The five short stories which comprise this creative project are designed in exploration of the contemporary woman's state of mind. In accordance with this design, each of the stories is told. from the point of-view of the woman who is its main character. Though each of the five protagonists is of the Midwestern middle class, the women vary in the details of age, education, and, marital status as well as in the qualities of maturity, intelligence, and, self-awareness. Whether the woman is a flighty girl in her early twenties inanely trying to establish something worthwhile in herself, a middle-aged housewife attempting to deny the vapidity of her life, an aging widow seeking to recapture the contentment she found with her first husband, or a shrewd., elderly woman scheming to manipulate her fellow inmates in a sterile convalescent home, each one finds herself in conflict with the facts of the life she has created for herself. And because few such conflicts reach the best of all possible resolutions in life outside of fiction, the struggles of these women are not sophomorically resolved, but remain to them as sources of dissatisfaction, confusion, and alienation.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2007.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Virgil Suarez, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 22, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Julianna Baggott, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 27, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 68 pages.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. Sheila Ortiz Taylor, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of English. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 13, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 59 pages.

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1989. / Title from title page screen, viewed October 5, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Janice Neuleib (chair), Maurice Scharton, Ronald Fortune, Ray Lewis White, Charles B. Harris. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-76) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p.

The thesis proposed for my M.F.A. in creative writing is a collection of conceptual American short stories written in a variety of forms that properly suit their respective subjects. Like a handful of miscellaneous wild seeds scattered over a tilled garden, the goal of the project is to represent the wild asymmetry of Nature via a collection of unlikely companions. For this reason, the conceptual form of each story often takes root in scientific or symbolic representations of Nature (i.e. sine and cosine curves, the yin-yang, etc.). The plot of loose soil holding these collective experiments together is their earthy thematic focus-namely, the way in which Nature has been systematically backgrounded by western ideology. On occasion, a story's conceptual focus may stray from these ecofeminist principles, but only for the purpose of leveling a more critical or satirical eye upon common American ideologies. / by Cory Daniel Zimmerman. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This paper examines the characteristics of The Best American Short Stories and the personalities reponsible for this series. More specifically, the goal of the paper is to add intelligence to the general store of knowledge in the area of the American short story, first, by demonstrating through statistics, biographical data and a summation of critical opinion the salient characteristics of the series; second, by giving statistical-analytical data relative to the periodicals furnishing the selections; third, by presenting statistical-biographical characteristics of the authors contributing to the series; and fourth, by making a biographical examination of the important personalities intimately associated with the series. / Typescript. / "August, 1957." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Robert G. Clapp, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-56).

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