Set in a Finnish-American community in Upper Michigan, How Many Tears, a novel, represents the tears of pain, anger, and frustration that the protagonist, Ann T'oivonen, has shed merely because of the circumstances of her birth. It is a story of success, since she moves toward the ability to choose, toward some primitive level of autonomy, and it is a story that tries to represent the real problems of real people caught in an abusive, alcoholic world, a brutal world, where the characters find themselves neither by choice, nor by intention. Ann's struggle is made more difficult by her lack of education and support and her inability to define for herself what she wants from life. She moves from an abusive childhood to marrying an alcoholic whom she leaves only after her life has been physically threatened. Adrift in the world, she accepts charity from another man, who will be her second lover, but he too is an alcoholic, and she leaves him, finally in search of something for herself. How Many Tears is a story, not of Ann's struggle for enrichment--it is her struggle for survival. / Department of English

The purpose of this project was to demonstrate usage of the criteria important in writing an adolescent novel. My main effort with this project was to write something that was both educational and entertaining.To prepare this novel, I discussed my subject with people in the fields of medicine and psychiatry. I also used several books and articles relating to the experience of adolescent depression.By the time I completed the work, I felt that I had designed something that displayed my knowledge of adolescent literature, and something that was very entertaining as well as education. The manuscript was sent to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in April, 1988.In preparation for submitting the work, I followed standard guidelines for manuscripts as outlined in Writer’s Market and as recommended by workshop advisors.My conclusions from this project are that I feel very satisfied that Dancing In The Dark is an encouraging, interesting piece of contemporary literature for adolescents. / Department of English

Odds and Ids is a satirical novel of 419 pages that ridicules the tenets of psychotherapy and the beliefs and behaviors of psychotherapists. There are two story lines which overlap and converge at the end. Odd chapters tell the story of semi-sane Clinical Psychologist Nicholas K. Mavros and his alcoholic dog, Misty, the melancholy collie. Disillusioned by life, and in particular by the sham of psychotherapy, Nick decides to commit suicide in seven days by driving his burgundy van off the Billy Bopplemeyer Pier at sunset.He and Misty form a sacred pact to achieve that gallant end. Knowing that he will be dead in one week frees Nick at work and play to say what he is thinking and to act as he is feeling. He simply does not care any longer what others--friends, staff, and clients--think of his behavior. The odd chapters follow him day by day until he and Misty plunge or do not plunge into the cold waters of Puget Sound.The even chapters trace the rise and fall of the fictional Rumanian Bithwanians, a strange family that personifies postFreudian psychotherapy. Three generations of odd Bithwanians bungle through the bizarre world of mental health, seldom knowing the first thing about how to help another human being. Each Bithwanian is so enmeshed in the intricacies of his own theory that he's;fails to see his clients as animate human beings.The last Bithwanian, whose suicide opens the second friend of Nicholas Mavros, the errant protagonist, whose intent to commit suicide 3efines the central plot of the odd chapters.Their relationship, seen in retrospect, ties the two story lines together.The guiding idea throughout the novel is that the right to label others, and this alone, separates therapists and clients.The following are shot at in the novel: A) Therapists and their illusions.B) Clients and their unrealistic expectations.C) The non-training of future clinicians.D) Therapy, insurance companies, the union of psychologists,sex, love, religion, tradition, and existentialism. / Department of English

Margin of Balance is a collection of seven short stories developed and published during the spring and summer sessions of 1993. This six-hour creative project was completed under the guidance of Ms. Margaret Dimoplon, Dr. Thomas Koontz, and Dr. Frances Rippy, all of the English department. Stories were written, workshopped by these committee members, then rewritten or revised; upon completion, the stories were paginated, printed, and perfect-bound for marketing on consignment in area bookstores.Numerous authors-Virginia Woolf, Allen Tate, Dylan Thomas, and William Blake, to name a few-have used self-publishing as a first step on a successful career path. This creative project, besides completing the requirements for my master's degree, becomes an initial opportunity to place my collected fiction in public.The stories "Knuckling Under," "Margin of Balance," "Run, Red Pony," and "A Man of Letters" were begun in fiction classes taught by Ms. Dimoplon. The three longest stories-"The Anointed," "Brooklyn Babes & Babbling Brooks," and "Strings Attached"-were written for this particular project. My professional experience as an editor and graphic designer made planning and producing the book possible. Six sixteen-page signatures and a separate cover were printed at Ball State University Printing Services and bound at Commercial Service in Anderson, Indiana.Although I have had extensive experience in journalistic and public relations writing, this project served as a professional introduction to the field of fiction writing. Also, it became a final opportunity to work with three accomplished professors, a last chance to gain insight concerning my work and writing methods through their guidance. Though the collection must stand on its own merits, the experience of working with three such distinguished literary academicians proved most valuable and unforgettable. I trust that, through this project, I carry some portion of their sagacity into my writing endeavors. / Department of English

The group of six short stories is unified around a central theme of remembrance, as the title of the collection suggests. In all of the stories but one, the memories of a female character are evoked--a character who looks back in time, either to childhood or to the more recent past, to recall an event which was crucial in her life, an event which changed her. In each of these five stories, the speaker is a mature adult; however, in the sixth, "Fern James and the Kid," the story is told by an observer of the main character(s). The setting (and voice) in these stories is most often that of small-town southern Indiana.

A Veritable Press is a collection of six short stories, focusing on the troubled relationships of its characters, exhibited both internally and externally. While the characters in these stories experience the effects of their own decisions, they are generally more affected by forces outside their control, whether those are the choices of others, or the inexplicability of nature. Most characters seek redemption, though they are denied the means to deliver themselves as they move towards an end that seems inevitable. This feeling of inevitability represents the arbitrary and seemingly unsystematic nature of circumstance. Through the use of distinct voices, multiple narratives, and metafiction, each piece works to exhibit an entirely realistic portrait of its places and characters, endeavoring to force its reader to face what is most unpleasant and appalling, in order to understand it. / You and I -- Violet in blue, swimming -- Mole hunt -- We three make up a solitude -- Savages -- Other books. / Department of English

This project consisted of a series of short stories which worked together creating a larger fictional piece in the form of a non-continuous narrative. This non-continuous narrative is in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine. The stories in this type of fiction are connected by similar themes and settings, allowing the reader to participate directly in the creative process. The reader helps create the fiction by drawing his or her own conclusions about the characters and places from between the individual stories. By involving the reader more directly in the outcome, this type of narrative creates a more emotional response to the work. Each of the stories in this project were set in a town called Sand Beach, Michigan, and involved four generations of women in a single family. The major themes of the stories were mother/daughter relationships, healing, and redemption. Common images in the stories presented were, Lake Huron, the town of Sand Beach, and a rock in the local region bearing Native American petroglyphs Each of these images participated in the development of the common themes. / Department of English

This collection of short stories explores the depths of human emotions as seemingly unrelated characters in an Indiana community react to tragedies, including death, divorce, abuse, financial struggles, and assault. Each character experiences intense isolation and hopelessness, and some question the presence of a God who would allow such suffering. Not only are the protagonists' stories unique, but the characters themselves are diverse, encompassing different ages, genders, races, and class levels. Each story is linked by a cause-and-effect in which one person's reaction to grief creates tragedy in someone else's life. Therefore, the protagonist of one story becomes the antagonist of the next, and readers get a glimpse into both sides of the conflict. This chain reaction continues until the final story, in which the protagonist chooses to deal with his grief through faith and forgiveness, offering his attacker redemption and exemplifying the depth of God's love. / Portrait of Jesus (1988) -- The deep end (2003) -- Wrongful death (2005) -- Double shift (2006) -- The fight (2006) -- The path (2006) / Department of English

The Shadow Line is a collection of six short stories featuring characters whose lives take them near, and often across, the metaphorical Line that separates light from dark. Some of these characters indeed straddle that Line, living lives of apparent uprightness while harboring the seeds of inescapable menace. Some hover on the outside of some social structure and yearn to cross over, to leave the shadows of their lives outside for the apparent radiance within. And some live in worlds of brightness and comfort, only to find themselves confronting sudden moments of inexplicable terror. Told from various points of view, these stories invite the reader to listen to the characters — to explore the secrets they keep, the fears and doubts and dangers they face as they confront the darkness — and to inhabit with them, for a short time, the menacing world on either side of the Shadow Line. / A story to tell -- Grass grows greener -- Salvation -- Places -- The delivery -- The ivory tower. / Department of English

My Daddy's Farm is a work of fiction about Clement J. Jones, a man, my great-grandfather, who committed suicide on November 19, 1924. In the early nineteen-twenties, this family man was a well respected, wealthy citizen of his county who--like one-third of his peers--had an active membership in the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. The story is narrated in part by a slightly sympathetic omniscient narrator, but mainly by Hazel Louise Jones, his daughter, who was in her teens when the Klan swept across Indiana in the nineteen-twenties; she was sixteen when her father committed suicide on November 19th, 1924.I have used three variations in this writing, based loosely on the style Gloria Naylor uses in Mama Day. These variations are characterized by the titles of their respective sections: "Our Spring," "Our Farm," "Our Family," and "Our Shame" are all narrated in first person, past tense, by Hazel Jones, Clement's sixteen year old daughter who is speaking as a representative of her family; "Clement J. Jones" and "Hazel Louise Jones" are written in third person, limited omniscient narration; and, "To Margaret," and "To Daddy" sections are present tense, with second person narration from Hazel Jones. Starting with "Our Shame," the story is punctuated by "Document" selections posted at the close of each chapter. These documents are nonfiction: they are news articles taken directly from the Indianapolis Star, the Williamsport Review-Republican, and the Williamsport Pioneer dated 1922, 1923, and 1924; and, they are papers taken out of the "United Klans of America" collection located in the Archives and Special Collections department of Bracken Library, Ball State University.Among sources listed on page 71 of this document, there are a few that were most helpful in providing details about the Indiana Klan: Anti Movements in America, edited by Gerald N. Grob, which reprints "Papers Read at the Meeting of Grand Dragons Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at their First Annual Meeting held at Asheville, North Carolina, July 1923"; and Women of the Klan, by Kathleen M. Blee. Exceptionally helpful was William Lutholtz's Grand Dragon, a well researched work of non-fiction about D.C. Stephenson's rise to power in the Indiana Klan and the development of the Indiana Klan.Three works of fiction especially provided creative direction for this thesis: Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor; Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood; and, In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim OBrien. / Department of English