Boitawl ("Boi"- lack, devoid of, "Tawl"- bottom/ ground/ foundation), the word in one of the Bengali dialects refers to one without a ground beneath her feet. The thesis, a hybrid collection of prose and verse including narratives and graphic vignettes, flash, fabulist and short stories, prose poems and free verse imagines the inside worlds of such un-settled existences. In the process, the pieces connect migration, memory, childhood and lost towns with fractured humans caught in between - to reveal what lies under pillars of desires, the shapes of unsaid longings and recurrent images in their dreams.

Counter Clockwise Culture Shock is a memoir focused the narrator's return to his hometown, a place he barely escaped: drug addiction, incarceration, bad relationships, alienation, an Oedipal mother, and suicidal threats. It is reflection on both culture and self, after I gained an outside perspective from Japan. The narrator is forced to relive nihilism and monotony, and face the troubles of his younger years. It describes the difficult journey of today's youth, in an evermore technologically dynamic world - with few role models able to plot a course through. This is a meditation on past actions that ended in survival. Unlike most books dealing with cultural alienation, it focuses on a reinterpretation of my own culture. The main theme of the memoir is identity. The remnants of adventure, ingrained in the narrator's mind, contrast with a return to the deja vu of a distorted hometown. Many of the stories cut across time and space to mimic the disorientation of the narrator. The clarity of these cultural distortions emerges when viewed through an outside lens. Not only does Counter Clockwise Culture Shock distill these distortions, it uses an Eastern perspective - and language - to better understand the flaws and strengths of indoctrinated cultures. An outside perspective of a different culture expands the narrator's former view of the world. Suicide and depression are destroying Western society, and this is an attempt to catalog stresses of Western culture and help people in similar circumstances.

Assisted Living is a collection of stories that explores themes of parenthood, brotherhood, old and new love, adultery, financial strife, and the many faces of loss. The collection offers different points of view, which allow the reader to experience these themes within varying lives and situations. For example, the eponymous "Assisted Living" is from the perspective of a pet-sitter at the brink of losing both her job and husband, while "Holy Mother" explores the point of view of a wife coming to terms with her affair and the physical injury that has changed her husband. "The World of Reptiles" follows a father walking his son through a zoo before they receive his son's cancer test results, while "Host" follows two sons who discover their recently deceased mother believed in reincarnation before she died. Other stories explore characters stuck in relationships - both familial and romantic - that started bright, but curled toward the dark, leaving the characters feeling trapped by the ones they love. The collection as a whole seeks to explore people stuck between selves, people striving to be new and better, while failing and succeeding in ways big and small.

How can we find happiness when everything falls apart? When the world is ending, can we grab onto anything? In this collection, a sister recounts her mother's telekinetic control over her younger brother; a big box store assistant manager, with no-where-to-go-but-down, attempts to reclaim his estranged family while working in a mostly-abandoned, mostly-radioactive beach town; their first date at an ocean-side sports bar is anything but a fairy tale, regardless of the mermaids; a battery-operated child latches onto what little of her life she remembers; a Florida girl scout troop come-of-age discussing hook-handed-killers, and other bogeymen, around the campfire; a week after sentient life is discovered in the cosmos, a married couple combat depression, and anxiety, while navigating a twenty-year high-school reunion; a dragon falls in love with a cat. These stories seek humor out of horror, hope out of despair. They are restless, under-siege, and deeply connected through their mutual traumas. The characters find love in all the wrong places, hate in all the right ones, death around every corner, and life in the tiniest of cracks.

Waiving Miranda is a nonfiction collection that explores my career in law enforcement with a special emphasis on how the day-to-day association with others can lure a person into self-observation. The essays include my experiences as a road-patrol deputy, sex-crimes detective, and homicide detective in one of the largest county law enforcement agencies in the nation. Instead of the TV version of law enforcement— anecdotes of police chases and shoot outs—this thesis examines people on both sides of the yellow crimes scene tape as they face their own mortality and the gruesome truth of people’s unabashed cruelty towards one another. These essays wrestle with such issues as the following: confronting my own perceived inadequacies while encountering the expectations of those whose ideas of police work come from shows such as SWAT, Law and Order, and NYPD Blue; balancing career and parenting in the aftermath of divorce and a loss of purpose; pursuing a career in law enforcement with the idea of serving the community; discovering that policing in real life is a direct contradiction to the celluloid heroes I grew up watching on television; staging an internal war and ultimately resolving to move past resentment and move forward with a new purpose. Unlike most true crime dramas, this collection does not promise a happily ever after. Instead, it’s a detailed account of the men and women in the law enforcement community today, and how, as much as they guard the public against criminals at large, so must they guard themselves against the emotional toll that this knowledge carries with it.

The first time we divorced we did it on a serviette. I arrived first. Sitting outside on the wooden deck nursing my first gin and tonic I watch you get out of your car and walk towards the restaurant. One hand brushing the chunky curls off your broad forehead. The other hovering protectively around the zip of your jeans trying not to draw attention to itself but needing to make sure that you are securely zipped in.

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / Short stories / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / A collection of short stories / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: creative writing works are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and fill out the appropriate web form. / Eight separate, but thematically linked fictional stories / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z

Please note: this work is permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for this item. To request private access, please click on the locked Download file link and fill out the appropriate web form. / The three long narratives of Breakdown capture the stories of three young women dealing with grief and trauma as they navigate love and friendship. / 2999-01-01T00:00:00Z