This selection seeks to explore rural West Virginia and the cycles that plague it. From addiction, abuse, and poverty, through the lens of three generations of women from the family, each aspect is touched on. The themes of longing, loving, hating, wondering, and leaving embrace each other through the lives of the women and their bonds with each other.

This is the first part of a multi-draft young adult novel.<br>

“To forgive is wisdom, to forget is genius. And easier. Because it's true. It's a new world every heart beat.” ― Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth

These are my flows, they flow through me.<br>

<p>My novel is a multigenerational queer narrative, one which seeks to illuminate erased and hidden queer history from the 1920s to the 1970s. Through Prohibition and war, through scientific advances and cultural setbacks, three generations of women strive tofind happiness while avoiding the encompassing grasp of America’s growing total institutions -the jail, the asylum, the military. Narrated by the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, the novel focuses half-lifes, ghosts, trauma, and what lingers after the destruction of queer families in favor of nuclear ones.</p> <p>As a queer writer, I’m interested in history, archival silences, and erasure. I believe that a historical framing which insists on writing a narrative of linear social progression erases vital and vibrant queer and trans communities and struggles throughout history. Furthermore, this narrative is often used to justify abuses in our present time, under the guise even these abuses are better than the oppressive past. Research shows this is not true, thatmany places and times had bubbles of freedom, utopian spaces built in opposition to societal pressures.</p> <p>As many of these spaces were built outside the law, it is impossible to talk about queer and trans  history  without  talking  about  total  institutions.  Queer  historical  fiction  must  engage  with police and prison abolition, the abuses of the asylum, and government censorship such as the Hayes Code or the chilling effects of the loyalty oaths. In this context, there is much to learn about the strategies  queer  and  trans  people  used  to  fight,  evade,  and  survive  within  or  against  these institutions.</p> <p>As  a  writer  whose  background  rests  in  speculative  fiction,  I’m  interested  in  using speculative elements such as ghosts and nuclear waste to speak about the trauma that remains from the last 100 years of American oppression. I want to examine what and who is left behind as laws and  norms  change -in  an  age  of  scientific  advancement,  what  happens  to  the  prisoners,  the institutionalized,  the  queer  and  trans  people  whosevery  being  has  oscillated  between  legal  and illegal with each decade. </p> <p>I see my work in conversation with Malinda Lo’s<em> Last Night at the Telegraph Club</em>, a novel about  a  queer  Chinese-American  girl  who  discovers  a  lesbian  bar,  set  during  the  Red  Scare. Additionally, I’m in conversation with the work of Jordy Rosenberg, specifically <em>Confessions of the  Fox</em>, a speculative historical fiction novel about a trans folk hero in 1600s England. I’m interested  in  works  of  historical  fiction  which  challenge  popular  andretrogressive  views  of  the past with the hard, beautiful, subversive, and real lived experiences of queer and trans people</p>

<p>  </p> <p><em>The Necessary Biography of Elysia Martinez-Smith by Ezra Speckman </em>is the story of – as the title indicates – Elysia Martinez-Smith, a twentysomething writer, podcaster, and self-made media mogul. Told in chronological, protracted scenes, the biography follows her from her childhood growing up in Chicago’s north-shore suburbs; through her college years as an on-campus student leader at nearby Northwestern University; through her work as a blogger for the Trump-era feminist outlet <em>SmileLess.org</em>; culminating with her ascent to thought leader, content creator, and founder of her own website, the progressive-minded news collective Beecher Media Network. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The “biography” is framed as a found text: Ezra Speckman, the work’s author and a former friend of Martinez-Smith’s, left the work unfinished; as such, it is presented to the reader as containing his notes and marginalia. Through these notes, inconsistencies in Martinez-Smith’s character – and Speckman’s motivations – emerge. </p>

<p>Devoted is a novel.</p>

This thesis details the development of the full-length play, DyFuNkTioNal? from conception to the prewriting to full production over the course of the 2017-2020 school year at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. My intentions for writing this play was motivated by six thoughts: (1) the lack of interest within the Carbondale community to provide real opportunities for ethnic groups (in particular, African American preteens and teenagers) to participate in theatrical expression and other art forms that are introduced via art programs; (2) lack of motivation of the African-American teens to participate in the programs that the city of Carbondale provided; (3) my interest in Black feminist theory, which became popular in the 1960s as a response to the racism of the feminist movement and sexism of the Civil Rights Movement; (4) the art of graffiti as it slowly evolved from intolerance to tolerance of females, which leads to the tapping of the “glass ceiling” with the goal to shatter it in the near future; (5) to encourage and educate Black females no matter what age to realize and honor their personal value within society; and (6) to enlightened the viewer of issues regarding African American females whose plight is far different from their white counterparts. As explained by Princeton Professor Keeanga Yamahtta Taylor, “Black women’s experiences cannot be reduced to either race or gender but have to be understood on their own terms” (Smith, timeline.com, 2018). As the Combahee River Collective Statement read, “We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us.” (Smith, timeline.com, 2018)During the writing of the play, I was inspired by the words of Erykah Badu’s song Bag Lady, which ask women to “hold the mirrors to ourselves and be able to accept that we need work if we expect to catch the buses in our lives. The good parent bus, the education bus, the decent job bus, the healthy self-image bus all requires self-reflection and sometimes that doesn't sound like a bra-burning, ball-busting anthem” (Roricka, soulbounce.com, 2010). Therefore, this led to the question, would I be able to honestly create, a play that could positively change the viewer’s perception on the plight of African American women’s struggles of inequality while existing in a patriarchal and racist world?

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OFRosemary Pearl Moore, for the Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting, presented on April 3, 2023, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: A LOVE LETTER TO PAST, PRESENT, & FUTURE FRIENDS: THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF MURPHY’S LAW OF PRETENDERS MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Jacob JuntunenThis thesis examines the process of taking Murphy’s Law of Pretenders from pre-writing to a full production at Southern Illinois University in March 2023 and my own growth during this time. My inspiration ranges from different aspects of pop culture to looking a staged versions of Little Women by Louise May-Alcott to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Murphy’s Law of Pretenders continues to explore my style of taking realism and fantasy while exploring deeper issues like mental health, and the idea of what forms does friendship take and what does it do to us.Chapter One examines the process before I started writing the play. Chapter Two explores the development process from the feedback and advice that was provide for me while I was here at Southern Illinois University. Chapter Three dives into the production process here with the director, actors, and designers in The School of Theater and Dance here at Southern Illinois University. Chapter Four details what I’ve learned from my experiences here at Southern Illinois University, and what I hope for the future of my writing. Chapter Five is the play itself, Murphy’s Law of Pretenders, where you will find what I am most proud of from this process.

This study, in its exploration of the attached play scripts and their method of development, evaluates the forms, strategies, and methods of an organised model of formalised playwriting. Through the examination, reflection and reaction to a perceived crisis in playwriting in the Australian theatre sector, the notion of Industrial Playwriting is arrived at: a practice whereby plays are designed and constructed, and where the process of writing becomes central to the efficient creation of new work and the improvement of the writer’s skill and knowledge base. Using a practice-led methodology and action research the study examines a system of play construction appropriate to and addressing the challenges of the contemporary Australian theatre sector. Specifically, using the action research methodology known as design-based research a conceptual framework was constructed to form the basis of the notion of Industrial Playwriting. From this two plays were constructed using a case study method and the process recorded and used to create a practical, step-by-step system of Industrial Playwriting. In the creative practice of manufacturing a single authored play, and then a group-devised play, Industrial Playwriting was tested and found to also offer a valid alternative approach to playwriting in the training of new and even emerging playwrights. Finally, it offered insight into how Industrial Playwriting could be used to greatly facilitate theatre companies’ ongoing need to have access to new writers and new Australian works, and how it might form the basis of a cost effective writer development model. This study of the methods of formalised writing as a means to confront some of the challenges of the Australian theatre sector, the practice of playwriting and the history associated with it, makes an original and important contribution to contemporary playwriting practice.