Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Fine Arts

Major

Creative Writing

Date of Defense

4-22-2020

Graduate Advisor

Eamonn Wall

Committee

Mary Troy

Steven Schreiner

Abstract

I have had time to live and time to reflect on that living. What I have found is that certain things present themselves, over and over, wearing different skins. And though they look different, there is a certain whiff of familiarity that activates the soul’s hindbrain and pulls you close. That’s how it has been for me. Because of this — my failure to learn the first time; my need to see a thing from all its sides; my constant picking at the half-healed — certain themes repeat. And because they have come to me at different times in many forms, I have responded in kind.

This work is divided into three sections: Beginning, Middle, and End. I’m told every story has these. In this collection, the work is separated less by chronology than by how fully saturated it is by the theme or lesson (Has it sunk in yet?). And so, I hope this collection demonstrates the growth of an artist over time and across genre, and the growth of a person in age, but more importantly, in depth, as she scrubs her way, in tiny furious circles, through this life.

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