Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Short Stories
- All Subjects: Poetry--Authorship.
- Creators: McNally, T. M.
- Creators: Bell, Matthew
- Creators: Bassett, Kyle
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
- Resource Type: Text
Description
This creative project consists of three short stories with a common theme of release, letting go, and exhalation. Nymphal Instar is a story about Tommy, a young boy, and his encounter with his uncle, a troubled man who has just returned from war. The story explores the idea of growth and maturation, and the ability to move past and let go of trauma. A Cat Goes Away is about a young man, Richard, who is required to simultaneously deal with the loss of his cat and the suicide attempts of his sister. He also runs into his sister's ex-husband and is forced to deal with him. The story explores the difficulty in recognizing one's own emotions and the importance of knowing the difference between what one can change and what one cannot. Since Diagnosis is a story about Kate, a woman who has just been diagnosed with cancer and who is unable to tell her loved ones. The story explores acceptance and the idea that letting go can allow one to live more fully. Though the three stories are disparate in their characters and events, they share a commonality in their endings and in the final realizations of the characters. There is a focus on the importance of breath and breathing, and the essentiality of acceptance and release.
ContributorsMyers, Alan Yutaka (Author) / McNally, T. M. (Thesis director) / Irish, Jenny (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Raised on card-catalogues, then expected to save the world with microchips, there is a generation that was left straddling two millennia. Often lumped in with the X’ers or Millennials, this generation didn’t grow up with or without technology, technology grew up with them. The poems in The Aerodynamics of Hunger strike a balance between the easy-going materialism of the 90’s and our current culture of instant gratification, between the tendency to treat science like a God and prescribe God like science. These poems see straight through the world of hypersex and click-bait, yet they admit their complicity in its creation and distribution. They watch the world become connected on a new level, but testify to the resulting struggle of place one’s self in relation to something, anything. The burden is great, but journeying through it is an undeniable pleasure.
ContributorsBassett, Kyle (Author) / Rios, Alberto A (Thesis advisor) / Dubie, Norman (Committee member) / Bell, Matthew (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
For this project, I have written a trilogy of interrelated short stories. The three stories are entitled "The Blue Bike," "Heartbeat," and "Elevators." Each of these three stories relate to each other both through the featured characters and the core themes. The little girl from the first story, Amy, is the little sister of the narrator Emma from the second story. The narrator from the third story is the son of Charles (Helen's husband) from the first story, who is also a major character in "Elevators." The gym in the second story also appears in the third story. On a thematic and poetic level, I have used the word "lift" as the inspiration behind and connecting thread between my stories. I have played with the various meanings of connotations of the word, using them to construct the plots of each story. For example, I have used it in the sense of face lifts in the first story, as well as alluded to the idea of planes lifting into the air through making Charles a pilot. There is also the idea of lifting a child into your arms, and lifting yourself or someone else up both physically and emotionally. In the second story, I use shop-lifting, weight-lifting, and the idea of giving someone a lift as in giving someone a ride. The idea of giving someone a lift also occurs in the last story, alongside the connotations of lift with elevators. There are a multitude of other instances in which I have tried to make the word "lift" resonate throughout these stories, though the over-arching theme for me would be the idea of lifting other people up. It is the exploration of meaningful connections between people and the way those connections can heal and "lift." This collection is thus an exercise in creative interconnectivity as well as an exploration of the way people can connect meaningfully to each other.
ContributorsKang, Verity Grace (Author) / McNally, T. M. (Thesis director) / Duerden, Sarah (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
In "Why I Can Never Leave the South," protagonist Zora-Neale Hurston Reed is called back to the South to give the eulogy at the funeral of her childhood friend, Roselia. Roselia had been murdered, supposedly by her boyfriend, Alex. Zora reminisces about growing up with the two of them, speculating as to why Alex would have been driven to kill Roselia. She remembers how sad Roselia was when they parted ways as Zora went off to college in Oregon, and how they became more distant as the years passed. At the funeral, Zora begins to give her eulogy, and we finally learn what happened to Rosalie. "Fifteen Selections from White Hills High," chronicles the daily, intertwining lives of various students at White Hills High. Teddy loves his irresponsible mother, Virginia, and picks up the slack for her when he can. Sean The Dream of Ralph and Cody
ContributorsTse, Melissa (Author) / McNally, T. M. (Thesis director) / Turchi, Peter (Committee member) / Staples, Beth (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2012-05
Description
Back and Forth is a collection of four short stories that explore cultural elements of the Philippines through folktales, magic, and loss. Each story features main characters that are discovering how to navigate through life after something jarring happens to them. In learning how to move on, they learn more about themselves, their culture, and their identity. In “Back and Forth,” the main character, Lita, learns about the magic of the world and how she herself possesses it, something that is passed down from her grandmother. However, she is forced to hide it away if she wants to live a normal life. When her aunt starts acting weird, it’s up to Lita to race against time and relearn the magic within. “The Viewing,” takes place in the United States, and the main character, Diwata, is a biracial woman that has to maneuver her way through a viewing for one of her favorite relatives while also being confronted by the brashness of white relatives that don’t appreciate her being a part of their family. Tala, the main character of “The Mound Dwellers,” must turn to an old legend that she had learned as a child to find her own daughter that has gone missing. Only after finally giving in and listening to her mother about what she suspects happened, does Tala begin to make progress. “Snowed In” is about a woman who is getting over the loss of her husband. She works through the grief by cooking his favorite recipe, a traditional Filipino dish, over and over again. Each time she finishes, it’s not quite right. By the end of the story, she finally perfects the recipe, and there’s nothing left for her to do but deal with her grief head-on. Each story, though not related to each other directly, features characters that have to unravel the mystery of their new identities after a major life change.
ContributorsAmmerman, Lian Rae (Author) / Bell, Matthew (Thesis director) / Newsom, Leah (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05