Matching Items (23)
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- All Subjects: creative writing
- Creators: Dubie, Norman
- Creators: School of International Letters and Cultures
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Chris Miller's Souvenirs of Sleep is as serious as it is whimsical, if this is a possibility. The "Museum of the Zoo-real" may be an equally appropriate title as animals are often in performance. In this visual and spiritual investigation, childhood, dream, and the loss of a mother to suicide are the currents. Miller's work is informed by the cinema of Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Bresson and beyond. Miller believes in the power of implication. The poems begin with intense focus, but are often in the business of expansion. Souvenirs of Sleep is a journey toward sense-making, a search for language that might allow it.
ContributorsMiller, Christopher (Author) / Dubie, Norman (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Ball, Sally (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Fledglings of Anani is a universe with an underlying organizing principle of desire, auspiciousness and serendipity, the veiled doors and windows of these realms serve as fugues bridging layers of time leading us through myth and landscape intimately tied to the physical intelligence of earth and character of place. It is a voice that comes to know itself first as being, then in correspondence to nature and her elements, enters into the rhythm of human connection and ultimately circles back to comprehend itself as all these things, varying only in degree. The poems travel further and further toward an allusive center with a contemplative inner eye that embraces the complexity and vitality of life.
ContributorsPoole, Heather Lea (Author) / Dubie, Norman (Thesis advisor) / Hogue, Cynthia (Committee member) / Savard, Jeannine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
A Cut Kite, a collection of linked stories about a Nepali family haunted by the past, examines the anatomy of troubled hearts. In these lyric tales, characters often seek love, but they end up finding it in the unlikeliest of places: in a moth darting toward a candle flame in a dark house, in the middle of a barrage of blows, in the seething currents, ruthless and forgetful.
ContributorsLama, Shertok (Author) / Pritchard, Melissa (Thesis advisor) / Dubie, Norman (Committee member) / Ison, Tara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This manuscript of poetry examines the weird and the wonderful of the worlds of science and popular culture. The poems touch on such topics as varied as tabloid inventions, shipwrecks, wandering planets, and Davie Bowie. A focus on figurative language, intriguing vocabulary, and the interesting tidbits of life provide the foundation for the thesis both in individual poems and as a whole. This thesis draws from three years of work and revision as an MFA candidate. It contains sixty poems of varying forms and lengths.
ContributorsKeller, Kathrine (Author) / Ball, Sara (Committee member) / Dubie, Norman (Committee member) / Hummer, Terry R (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The Way Home is a full-length young adult novel. The story is split between the perspectives of Theo and Ella, best friends from high school who are starting their freshman year in college. Neither is extremely excited about the start of the new phase of their lives; Theo struggles with severe anxiety and is just hoping to survive the four years; and dark memories in Ella's past don't seem to want to let her start over. A series of murders happening in town don't help their nerves at all, making it hard to focus on the "college experience." They were supposed to be there for each other... But then Ella goes missing, and Theo is left without a clue of where she went. While he searches for her desperately, she wakes up miles away from home, surrounded by strangers. In their efforts to find one another again, they instead find themselves presented with opportunities to study the impossible: magic. Things become stranger and stranger as murders, magic, police investigations, and ever-looming final exams begin to challenge Theo and Ella in ways they never expected. In writing this novel, I hoped to depict the transition from high school to college and the worries and wonders that come with it. The story is almost split directly in half, beginning with normal school life and shifting into the world of magic. The conflicts presented to the characters during the first half, such as grades, majors, and socializing, persist throughout the second half, but are also metaphorized once the characters begin studying magic. I chose to include a protagonist with an anxiety disorder because I believe mental disabilities are not represented enough in YA literature, though it is something that many high school and college students deal with. I wanted to create a character that could inform others and that students with similar mental disorders could relate to. Additional themes I deal with include newfound independence, individuality, growth, and friendship.
ContributorsWoner, Catherine Flynn (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Irish, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Abstract "Empty Horizons": A Creative Writing Piece Max Harmon "Empty Horizons" is a creative writing piece composed of two different short stories sharing a common narrator. The first story "Can you dig it?" details a trip the narrator takes to South Dakota to go hunting shortly before starting college. On the trip the narrator contemplates certain aspects of his life and the events of the story serve as a vehicle to explore the narrator's mindset as an eighteen year old about to start a new phase in his life. The second story "Toads, Sharks and Beautiful Encounters with Uncertainty" takes place during the summer before the narrator begins his last semester in college as he attends the funeral of his recently deceased grandmother in Hawaii. During the trip to Hawaii, the narrator meets a girl his age and they are able to bond with each other over feelings of loss and uncertainty. In this story the narrator explores his feelings about life with college graduation on the horizon and comes to terms with some of the anxieties that have been plaguing him since the start of college. By detailing these two distinct and important time periods in the narrator's life the reader is able to gain a sense of understanding in regards to the narrator's own process of beginning life as an adult.
ContributorsHarmon, Max Doyle (Author) / Soares, Rebecca (Thesis director) / Popova, Laura (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2014-12
DescriptionA short, fantasy novel using essential characters, themes, and events as depicted in the Bible.
ContributorsMcDonald, Joshua Dave Mallrich (Author) / Facinelli, Diane (Thesis director) / Bruhn, Karen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
This creative project is the result of reading several novellas, doing research about the form, and doing academic research regarding exchange students, South American migration to Europe, and Korean culture. Julie Yun is a Korean-America who is determining whether she will move back to Korea with her family or stay in the United States; Nathan is a young expatriate traveling in Europe who paused his education and hasn't determined whether he will return to his "home"; and Rima is a Central American who left her family and is trying to adapt to living in a new country and trying to learn a new language. The novella takes place primarily in Lausanne, Switzerland, and explores the themes of self-identity, cross-cultural communities, and how people with different backgrounds but in similar situations define home. One particular motif is that people and places are sometimes more similar to each other than we imagine.
ContributorsDe La Rosa, Stephanie Odette (Author) / Murphy, Patricia (Thesis director) / LaCroix, Kristin (Committee member) / RÃÂos, Alberto (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
"The Half-Open Pomegranate" is a collection of four short stories based on Armenian characters balancing their cultural identity with their national identity in the Diaspora. The image of the half-open pomegranate is a symbol of what Armenia has become. The pomegranate, which is the motherland, was ripped open during the Genocide of 1915. Her seeds have scattered all over the globe, sprouting new communities which are still thriving to this day. As William Saroyan once said, "For when two [Armenians] meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a new Armenia." The titles of my stories are the names of the protagonists, or "seeds" of the pomegranate. My first story, "Dr. Balian," is written about a thirty-something-year-old physician who struggles with doing what is best for herself, even if it means being the subject of hearsay. "Razmik" is a story about a teenage boy who copes with grief-related anxiety, and learns the importance of his place in the Diaspora. "Sarkis" is written from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran whose drunken perspective about regret and forgiveness touches lightly on the idea of reconciliation between the Armenians and the Turks. My last story "Noor" is written from the perspective of a young girl who struggles upholding the demands of her culture while pursuing her dream of becoming a pilot, an unconventional path for an Armenian female. Each of these stories embodies the strength of the Armenian people, who are more than just victims of Genocide. They are fruitful, resilient, and indestructible.
ContributorsSafarian, Rafaella Pearl (Author) / Bell, Matthew (Thesis director) / Fore, Chad (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Insect Girls is a chapbook-length collection of poems exploring the human inclination toward, and desire for, violence. Using insects and other bugs as motifs to show how people can often be treated like insects, these 25 poems complicate the relationships between violent people and their victims. The collection specifically focuses on women's issues such as domestic violence and female sexuality. The speakers range from a prostitute waiting in the rain, to a submissive girl at a fetish party, to a housewife with a werewolf for a husband. Violence and sex are depicted as inherently intertwined. Because of this, many characters in the book show a connection between desire and violence, how cruelty can have a kind of sex appeal. This is explored in the collection with depictions of sadomasochism and BDSM, where power dynamics can be at certain times problematic, and at others, beautiful. In writing these poems, I was inspired by the fact that upon seeing a harmless bug, so many people's first instinct is to crush it, for no reason at all except because they can. Bug imagery appears throughout the collection, illustrating the dehumanizing aspect of cruelty. The capture of a butterfly serves as a metaphor for sexual assault, and elsewhere bee wings show a desire for escape. Imagery as a whole is important to the collection because it illustrates not only the physical scars that result from violent actions, but also the strength and loveliness within the survivors. In Insect Girls, I didn't want to hide away ugliness, but I didn't want to hide away beauty either.
ContributorsPrice, Emily Kay (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Giner, Oscar (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12