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Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2005. / Typescript.

Red Dresses for Funerals contains a scholarly preface concerning the nature of factuality versus credibility in the writing of fiction. Four original short stories are included in this thesis. "A Night With Lawrence Welk" explores the relationship between a patient and student intern psychologist. "Red Dresses for Funerals" is about a wedding that plays a significant role in a variety of the characters' lives. "Trace Elements" is the only story involving young children. "Trace Elements" explores the beginning of understanding of some of the grimmer aspects of reality. "Expectations, Great and Otherwise" addresses the issue of denial. These stories are linked by their setting, a small town in Texas.

Magister Artium - MA

Translated from Latin, Imago Dei means the image of God. In the very beginning of the Torah, the writer says that God created humanity in Their own image. According to the text, woven in the fabric of who we are is God. In a post-secular society, the concept of God brings a lot of weight and baggage. Which God are we talking about? Can God be talked about it? Is God or thinking about God even relevant anymore? Hasn't science taken care of it? What good can discussions on faith bring us? These are the questions explored in Imago Dei: Stories. Within the collection is a story about a group of college students in the Bible belt struggling with sorting through emotions in the aftermath of their pastor's suicide. There's a husband search for grace and acceptance in the midst of a looming divorce and a dying father. Finally, there's a letter from a youth pastor who is publically accused of abusing a transgendered student. The collection was written under the guidance of Dr. David James Poissant with the help of Professors Laurie Uttich and Nathan Holic. In the directed readings portion of the program, I read Marilynne Robinson, Bret Lott, and Flannery O#Connor to get a better picture of faith and moral fiction. For craft guidance, I read works by Bret Anthony Johnston, Junot Diaz, David Foster Wallace, Vanessa Blakeslee, and John Henry Fleming.

A novel about a man injured while working on an oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico, set primarily in Louisiana, Nevada, and California. While recovering from his injury, the protagonist is contacted by his dead brother’s daughter—a person whom he did not know existed—and he journeys to San Francisco in search of her.

ESCRIBO ERGO SUM is an analysis of my writing methods, and it seeks to understand the meaning and purpose behind my novel, J4CK MERED34TH. Through this explorative piece, I create parallels between my own life and my work in order to show a much closer history and context for the novel. In it, I ultimately conclude the importance of identity and its acceptance in my writing process. J4CK MERED34TH follows 19-year-old gamer and hacker Jack Meredith in a near distant future in which virtual reality has been achieved. After a small routine job, someone breaks Jack’s security and steals his identity. This novel seeks to explore the concept of identity and its importance through Jack’s journey as he fights to regain his identity.

The general intent of my thesis is to write two novellas that show the differences in ways of life in two completely dissimilar states, and the conflicts that occurred therein. Therefore, the novellas will include a variation in gender, setting, and conflict. The main characters will be roughly the same age, but I will explore how the setting they live in has affected conflicts they have to deal with. I will explore writing these two novellas in the category of young adult fiction, as well as, first person narration for a close psychic distance.

In the Cards is a collection of five interrelated short stories with six related poems in between each piece. Each of the selections features a female protagonist with a focus on two main characters, Shelley and Caroline, half-sisters trying to regain their sisterhood after their father's death. Themes explored in the fiction and poetry include faith and relationships, and how they can be connected. Caroline and Shelley drive the primary storyline with the former, a self-described goody goody who has surrounded herself with superficial friends. Between the expectations of the community that surrounds her and the standards she has set for herself, she struggles to create a unique identity that is not influenced by some form of expectation. She is also haunted by guilt over her relationship with her younger sister Shelley, with whom she has had minimal contact ever since Caroline refused to attend their father's funeral, though she keeps these feeling largely to herself. Shelley's mother, Caroline's step-mother, has brought Shelley up in a household dominated by strict adherence to Catholicism, and conservative ideals. When the half-sisters' father dies, Shelley becomes increasingly disillusioned by religious faith, and faith in the people she thought cared for her most, such as Caroline. Both sisters must look beyond their own perspectives of what has happened in their pasts in order to mature, understand, and maybe grow to forgive each other and themselves.