Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Fine Arts

Major

Creative Writing

Date of Defense

4-14-2023

Graduate Advisor

John Dalton

Committee

Shane Seely

Omatola Abraham

Abstract

Bluebird Hotel is an excerpt from a speculative fiction novel set in a world where everyone communicates with the deceased through their dreams. The novel follows multiple people as they are forced to adapt to complete loss when, over the course of a month, the world’s “dream reunions” stop. When they are no longer able to visit with their loved ones who have passed, residents of Two Rivers, Missouri find strange ways to cope: Alice, a sixteen year-old high school student experiments with psychedelic drugs. Now sober, hotel maintenance worker Leonard believes his mother may have found another way to communicate with him. Dolores struggles to form a relationship with the only family she has left, while being haunted by a student who attended the high school where she teaches. Bluebird Hotel explores themes of loss, grief, and forgiveness as these characters rebuild their lives around the emptiness of their sleep.

Note: This thesis is under a author requested embargo until 2223, after which it will become available in accordance with end of expected copyright protection. This embargo year is intentional and not an error.

Available for download on Wednesday, April 09, 2223

Included in

Fiction Commons

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