The following thesis contains two works of short fiction. The first, “Afterlife,” is narrated by Jeff Carlton, whose unenthusiastic passage into fatherhood is complicated by his girlfriend Charlene’s obsession with mummification. The second, “Jolly,” is the story of Calvin Edwards, a young bus station attendant haunted by his father’s ghost and visited by a cadaverous stranger, Jolly, who also sees the dead. The stories are preceded by an introduction in which the author discusses his views on implied motivation in character development.

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This collection of short stories explores the different ways women tolerate violence in exchange for some form of validation. The narratives focus on women and the reverberations of small moments which carry violent mass. While the violence occasionally includes physical elements, the collection is more concerned with the ways women accept emotional and psychological violence—specifically from men. Themes, motifs and symbols from the Clytie-Helios myth are threaded throughout the collection as well as a concern for space and touch, art and the creation of art, silence and voice. All of these elements involve control as the women characters in these stories struggle to resist their own objectification. A critical introduction which explains how form and language amplify story precedes the collection.

Previously, no one has analyzed the short stories of Mormon periodicals from their inception in the late nineteenth century until 1940. The body of this study attempts to do so and has two main aims.First, it evaluates the literary development of largely sentimental stories written for Mormon youth. Sentimentality in fiction was an extreme form of romanticism which flourished in America throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. As other forms of realistic writing became more acceptable in the nation, Mormon writers gradually accommodated their literary styles to conform with national trends. They retained a significant amount of sentimentality in their short stories, possibly to preserve their religious and cultural values.Secondly, this study describes the sociological implications of Mormon short stories. This aim is secondary to the literary aim but none the less valuable for students interested in discovering Mormon cultural trends as they are reflected in Mormon short stories.

The Edge of Things is what I like to call a love song to the dispossessed. Each of the eight stories in the collection is an examination of the lives of women who are exiled from modern American consumer culture, whether by circumstance or by choice. This separation brings them heartache, risk, and sometimes even hope. The collection is fueled by the landscape of Florida, observed at its most beautiful and most corrupted, from highways, landfills, and trailer parks to housing developments, gardens, and secret forests. Setting is a constant source of revelation, the external landscape offering insight into the internal struggles of the characters. Regardless of age, race, or sexual orientation, the women of The Edge of Things find themselves moving toward, or just past, incredible changes in their lives. In "Seed of the Golden Mango", "Raising the Dead", and "The Girl Who Loved Bugs", young women deal with the loss of loved ones. The women of "Zyczenie", "It Cannot Hold", and "Wasp Honey" must deal with old losses in order to survive the realities of the outside world that they have long ignored. "The Edge of Things" and "The Secret Letters" both deal with love, and the consequences of an inability to communicate. In each of these tales I hope to present unforgettable characters, women whose journeys will haunt, reminding readers that on some level, the love song of the dispossessed calls to us all.

The Jubilant City Almanac is a collection of short stories set in the magical Jubilant City, a city founded by a group of Black women in 1736. These stories bridge the whimsical and magical with the realities of poverty, classicism, addiction, abuse and health disparities. “Got His Alligator” follows the journey of two codependent addicts as they try to get their fashion designs onto Jubilant City’s premiere drama, Girl, Please. The characters in “Carbon Copy” use a magical phone to bring Denzel Washington to the city. “Jeremiah the Conqueror” summons Black American folk legend, High John. THrough an exploration of magical realism and speculative fiction, The Jubilant City Almanac tells the stories of Black families and Black complexity.

Gridlocks and Padlocks is a collection of short fiction and personal essays whose goal is to create characters with depth in both real-world and not-entirely-real-world situations. The strength of nonfiction is the capacity to observe the writer's thinking and motivation. "Ashes to Ashes, Trust to Dust" is a personal essay that explores my struggle with the faith I was raised in, with an emphasis on how friendships and relationships have shaped my perceptions. "The List of Unacceptable Faults" is a personal essay about unwanted interactions with the opposite sex; it is an examination of men and boys through the lens of naive dissatisfaction. "Sing Me Rebecca" is a personal essay that delves into my relationship with my mentally handicapped sister. While the nonfiction writer focuses on his or her own development and struggles, a fiction writer can investigate the human condition by exploring the depth found in imagined people who face everyday situations and what characteristics and behaviors make them believable and absorbing. "Object of Study" is a short story about a girl named Taylor, who in her formative years stumbles upon a friendship between her sister and a boy she does not trust. This story examines Taylor's quirky, multi-faceted character through the actions she takes to investigate and ultimately end the friendship between a boy and her younger sister. "Crossing Fault Lines" is a work of short short fiction that focuses on three characters-a mother and her two sons-and their strained relationship. Whether writing personal essays or fiction, my goal is to create overarching conflicts that reflect people's struggle with being "stuck" in some situation in life.

Oftentimes, the children of immigrants find themselves straddling two worlds. As Americanized minorities, we navigate torn psychological landscapes in which uneasy dichotomies are formed: living up to our parents' expectations, or fulfilling our own; embracing tradition, or birthing a new culture; admiring the lives of our family, but wanting different for ourselves. These tough decisions are further compounded by identifiers such as age, race, and gender. My creative thesis, a collection of fiction and nonfiction, examines these issues through three central characters. In fiction, they are the Latina sisters Mel and Nena; in nonfiction, it is myself. Through these stories, these young women struggle to feel a sense of belonging where they are, be it at home, work, or school; among friends or on their own; in places they choose, or in places where they are put. Each of these characters is forced to consider whether they will ever find a place to call home. They wonder whether that is a place to be found at all.

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