Just after midnight on a chilly April night in 2005, the author finds himself homeless in Hawaii, searching for a place to sleep. The account that follows is the true story of a young man's misadventures on the road as he attempts to reconcile his wanderlust with a need for order and security. This work of creative nonfiction reconstructs the first half of the summer the narrator spent wandering Hawaii. Specifically, this section concentrates on the author's experiences on the island of Oahu. There, the narrator, who constantly changes his name, is stuck at a crossroads; he is torn between his desires for the woman and the life he left in Texas and his need for exploration. At first he drifts along the road eating beef jerky sandwiches, ducking beer bottles flung at him by locals, and camping illegally in public parks. Eventually he finds work and belonging at a new age surf shop on the North Shore, but this stagnant environment only reinforces his desire to wander. After nearly drowning in a surfing accident and being threatened by the owner of the board he destroys, the narrator returns to the road where he has encounters with a military man, Mormons, fellow transients, the police, and a chicken fighter who tries to seduce him. Eventually he leaves Oahu for the island of Kauai. There he finds hope and friendship among the bohemians living communally on organic farms. However, his resolve to live a freewheeling lifestyle is ultimately tested one night by a band of drug runners who confront him on a deserted beach. This master's thesis celebrates the tradition of the great American road story. While the narrator retraces the footsteps of many who have set out on the open road, his personal account and voice reflect the modern values and cultural forces that lead many of his generation to wander America in search of something more.

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While a body of creative nonfiction writing exists regarding experiences with various psychological disorders, few personal accounts have been written about the physical complications of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Some memoirs tell a tale of serious illness in a straightforward narrative line. On the opposite end of this spectrum, other memoirs intentionally blur the lines of truth and heighten the confusion of a disorder. This thesis is as much a narrative of my experience with Generalized Anxiety Disorder as it is a response to the void in creative nonfiction surrounding this specific disorder and the narrative forms others have chosen to utilize while writing about the body. In this thesis, I manipulate traditional narrative forms to expose the truth of my experience. The first chapter contains a straightforward narrative of my experience in the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine in Ashland, Pennsylvania, to provide a framework for a thesis regarding the redemption of a ruined landscape, or an ill body. The second section follows the guidelines of a psychosocial interview and intake form used by therapists and reveals the particular physical manifestations of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The third and final section is fragmented into fiction, drama and memoir. The combination of my personal story with illness and the geological, social and industrial history of central Pennsylvania coal mining and the mutation of form used to convey it permits a deeper level of understanding for the complexities surrounding collapsed bodies, landscapes and narratives.

This collection of creative nonfiction essays is a hybrid text of visual and verbal narratives located broadly within the genres of memoir, research-based nonfiction, and history. Women's memoirs, including a number of non-traditional texts, historical narratives, and an archival collection of photographs, provided springboards for the exploration of and reflection on the emotional terrain of loss, the ache of remembrance, and the ultimate desire for peace. Ultimately, this work is a search for solace amidst emotional upheaval, beginning in childhood, after the deaths of my father, mother, first husband, and beloved aunt. Unable to sit still with my grief, I moved from the Midwest to various western states to pursue a career as a newspaper photographer and writer. My ongoing obsession with the tragic story of the Donner party, trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the winter of 1846-47, connected me to Capt. Charles E. Davis, the first person to retrace the Donner party's western route on the first transcontinental highway. Finding common ground in the collective memory of historical tragedy, my fascination turned toward a man marked by similar childhood trauma, who took to the road to find a place to call home. As I searched for ways to memorialize loved ones, I found peace within the barren landscape of grief.

This work of nonfiction examines the ways in which an unexpected and devastating health condition at the age of eighteen influences a person's identity and perception of self. The narrative is based largely around running, and the narrator explores what it means to live in a body that might fail.

"Ghost of a Life Long Past" is a memoir about the necessity of movement and physicality. It chronicles the author's life, both before and after a skiing accident that left him with quadriplegia. The memoir is split into two alternating narratives. One follows the author's post-accident journey to regain physicality and the ability to move through the world and function in his environment. The other is a series of flashbacks, looking[at] the author's pre-accident childhood in Juneau, Alaska. Themes include independence, travel, sports, disability, and the need to test the limits of ones body.

Stearns County, Minnesota is the number-one dairy-producing county in the number-one dairy-producing region--the Midwest--in the country. The area has been home to German-Catholic immigrants from the Rheinland region of Germany since the mid- to late-1850s, when they traveled across Canada and the northeastern United States before finally settling on homesteads in Central Minnesota. 150 years later, the descendants of these settlers still live and farm the same area. Through it all, these farmers have kept a similar schedule: six days of fieldwork, Sunday for rest. And, nearly since the day they arrived in the area, that day of rest has featured one sacred leisure activity: baseball. The state of Minnesota boasts over 250 amateur baseball teams, the most of any state in the country. In the summer of 2012, I moved to Spring Hill, Minnesota, a town of 85, to play for the Spring Hill Chargers and work on the farm. My thesis lies at the intersection of farming and baseball, showing the reader both how little and how much has changed for these men who still farm their land of their forebears and still play America's game. A Summer in the Land of Milk tells my story of living and working in a rural area where the past hangs like a shadow and the future is frighteningly uncertain.

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Stranger Species is a collection of interconnected personal and lyrical essays that illustrate and dissect the biological and psychological forces that drive humans to act. While essays in the collection prove the narrator's need to believe that we are animals first and human beings second and that sex and persistence to survive are proof of our animalism, essays simultaneously counter-argue that humans-our emotions, weaknesses, and consciousness-are unique to our species, separating us from the animal world. Throughout the collection, fear resonates that we do not control our desires and ultimately our lives, that biology and our deep seeded psychological inadequacies drive us blindly and often recklessly towards our species' survival never asking for our permission, leaving us to wonder why we do the strange things that we do. The narrator uses research and her experience to explore genetics, reproduction, desire, loneliness, binding societal constructions, control, and loss.

Ascending Mango Hill is a collection of work that represents me. The intention is to connect with readers by depicting protagonists who are unable to fit in, a theme most readers can relate to. Many times the protagonist must find the courage to confront a situation rather than remain quiet. The collection is separated into two sections: The Essays and The Short Stories. The essays detail my own experiences at being an outsider while exploring the topics of family and personal growth. In the stories, characters must overcome unresolved childhood issues, recognize unhealthy relationships, and decide when to set off on new journeys. I bring the sections together by using my travel experiences as the setting for several stories. Aspects of who I am show up in the stories through character motivation and characterization. Ultimately, Ascending Mango Hill is a reflection of the girl I was, the woman I hoped to be, and the woman I have become.