My novel is set in 1958-59 Florida and involves a young, white musician who plays jazz in black clubs. During his high school senior year he must make important decisions about his future based on what he can learn about the nature of talent and creativity and the price he'll have to pay for their pursuit. He's also inevitably caught up in the struggle of blacks for equality, and in his own struggle against the conformism of the times. He experiments with alcohol and drugs unavailable to his classmates, risking even his future as a musician. He has an affair with a black jazz singer. The novel is somewhat modernist in structure, like its jazz content, but remains essentially an old-fashioned novel of initiation or bildungsroman. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1228. / Major Professor: Van K. Brock. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

From 1985 to 1989, the author worked on the gradual evolution of this epic that took into account 1100 poems, of which 191 were selected. Most of these poems were written in the early morning hours, over half taken from visions (dreams), and immediately explicated to understand their meaning. / The first thirty-one poems, from the conventional, conscious mode, follow a more traditional pattern; many were published in journals or anthologies. The second section of thirty poems begins the act of taking from the unconscious and, upon waking, writing six-line stanzas with a theme and titles. This is an epic recognition of the author's past. The thirty-nine poems in the third section are dream-state visions that progress toward the author's current style of thirteen-line "sonnets," the ninety-one poems in the last section. / The poems represent the author's belief in life and learning as a teacher and student of poetry in the quest of self. The process, or interlock of symbols (listed in Appendix) and interchange of ideas, results from "breakthrough" thinking in the poetry. The discovery of meaning develops a philosophy and an understanding of the material/industrial way of life, and unlocks a selfless dream of self. The author sees this as the new poetry of the twenty-first century. / Each section progresses chronologically. The last poem, "Blind Faith," echoes the first poem, "The Plan," to encompass a mystic journey Beyond the Fruited Plain. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1226. / Major Professor: David K. Kirby. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

Tricks of the Heart is a contemporary Southern Gothic novel set in rural North Florida, in fictional Torreya County, focusing on the lives of two extended families, one white, one black. The story, which covers the events of a single winter night, is sparked by a death which could have been murder, and by the disappearance of an autistic child. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-04, Section: A, page: 1232. / Major Professor: Jerome Stern. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

An Open Boat is a novel about a woman who sits down one day to confront the central mystery of her life: how she acquired the faith to give birth to a baby she believed she had conceived with a stranger. The story the woman sets out to tell is impelled by wonder and magic--so full of gypsy prophecies, visions, coincidences and timely interventions, she seems hardly aware of the darker forces compelling her life and writing. She discovers, a few pages into her testimony, that the act of writing has magically precipitated other wonders: the tedious job she believed herself committed to is suddenly pulled out from under her; her ex-husband, twice remarried, declares eternal love and a willingness to support her forever; and she receives a mysterious calling to participate in something she's always dreamed of: a high seas adventure aboard a Maine Maritime Academy ship. Convinced that she has finally stumbled upon her destiny, she is raring to go to sea, but there are a few things holding her back: the three children who, after a prolonged separation, have come to live with her; a mysterious man who keeps popping up coincidentally and has even, unwittingly, sent her a ring of betrothal; and the writing of her inexplicably rambling and irrepressible narrative, which she knows will surely reach some kind of conclusion soon. / In this novel, I explore the psychological and spiritual processes that lead a woman away from a will o' the wisp blind faith in "what happens" to a faith based on responsible self-determining. Of particular interest to me is the role of reading (the past, texts, signs) and writing in that process. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-10, Section: A, page: 3955. / Major Professor: Sheila Taylor. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

My study attempts to explore connections between Melville's use of religion and humor in his fiction. A major theme in Melville is the precarious role of individuals as they attempt to adjust to the illusions of order created by society. Since humans desire answers to ultimate questions, and since these answers are not in mortals' power to know, we, as a society, have created answers. / One of the major ways we have developed these systems to provide ultimate answers is through the institution of organized religion. Since no concrete proof exists, faith is the only means available for people to accept the dogmas and creeds of organized religion. Refusing to support such ideas that are founded on no concrete proof, Melville poked fun at people's ability to adopt these pretenses to knowledge. His novels and stories display the humor in various religious customs and practices, while showing the answers provided by religion as nothing more than a way for people to give up the search for meaning and accept an illusionary system of order. / Most of the comedy becomes ironic as the reader views scene after scene of humans warped from trying to perpetuate these systems at all cost. Adhering to the dogmas and creeds of a religion can result in disaster (Pierre), but rejecting them can also lead to destruction (Ahab). Melville realizes that no easy answers exist for humans as he shows the irony of placing faith in an illusion of order. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-02, Section: A, page: 0538. / Major Professor: R. Bruce Bickley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

Two novellas are paired here as they share a similar theme--the lingering parental influences on the relationships adults create. In "Island Ash," mothers and mothering figure strongly, while the paternal role shadows the protagonist's actions in "The Father." / "Island Ash" takes place on an island off the coast of Maine. The narrator, Christine, meets an older lesbian, Marty, and is quickly enmeshed in her and her mother, Ethel's, lives. Christine witnesses the conflicted dynamics between them, learns about the child Marty had as a teenager and gave up for adoption (a girl who would be the same age as the narrator), and hears about the sexual abuse Marty suffered at the hands of her brother. But it takes Ethel's death, and working with Marty's brother to build the coffin, before Christine admits the similarities between Marty's life and her own (a violent brother; an uninvolved mother). When she discovers that Ethel has listed her as a beneficiary in her will (mistaking her for the granddaughter she never knew), Christine makes the decision to visit her own mother after many years of silence between them. / The second novella, "The Father," takes place in western Massachusetts. Two settings interweave throughout: the daycare center where the protagonist Theo works, and the community center where she is participating in a Christmas pageant. Theo's sense of self is beginning to unravel, after the ending of a rough relationship (both women reliving the hurt of earlier experiences through sex). Meanwhile, three events coincide: the anniversary of her sister's death, the role she's cast in as Joseph, and the possibility of a relationship without violent overtones. The timing aids Theo in sorting out the part sacrifice and surrender play in "unconditional love," and helps her realize the conditions attached to "seeing" for her blind sister. Understanding, as Joseph, the position of "stand-in" parent, also helps set her on the risky path of daring to love another again. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-04, Section: A, page: 1621. / Major Professors: Janet Burroway; Bonnie Braendlin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-06, Section: A, page: 3298. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1979.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-01, Section: A, page: 0316. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 36-06, Section: A, page: 3712. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-07, Section: A, page: 4357. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.