Finding the Center is a collection of short stories with characters that search within themselves for answers to who they are and what is their place in the world. Through descriptive language, well-rounded characterization, and sometimes by use of experimental writing forms, the author examines themes such as mankind's place in nature, materialism, globalization, and the corporatization of America. Through a psychoanalytical approach toward writing, the characters grapple with their relationship; whether it is an understanding of one another or a clearer understanding of the role the environment plays in each of their lives. Uses of ancient myth as well as the creation of new myth hold up Midwestern rural values for inspection. The collection explores and develops images that are icons for the Midwest in the same way cowboys and rodeos are the iconographic images of the west, or like southern hospitality and genteel manners are icons of the south. / Department of English

AGenesis is a novel of "postmortal fiction" set entirely in an afterlife. Nessie, a recently dead woman, accidentally kills an already-dead man, and in the confusion that follows, sets out to discover how he could have died and what after-afterlife he might have gone to. During her travels, she is raped and then help captive by a city of tormented souls; she descends into madness until rescued by children, and she and her newborn but "undead" daughter set out again, this time to find the end of the afterlife. Nessie's daughter eventually seeks a way to enter a living world she's never known, while Nessie tries to end her suffering and find peace.

The Gate is a collection of short stories by Cassondra Bird Combs. Combs' first collection is heavily inspired by the small Northern California towns she grew up in, and the disillusioned characters who live there. The Gate marks the introduction of an incredibly sympathetic voice, a voice hard to find in modern literature, that didn't rise from New York or Iowa but from a youth spent in solitude in the redwoods. Combs' characters range from a fifteen-year-old girl trapped in an endless abusive cycle to a young man whose parents have suddenly left him to a older woman trying to end her marriage by burning Christmas trees in the street. In these seven stories, Combs reminds us time and time again of the advantages and disadvantages of a rural life, and forges connection between character and reader in a remarkable way. In "Little World" a little girl is paralyzed by fear of the dark but is stronger than she knows. In "Turn" a young woman has to make peace with her past and escape. In "B-Side" a recovering addict realizes the thing he needs isn't the thing he wants. In a voice entirely in tune with the hum of the woods and alive with unusual descriptions and deft character traits, Combs' collection will keep you reading.

Sharp Edges and Other Lessons is a collection of stories that share a loose thematic link suggested by the title. The various "lessons" encountered by the characters here represent the ways people respond to the many currents and fluctuations roiling beneath the surface of everyday life. / by Michael Gray. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Prone to immaturity, restlessness, and rash behavior, Kel was never exactly the epitome of responsibility ; however, despite her longtime tendency to veer toward all that is childish, she somehow managed to hold her life together- except for the times she didn't. Add It Up tells the story of exactly that:"the times she didn't." Like an epic poem, Add It Up is a collection of lyric essays chronicling a journey. Starting even before her very beginning, it gives insight into exactly what it is that made her what she was, what she is, and what she intends to be. The pieces of this collection, Prologue, or The Letter I Wish I Wrote Myself Four Years Ago ; Kelpedia ; A Little Bit Peter ; Breakdowns ; Wyrd ; (un)fair ; Kindred ; and Kellypedia, can stand alone, but it's way better if they don't ; it's way better if you add them up. / by Kelly McIntyre. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

In this collection, the typical and the peculiar collide with the necessary and familiar. Where life, love, and loss, are random quantum elements that may or may not hold the universe together. Some of these stories explore characters that are a bit off, a tad quirky, underdogs trying to find something to hold on to. From musing about the atomic bomb and Hubba Bubba gum, to jogging at the speed of a particle in the Hadron accelerator, or ruminating on the awesome power of the sit-com, to taking a selfie with co-workers in the dark, to what bored kids do to preserve memories, this collection connects the absurd and the mundane, the universal and particular. These stories deal with choices and events that have the potential to change lives and shape character. And whether it's breaking the record for highest jump in a mattress outfit, longing for meatballs, what the downtown bus hub can teach, secret tattoos, cutting off your pinkie to save a relationship, or whales on the high sea, this collection oscillates between the random and the significant in order to enlighten or at least to entertain.

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The Pink Papers is a collection of three short stories and a novel in progress consisting of four chapters. Each piece is a work of original fiction. The preface addresses the female writer and the female voice in fiction. "Broken Clock" and "Pink Paper" are the stories of two girls coping with endometriosis. "Normal Capacity" looks at the loss of a dream through the eyes of a first-year law student. The novel in progress, titled Blanchard, OK, is set in a rural farming town in Oklahoma. The novel tells the stories of 24-year-old Robin, her Aunt Paula, and Paula's boyfriend, Sam.

We all use our language as one of our main modes of communication. Stan Klipper, the progatonist of Stan in Prague, found himself in a position where language has failed him, yet with the lack of language, his other senses have also failed him. When Stan was sent to Prague on a vague business trip, he decided to hire a translator to help him close the language gap, which in his case was huge. With his translator, Ihar, and Ihar's girlfriend delha, Stan maneuvers his way through the cramped streets of Prague, to open the lands of the Prague suburbs and into his own confusion. / by Justin Waldron. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

In Rural Water, Amos Durand struggles to bring in the year's corn crop amid constant rain, marital strife, and his son's peculiar role in a murder investigation.