From Revolutionary France to the frontiers of a fresh-born America, from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to the swamps of Poland, The Dust and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that seeks to explore humanity, horror, and history alike. By examining various events of the past, this collection sheds light on the shortcomings we still face today, such as, among other things, the normalization of or outright ignorance towards past American atrocities like those committed in Vietnam; the sheer lengths some people find themselves going to survive poverty, and the blind mania of war and its effect on those (quite literally) in the trenches.

A little boy named Armaghaan grows in a fictional tribal village Kashmala along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan during the seventies and eighties. His father Roshaan Khan and mother Shandana are living together in a conflicted marriage. Their desires and needs are at odds with each other, and their children suffer at the cost. Armaghaan observes his parents and elders, explores the physical environment of Kashmala and tries to grapple with his circumstances. The story of Armaghaan's childhood and adolescence plays in the backdrop of the USSR-Afghan War. Though the war itself doesn't become the focus of the narrative, its repercussions do impact the characters in the novel. Apart from that, the story explores themes of domestic violence, sexual and physical abuse, patriarchy, and the essential human struggle to survive and make a sense of the contradictions between personal desires and social norms.

My thesis, In the Light of What They Suffer, is a collection of six short stories which examine the different ways grace can manifest in our lives, and the consequences of its absence. Each story features characters who, in one way or another, are tangling with atonement. Will the grace they so desperately need be extended? And will the grace on offer make a difference regarding their perceived mistakes and transgressions? While writing this thesis, I was challenged in particular to restrain the tensions in my stories to more adequately fit the short story medium.

Blue Heat Burning follows three generations of women (maternal grandmother, mother, and daughter) as they navigate depression, domestic violence, single motherhood, poverty, and homelessness. At the center of their family history is a legacy where addiction is an inherited trait, and suicide is always a solution. The poems in the thesis examine the connections between the three women, starting with the speaker and her grandmother—a grandmother who committed suicide just months after her granddaughter was named in her honor. With a focus on intergenerational trauma, mental health issues, and the gendered impacts of socioeconomic inequities on single mothers and their troubled daughters, Blue Heat Burning examines how a daughter both carries and breaks generational curses passed down by her mother and grandmother.

Aliens From Outer Space is a novel project interested in telling a young, queer story about finding family in small-town Appalachia. In this book, Science Fiction tropes and imagery are used as allegories for otherness, neurodivergency and social estrangement. Using Appalachian extraterrestrial urban legends as a framework for worldbuilding, Aliens From Outer Space recounts the story of Twig, a teenager abandoned by their mother at the home of their estranged Uncle Indrid, and the imposter who decides to go to great lengths to bring Twig's family back together. This book is a character-driven narrative that examines the intricacies of the relationship and intersectionalities between the neurodivergent and queer communities, using extraterrestrial life as a source of metaphor. This book also aims to subvert the stereotype of stories set in Appalachia as being barren and grueling, and uses humor to punctuate emotional poignancy. No darkness can exist without light. Aliens From Outer Space is a book about blood family, found family, growing up fast, and leaving dear things behind you.

Inheritance follows the journey of a boy finding himself through the discovery of family secrets and his own sexuality. This hybrid work, part poem, part essay, explores a boy transitioning to adulthood while unearthing secrets about himself and where he comes from. He finds solace in the retelling of stories passed down from within his family and encounters creatures which shift, morph, and lie. In this surreal world, people commune with spirits, the dead find a voice, and a boy breaks and remakes himself. The work divides into three parts, beginning with memoiresque poems from the speaker leading to an interrogation of masculinity in "Reclaiming 'Man.'" The second section then turns inward combining lyric and narrative voices in "potion making," "Studs," and "About a Cat" to explore the speaker's experience with queerness. The final section offers a combination of memory and the mystical to imagine roads beyond societal pressures. Inheritance is an acceptance and dedication to freedom.

In my thesis collection, Try Again, I aimed to explore the consequences of choice. Through four short stories and one novella, I focused on close relationships between two focus characters and how both large and inconsequential choices can shape futures. In the novella, Try Again, I practiced game writing and learned how to shape a character when perhaps the largest signifier of character—choice—is left in the hands of the reader, rather than the author. The construction of this thesis and its stories developed my abilities to find high tension in lower stakes.

Ellen is 29 and disillusioned with her advertising job in New York when she receives an email from a woman named Isa, for whom Ellen's mother Lacey abandoned her family fifteen years prior. In the email, Isa attempts to explain her affair with Lacey, who was almost two decades older than her at the time, and what happened in the years following the affair's discovery that led to Lacey's eventual mental and physical collapse. As Ellen travels back to coastal North Carolina to discover what happened to Lacey after she disappeared and face the one woman she has long blamed for it, she must confront the responsibility she, her father and brothers share in pushing her mother towards Isa, and reconcile with the abuse her family has inflicted on Isa in the years since. Gardenia is told in three intertwined novellas. In "Dig", Lacey begins a string of reckless acts in an attempt to assert herself amidst her lonely motherhood, including an affair with the young, black Isa. In "Sow", Isa recounts the story of her relationship with Lacey to her now husband, detailing her attempts to save the woman she loved from addiction while coping with her own increasing isolation from friends and family. Finally, in "Reap", Ellen contemplates her mother's decisions amidst the rapidly changing landscape of women's rights post-#MeToo, while battling her own demons and justifying to her younger brother her decision to find Isa. In each novella, the main character makes a different choice on what to do with her trauma, when faced with the opportunity to leave it behind. A reflection on the unbridgeable distance between the sexes, culminating in a meeting between the two women most haunted by Lacey's absence, Gardenia explores victimhood, women's sexuality, how we leave each other and—as each woman discovers—how we never really do.

Unseen America is a glimpse into the lives of what American society considers to be low status men. "Kumbaya" involves a Cub Scout dealing with the fallout from a neglectful father and an alcoholic mother. "Devil's Tower" is about an overweight boy trying to prove himself in front of his peers. In "True Patriots," we see two displaced working class men forced to come to terms with an America that doesn't belong to them anymore or need them anymore. "Zippo Heart" deals with a recently divorced young woman spurring on the advances of a loser coworker while dealing with her grief over September 11th. Finally, "Devil's Backbone" showcases two days in the life of Caleb Jacobson, a native of West Virginia who can't let go of his heritage even when it puts him in danger. With Unseen America, I hoped to give light to men who are often seen as caricatures if they're even noticed at all. The stories wrestle with the questions of what it means to be a man in contemporary American society. Should a man do the right thing, and for what reasons: societal pressure or a tug of conscience? Does a man live for himself or does he devote himself to a higher ideal? Does he let others define who he is or does he live by his own code? Low status men wrestle with these questions every day, but it goes unseen.

Marriage and Other Trouble is a collection of (mostly) realist short stories. These stories explore the dynamics of marriage and family, ranging from characters dating in their twenties, to remarrying in their sixties. The characters in this collection grapple with adultery, sexual identity, addiction, class, privilege, and illness. I am interested in the lasting impact of events. Therefore, these stories often reflect on the history of relationships and on how the events of these characters' lives will carry into the future. Mostly set in Florida, place plays an important role in these stories, providing both structure and conflict. The one magical realist story I've included takes place in the afterlife. Addressing suicide and depression, this story explores the guilt over those left behind, and the continual struggle to reconcile with the past, even after death.