The stories in this collection are largely centered around individuals who have or on the brink of mistakes (or what they perceive as mistakes). These characters navigate their respective worlds with a combination of cynicism and vulnerability that often forces them to reexamine their relationships with family members, friends, and lovers. I am interested in how humor can potentially steer a narrative in unforeseeable directions while exposing to the reader truths about the characters that they themselves might not realize. / Master of Fine Arts

Stories about place and family.

Short novel in the fantasy genre centered around the son of a single mother in small-town Texas who becomes apprenticed to a witch to learn magic.

This dissertation consists of a literary novel. A preface deals with issue of introducing philosophical ideas into fictional works, with special emphasis on the techniques of ambiguity and destabilization of reality, as deployed in the novel.

The current and estimated future shortage of nurses presents a threat to the health of both nursing professionals and those in their care. Stress and burnout are contributors to turnover among nurses and needs to be addressed.Story as a potential self-care strategy has the potential to promote health and wellbeing among nurses, which may increase satisfaction among nurses and decrease turnover in the profession. This study used a qualitative descriptive design with content analysis to: 1) describe the use of story and story sharing/telling in nursing practice, and 2) describe how story contributes to the nursing workplace.Findings revealed that stories are inherent in the practice of professional nursing. Nurses share a common bond and connection through sharing stories about the nursing profession. This connection spans generations, care settings, specialty, levels of education, training and experience.Nurses also use story as a way of remembering and processing information and to teach and mentor each other through the experiences they encounter in work settings. This sharing on the job and outside of work settings is more memorable and valuable to nurses than what they learn in the classroom or through textbooks and case study presentations.Story creates ease for nurses through validation of shared human experience. When an individual feels heard both the storyteller and listener benefit from the understanding that is gained from the exchange. The greatest barrier to this exchange within nursing practice is time. Nurses believe that there is a limited amount of time due to the complexity of the work environment, demands on their time, and the structure of the healthcare system.This study provided empirical findings for what has been theorized with respect to story and nursing. Nurses use story in their daily work and personal lives. The findings of this study provide support for the use of story to promote wellbeing in nurses and to improve environments in which nurses' work. Directions for future research would include the development and evaluation of programs for nurses that incorporate story into education and for self-care.

This Terrible Silence is a collection of nineteen stand-alone stories. The work largely focuses on characters on the fringe of society—alcoholics, gamblers, thieves, liars, cheaters, and loners, who feel trapped or destined to repeat their troubles. In the struggle to break free, either by self-fulfillment or outside interference, these stories showcase the characters’ hearts and wills in the face of often daunting or insurmountable desperation. The stories in this collection are influenced by the work of Raymond Carver, and the Dirty Realism of Larry Brown, Breece DJ Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, and others. With minimal exposition, the characters are laid bare with cutting dialogue and active, scenic description. In the title piece, the narrator intends to tell a man vs. nature story of his encounter with a cougar, but quickly dissolves into a battle with his own slipping mental health in the face of a failing relationship. In the first-person point of view, the act of telling the story holds its own exigency for the narrator’s need to understand his or her motives and desires, as is most evident in Carver’s work, such as “Cathedrals.” In theme and style, I’ve sought to put together a collection that might allow readers to find truth and empathy from common, low, sometimes immoral, but largely human characters.

No description available.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

I believe it is possible to tell stories through architecture. Indeed, it is my practice to create buildings that tell stories. It is important to build and elaborate connections between past and present, to tease out memories and discover meanings. These define and strengthen a sense of community - in this instance the very community of which I am a part. My oeuvre springs from cultural - even anecdotal - reference points, more than from the work of my architectural forebears and compatriots. Other architects design through a creative interaction with their unconscious: they develop doodles and lines, and resolve them into ordered spatial environments. Instead, when I claim to design buildings that tell stories, I mean that I create a spatial identity that resonates with memories and unconscious associations. This entails the very deliberate ordering of spaces - external and internal - where cultural considerations and their associated meanings are developed from the outset, informing the whole design process. My materials are the traditional fabric of contemporary architecture. I use them to modify buildings and shape spaces to visual symbols, objects by association. My early work evolved in such a way that projects could be read as a illustrated story. I have more recently begun to engage in a more psychological 'place making' to conceive a building's form. The functional aspect of layout is always overlaid with visual imagery designed to evoke memories among the ordinary, mostly architecturally-illiterate people who use the buildings. I am continually challenged to create architectural forms that more effectively engage with the culture and traditions of people and place. But neither my architectural practice nor my designs can be termed 'traditional'. Here I seek to describe story-telling as an architectural form. Stories are my contextual framework for thinking. And story-telling is my way to connect buildings with people.

Historically, in Iran, ornament was an integral part of architecture and considered a valuable part of built form. However, in time the use of ornament suffered from the decline of figural articulation in architecture, and its status was diminished to mere decoration. In this process, ornament shifted from a pattern that was integrated with the structure to the role of revetment, from symbolic to commemorative, and from meaningfully designed to arbitrary. Investigating the changing modes of ornament to understand its significance and survival, this thesis looks at the decline of ornament from its role as a necessary structural component and/or an expressive element communicating the common values of a society into an arbitrary fragment celebrating the significant past. Traditional ornament was dependent not only on architecture but also on science, cosmology, culture, art, literature, as well as on society and its beliefs; therefore there was an intimate relationship between ornament and its context, and more importantly including the inhabitant or spectator who held those beliefs. However, today those close ties no longer exist and ornament is characterized variously as luxurious, decorative, and retrospective. This change is studied from various perspectives including historical forces, prehistory, traditional Persian cultural expression, the incursion of Islamic motifs and geometries, modernity and folk legend. To retrieve and reinstate the link between ornament and building as well as with the spectator, the thesis project engages the narrative content of ornament to re-establish these relationships. It tells its own story not in a literal way, but rather through the complex tale of the lovers in the famous historical poem (c.1190) by Nezami. The thesis narrates the epic romance of Farhad and Shirin within a love triangle with its superb pictorial cues for depiction. The story unfolds through a series of architectures and architectural representations and images. The theme and motifs of the poem imply transition (both spiritual and physical) that corresponds to the transformative mode of ornament par excellence. The ornamental manifestation of the depicted poem is applied in a subway station which is in itself the locus of transition in our contemporary lives. The architectural details of the design project are fragments of the selected episodes from the story.