Red Dresses for Funerals contains a scholarly preface concerning the nature of factuality versus credibility in the writing of fiction. Four original short stories are included in this thesis. "A Night With Lawrence Welk" explores the relationship between a patient and student intern psychologist. "Red Dresses for Funerals" is about a wedding that plays a significant role in a variety of the characters' lives. "Trace Elements" is the only story involving young children. "Trace Elements" explores the beginning of understanding of some of the grimmer aspects of reality. "Expectations, Great and Otherwise" addresses the issue of denial. These stories are linked by their setting, a small town in Texas.

The Light Bearer consists of seven stories that are set in and around the small town of Anderson Place, Tennessee. Their focus is on the inhabitants of the town, which is in the process from expanding from a rural town to a bedroom community of the expanding Nashville. These stories remain interested in the everyday lives of the characters, and their focus remains on the interpersonal relationships of those individuals. Six of the seven stories are set in contemporary Tennessee, while the last story focuses on events that occurred in the early 1960s.

Collection of short stories set in Stockhol, Sweden. Themes are alienation, bi-culturalism, third culture kids nomadism, fitting in a differnet culture.

This thesis is a creative one, comprised of eight short stories which deal with a variety of subjects. All of the material is concerned with personal or vicarious experience.

For convenience and for control, the analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne's style presented here is limited to a selection of his short stories. The short story form will serve better to illustrate the thesis of this paper, that Hawthorne's style is used deliberately to create, in part, the neutral territory he desired. The shorter form has been chosen, additionally, because it requires of its author a certain discipline--superfluous elements of style must be abandoned so that the story can get on about its business. Hawthorne's short fiction, moreover, contains nearly all the stylistic techniques which he later used in his novels.

Ways of Pulling A Person Out of the Water contains a preface, which discusses the writing process as well as a discussion of the short story form, ten original short stories, and two chapters of a novel-in-progress. A number of the short stories explore issues such as eating disorders, sexual violence, and artistic choice in the specialized context of the dance community. The novel chapters further develop one of the short stories, "When You Are the Camera and the Camera Is You." The narrator, Diane, explores her life coping with agoraphobia and her family's car accident.

Earl suffers from a guilty obsession with a monster catfish. Eddie Klomp searches dog tracks for the ghosts of his lost childhood. Mike Towns is a hopeless blues musician who loses everything he cares for. Blair Evans learns to love a pesky wart. Americana becomes confused with the difference between knowledge and sex. Do Not Eat Fish from These Waters And Other Stories is a collection of short stories that explores the strange and often defeated lives of these Southern characters (and one from the point-of-view of a feral hog). Each man, woman, and hog flails through a period of potential metamorphosis trying to find some sort of meaning and worth in the past, present and future. Not all of these characters succeed.

This paper is a collection of three short stories. A short preface discussing the origin of the tales precedes the stories. Fractions and Equations is the story of a love triangle. In this tale, the development of love between two people is told. There is no resolution in the tale. The second story, The Sailing of the Fantasy Cafe, tells of the operation of a book shop at Christmas time. The main characters in the story are described and several important incidents are also related. The tale ends with a Christmas party. The final story, And Penance More Must Do, deals with the life of a young teacher. The story begins in Africa and ends in America. During the course of the story the mind and heart of the main character are probed in detail.

Hemlock and Other Stories is a collection of short stories focusing primarily on the importance of geography and cultural identity in modern America. Other stories explore similar themes but contain international and/or historical settings. Ultimately, most characters in the selected stories must find ways to reconcile heritage with present-day demands.

The Nature of Things is a collection of stories and a preface that examine character motivation. The author is concerned with unexpected reactions and surprising outcomes. The stories are independent of each other and involve a wide range of characters.