Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 2007. / Supervisors: Corey Creekmur, Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 257-267).

abstract: This thesis contains stories about loss and the trauma that's felt in its wake. Within all of these stories, characters struggle with the notion of "healing" and "moving on." Whether it be a young boy who deals with his grief by cannibalizing his mother in "A Simple Request", or a teenage girl who wishes her chronically suicidal mother would finally kill herself in "Little Accidents," all stories within this collection explore the very unique, and human ways, in which people deal with grief. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.F.A. English 2012

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF JANELLE JUNE BLASDEL, for the Master of Fine Arts degree in ENGLISH, presented on April 5, 2011, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE NATURE OF THINGS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Professor Beth Lordan The Nature of Things is a collection of short stories divided into two parts. While both parts are thematically linked and include similar recurring themes, such as childhood, motherhood, maturation, and the menace that follows characters from one phase of life and into the next, each part experiments with different formal and tonal writing elements. Part I exercises a closer narrative voice that is more character-driven and maintains a strong sense of realism. Part II, in contrast, employs a much more distant third person narrative voice and elements of the surreal.

A collection of formally diverse short stories focusing on how people deal with tragedy and estrangement. 

No description available.

This fiction collection attempts to convey the essence of Oregon's landscape, nature, and people. Many of these pieces reflect violent behavior, which is sometimes directed from one character to another, and sometimes directed toward nature. Sometimes this violence is mild, sometimes it is horrific. But the reasons for the violence and any connection it has to the landscape, nature, and people of Oregon is left to the reader to decide. The focus of this collection is not to teach lessons--it is to entertain.

This thesis concerns the development of the short story in Canada from 1935 to 1955. The political, social and economic background has been briefly surveyed and related to the developments in the story in character, subjects, theme, and form. Each of the chapters deals with one of the four periods into which this development may be divided. In each chapter collections, anthologies, and stories from periodicals have been discussed. Chapter I, 1935 - 1940, studies the transition which was taking place in the depression period as the story shifted from man in conflict with nature to man in society. Chapter II, 1946 – 1950, reveals that, in the war years, the story was often concerned with social protest, although there was some opposition to this type. Little magazines became an important influence in this period. Chapter III, 1946 - 1950, shows that in the post-war period, the writers often built their stories around a psychological or psychoanalytic insight into characters. Chapter IV, 1950 - 1955, saw a lull in story writing; however, in those which were written, a greater complexity in character and a centering on ideas was present. What is evident in each period is a growing maturity, which is reflected in the types of characters presented, the subjects and themes which they reveal, and the form through which they are presented. In connection with the general development of the story, each chapter has noted also the availability of places for publication within Canada, general Canadian qualities, and regional influences. It has been found that, although the story development was conservative, the authors did usually deal with contemporary Canadian situations and problems. The study concludes with a bibliography. This was compiled because of a lack of Information on the short story in Canada. No separate listing of the collections and anthologies published during this period exists. The only listings of stories in the periodicals are those to be found in the Canadian Periodical Index, which are arranged by author and title. For convenience in the study of development, this list has been compiled chronologically. Sections I and II list respectively the collections and anthologies published by Canadian writers from 1935 to 1955. Section III is a list of the stories published in certain Canadian periodicals. Only those authors who published 5 or more stories in the periodicals examined are included. Section IV is a list of Canadian Periodicals publishing short stories during these years. Section V Is a list of references used in preparing this thesis. This bibliography is useful in determining the relative importance of the periodicals which have contained stories, in comparing the number of stories in each period, and in tracing the activity of the authors. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This collection of short stories attempts to examine the role of a changing and often indifferent world has in the way various characters achieve maturity. Though the past is not always obvious in each story, each protagonist is characterized as holding onto some aspect of his or her past life in a way that is detrimental to their growing as human beings. the stories attempt to portray the indifference of the world as it moves forward to the plight of these characters, and to portray the manner in which they each come to terms with such a world and with their own lives.

"Of the endeavors made each year to select and reprint in an anthology the best magazine stories of the preceding twelve months, Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien's Best Short Stories, the first to be initiated, is one of the best known and most widely recognized. Many college, public, and secondary school librarians have accepted the collections as representative of the best current short story writing, and have made them a permanent part of their annual acquisitions. In this study, an attempt shall be made to determine O'Brien's purpose in establishing the anthology, the criteria followed, the procedures used in making the selections, and the critics' reactions to these criteria, procedures, and selections from 1915 to 1949. And finally, in order to determine more clearly what the reader may expect to find in a volume of Best Short Stories in terms of authors, kinds of stories, and magazines represented, an examination shall be made of these three factors in the selections of the eleven-year period, 1939-1949"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1951." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Robert G. Clapp, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-71).