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.

The following collection of short stories explores the notion of being caught between two worlds, of straddling physical, emotional, linguistic and metaphorical borders. I have chosen these characters in order to give voice to those who are often voiceless. The collection has been divided in two parts in order to challenge ideas of what is "real." I argue that the emotional truth of a story is paramount, and this reality can sometimes be best achieved through unconventional means.

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Grow Up is a collection of five short stories that explore the parentification of bourgeois youth and the concerns of growing up in a postmodern, performative culture. The characters are faced with circular situations where the causality of their feelings and actions are often obscured or scattered. Special attention is given to identity through emotion and perception where youth react against the marginalization, homogenization, or the commoditization of their experience. The stories also attempt to describe the condition of neglected youth in social situations and environments that are polarized, paradoxical, and fractured because of isolation among their many parts. The fictional characters and their environment raise the question as to whether their environment is anachronistic in its attitudes and approaches to youth and their relations, or whether youth today is becoming anachronistic in itself.

Keywords: regional literature, legends, autobiographical prose literature, fiction, short stories, novellas, literary creation, aesthetics of nature Abstract: The subject of this thesis is a life and writing of the Gustav Leutelt, one of the lesser known German writing authors of Bohemia from the turn of the 20th century. Special attention is paid on describing the Jizera Mountains that play a pivotal role in his creation. The first chapter formulates the subject matter and establishes the goals of the thesis. The second chapter takes a brief look at the Leutelt's life and his writing. The third chapter covers introduction of specific works from three main areas of his art, which were fictional prose, legends and natural works. The final chapter summarizes the results and insights of the thesis.