Rudy-the only survivor of the June 8th disaster-seeks to understand why and how Trudy came to be a murderer. Starting from Trudy's birth, Rudy narrates her version of Trudy's life.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
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15.
Nicholson, Debra.
The Time Here is Redeemed.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► The Time Here is Redeemed is a collection of stories exploring various…
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▼ The Time Here is Redeemed is a collection of stories exploring various responses to life's troubles such as stillbirth, divorce, loneliness, illness, and spousal death. The characters in these stories struggle to assimilate grief into their lives when faced with the inevitability of their losses. The collection poses the question, "Is it possible to move forward from the shock of life's unexpected disappointments?"
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: Families and family life
Keywords: redeemed; move forward; grief
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16.
Palmgren, Tristan Scott.
Galloway's Children.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► Abidemi Kumolu and his twenty-nine brothers and sisters have been engineered to…
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▼ Abidemi Kumolu and his twenty-nine brothers and sisters have been engineered to tolerate the atmosphere of alien world orbiting Alpha Centauri A; his genetic parents, originally from a scientific survey vessel, have seceded from the United Nations that sent them. Gabriel Galloway, the leader of that survey vessel, plans to use them as the foundation stone for a civilization like Earth has never seen. Gabriel did not anticipate the arrival of several other starships from Earth, each bearing their own engineered children and claiming allegiance to one of the nation-states that Gabriel had hoped to leave behind. He aims to outcompete the other colonies both militarily and economically, and to have his engineered son Jacob assume his role when Jacob reaches adulthood. Abidemi becomes romantically involved with Jacob, but, as Gabriel's goals worm their way between them, they become rivals. Both boys grow up to find themselves at the center of interstellar politics, where they must save their siblings from a nuclear holocaust and their own parents' ambition.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Keywords: Science fiction
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17.
Pogson, Aimee L.
Tree Frog Madness.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2009, Bowling Green State University
Tree Frog Madness is a collection of short stories that focus on themes of love, suspension of reality, and connection and disconnection between characters.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Literature; Personal relationships
Keywords: short stories; love
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18.
Rai, Misha.
Housewives, Mothers and Other Stories.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2012, Bowling Green State University
► These nine stories and the first chapter of a novella are linked…
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▼ These nine stories and the first chapter of a novella are linked by non-linear narrative styles. A majority of the fiction, in the collection, is in a way an exploration of families in the traditional and non-traditional sense. A family can be one a character is born in, has acquired, is forced to belong to, finds themselves thrown together with etc. In all the stories there is a great deal of looking backwards and looking forward. Other motifs that play an important role include trauma, ritualized violence, the exploration of sexual identities, the role of religion, social class, caste, fate and food.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: Literature
Keywords: Short Story Collection
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19.
Schlich, Eric Butler.
Not Nobody, Not Nohow.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2012, Bowling Green State University
► The title of this thesis, “Not Nobody, Not Nohow,” comes from a…
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▼ The title of this thesis, “Not Nobody, Not Nohow,” comes from a line spoken by the Emerald City guard in The Wizard of Oz (MGM, 1939). He denies Dorothy and her three friends, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, access to the Wizard of Oz, whom they seek to fulfill their hearts’ desires of brain, heart, courage, and home. As the collection’s title suggests, the characters in my stories are often striving to be “Not Nobody,” in the face of adversity. I have a fascination with writing about outcast characters, those on the fringes of society or human relationships. Such as Margaret Hamilton, the woman who played the Wicked Witch of the West, a role that forever typecast her as one of the most infamous villains of all time. Or a little cross-dressing boy, whose fantasies blur the line of gender to the dismay of his parents. My stories often feature characters who are labeled “monstrous” by society, either physically, morally, or fantastically— pedophiles, atheists, alcoholics, epileptics, geeks, cyclopses, etc. Many of my characters are struggling to find exactly what Dorothy and her entourage are searching for: the wisdom to trust in or discount their faith, the abilities of the emotionally detached to find love, the bravery it takes to speak up for yourself in spite of a disadvantaged state, and a place to belong. Several of the stories in the collection are written from the point of view of a child or take into account the nostalgic magic of childhood and “make-believe.” But this innocence is often juxtaposed with darker, ironic truths from the adult world. The collision of these two realms demonstrates why elements of this thesis might be classified as “magical real.” Merlin may be living next door, but his magical time-traveling abilities are limited in their potential to assuage the conforming pressures of the suburbs and the loneliness of his “human-black-hole” neighbor. Mythology is reinvented and contextualized in modern settings in which the “magic” of having a single-eye is transformed into a medical deformity that only further alienates its protagonist. Religion is also explored in stories that expose the limitations of faith. Themes of perception are often represented by color, which serves as a metaphor for character identity and self-worth, alongside the limited perspective that often results from such individuality. In addition to these thematic elements and motifs, several stories featured in the thesis experiment with form. Two stories adopt a “manual” style approach to overcoming character deficiencies with step-by-step instructions on how to achieve lucid dreaming, or resist temptation during a potentially catastrophic children’s holiday. At the peak of formal experimentation is “Results of Spectrum-Chromatics’ Synesthesia Case Study,” a story in which a scientific report (headings, footnotes, summaries, etc.) devolves into a scorned lover’s ramblings. I’ve chosen to end the thesis with a story that literalizes the “body” of the collection’s title through the Roman Catholic Sacrament of the First Holy Communion. Each member of the Pauley family are given “screen time” to air their religious, sexual, and philosophical opinions on the human body and the connection forged between their bodies as representative of familial relationships. The story (and collection) ends with a life-affirming sentiment, an appreciation of living all too rare in my characters’ everyday strife to be somebody, somehow.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: Literature
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20.
Templeton, Catherine R.
The Moon at the Door.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2010, Bowling Green State University
► My stories are about liminality of place, and from there the liminal…
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▼ My stories are about liminality of place, and from there the liminal state of consciousness they provoke and the inevitable transformation that ensues. No place is what it seems, and any place returned to is a different place, including childhood, love and loneliness. Perhaps it is my own displacement in the Midwest, or perhaps it is because I was nearly killed by the Pacific Ocean as a child. The constant flux in relationship to place and people is what these stories attempt to communicate. Liminality can also be experienced in language. In these stories I use predominantly Spanish and occasionally French: languages I know (Spanish more than French) but can never truly possess. Liminal states, both psychologically and physical, include border towns, seaside towns, windows, towers, other countries, other landscapes, childhood, pregnancy, and birth. Myths, archetypes and fairy tales particularly relevant include Trickster, Rapunzel and Persephone. An example of transitional time would be “House of the Dead,” which revolves around a double liminality: the day when the dead can inhabit the world of the living and specifically, in this case, a displacement of tradition, from Mexico into New Mexico.I think it important to convey the constant sense of loss and revelation, every manifestation of self and location. Ultimately, it is revelation and that I hope to perpetuate. Liminality may be considered a transitional state, but transcendent as well. These stories move, loosely from East to West the ultimate liminality being the sea. The last story, “The Lighthouse,” takes place in both the Midwest and the coast, ending somewhere in the sky between with Kai somewhere between life and death yet having reached some kind of resolution.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
Subjects: English literature
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21.
Thekkiam, Sruthi Sridhar.
PINK LOTUS MOTORBOAT: BANGALORE STORIES.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2007, Bowling Green State University
► These nine stories are linked by setting: all the characters either live…
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▼ These nine stories are linked by setting: all the characters either live in or travel to Bangalore, India. Bangalore was a quiet town a few decades ago but is now a city in flux, and is devouring the changes that come with globalization and rapid industrialization. Just when its belly seems unnaturally distended and you think a button must pop, causing its clothes to fall embarrassingly around its ankles, the city will surprise you with its ability to keep going. The characters in these stories attempt to meet the challenges in their lives with the same spirit, but not all of them succeed as well as the city does. However, they try, and their attempts are these stories. In a city that contains a multitude of worlds - traditional and modern, parochial and cosmopolitan, mansions and slums - the characters in these stories surprise and are surprised by facets of themselves.
Advisors/Committee Members: Coates, Lawrence.
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22.
Valente, Anne E.
Mollusk, Membrane, Human Heart.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2010, Bowling Green State University
► This thesis presents a collection of short stories united by the common…
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▼ This thesis presents a collection of short stories united by the common theme of loss, and how human beings cope with the various permutations of grief that each stage of life can bring. As such, the collection moves from stories of childhood, to adulthood, and finally, to parenthood. Though the stories are not linked by common characters or settings, they share an overarching progression from childhood to parenthood, and the losses that human beings may meet along the way. In addition to the theme of loss, the collection explores a variety of other themes and subjects, including communication, violence, caretaking, security, masculinity, femininity, vulnerability, and care of the earth. Aside from initiation into the possible losses of each life stage, the collection also explores the possibilities for hope, magic and transcendence within the human experience.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: Fine Arts; Language arts; Literature
Keywords: fiction; short story collection
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23.
Vogtman, Jacqueline.
The Preservation of Objects Lost at Sea.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2010, Bowling Green State University
► The eighteen stories in The Preservation of Objects Lost at Sea are…
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▼ The eighteen stories in The Preservation of Objects Lost at Sea are loose interpretations of three classic fairy tales: "Goldilocks and The Three Bears," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Hansel and Gretel." My fictions explore themes inherent in those old tales. In the first section, "Goldie and the Bears," many stories revolve around the loss or hoarding of material objects and the unwelcome insertion of one's self into the life of the other. "La Belle et la Bête" contains stories that focus on the relationship between an ordinary character and a grotesque character (a character monstrous or fantastic in the artistic tradition of grotesques). In "The Children and the Ogre," many stories deal with children who are literally or figuratively lost, who encounter danger or violence in trying to find their way home.The thesis moves back and forth, like waves, between short and long stories. This movement is meant to highlight the movement in the fictions between realism, magical realism, and fabulism. The flash-fiction pieces included serve as epigraphs for the longer pieces, highlighting a theme or image in the story that follows. My stories also move between first, second, and third person, sometimes utilizing multiple perspectives and points of view in a single story, a technique that proposes the multivocality that exists within one society, one community, one family, even one self. Overall, the stories progress from a single narrator experiencing loss to characters who seek to preserve something together, symbolized by the final image of amber pulled from the sea. Historically, stories have sought to preserve what is lost through time, and the title of my thesis and many of my stories point to that pursuit.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: American literature; Fine Arts; Folklore; Literature
Keywords: fiction; short stories; fairy tales; magical realism; Goldilocks; Beauty and the Beast; Hansel and Gretel; fabulism; flash fiction; grotesque
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24.
Vozel, Jessica Marie.
The Women-Only Hunting.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2011, Bowling Green State University
► The Women-Only Hunting Club is a collection of nine short stories that…
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▼ The Women-Only Hunting Club is a collection of nine short stories that tell of the lives of women living in and around the Appalachian mountains. These stories cover loss and reclamation, of wanting to believe the gaps that loss leaves behind can be filled again. Many of these women search their mountains for something: a creature of local legend in “Giant Catfish of the Monongahela,” fallen meteorites in “Knock Softer,” minerals to eat in “How it Feels in Your Stomach,” and deer to shoot in the title story, “The Women-Only Hunting Club.” Other women find something they weren't looking for and have to deal with that discovery. For example, in “The Creature at Dapple Creek,” a couple finds a dying, unidentifiable creature in the coal mine where they work, and in “Jesus Beet,” a woman digs out a beet from the garden with the imprint of Jesus' face on it. In “From the Mountain, You Can't See the Mountain,” a girl discovers that the man she thought she loved has turned into a monster. Each of these stories feature loss at the forefront, but the early stories in the collection are about the process of loss-about women who leave a part of themselves behind for someone else to find. The middle stories are about women who make unexpected discoveries and what those discoveries mean for them. The last stories in the collection are about the search for something that ultimately cannot be found.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: American Literature
Keywords: short fiction; Appalachia; women
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25.
Wysong, Priscilla Marie.
Instinct and Relics: A Collection of Short Stories.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2008, Bowling Green State University
► Instinct and Relics is a collection of short stories written during my…
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▼ Instinct and Relics is a collection of short stories written during my time at Bowling Green State University. In these stories, I explore the themes of isolation, doubt and mortality.
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Subjects: American literature; English literature; Fine Arts; Gender; Language arts; Personal relationships; Philosophy; Religion
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26.
Zuppa, Michelle Ann.
How We Roll: Stories.
Degree: MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, 2011, Bowling Green State University
► The stories in How We Roll feature characters striving for happiness, and…
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▼ The stories in How We Roll feature characters striving for happiness, and success, and sometimes for peace and understanding of self. Often these protagonists think they know what they want only to discover they are wrong. All the main characters are women, and many are pregnant or involved with young children. The stories are mainly set in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York, part of the rust belt. Community, in the form of extended family, friends, co-workers and neighbors, influences these characters as they struggle and try to find their way
Advisors/Committee Members: Mayo, Wendell.
Keywords: Realism; Women; Short Fiction; Buffalo, NY
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