The Invisible Dragon (open access)

The Invisible Dragon

This collection of memoir essays chronicles the author's 19 year struggle with chronic depression. "The Invisible Dragon" explores the onset of the disease and its cure. "The Silent Typewriter" looks at how it affected the author as a writer. "Roses for Trish" discusses how it affected his wife. "My Mother's Son" explores the possibility that he inherited depression from his mother. The final essay, "The Dragon Returns" probes the author's life in 2012 with the probability that he has a personality disorder. The preface examines several depression memoirs and explores the strategies used by William Styron, Elizabeth Wurtzel and Kay Redfield Jamison to prevent sliding into the pitfalls inherent in a linear structure. Among these are the use of alternative structures, language, characterization, focus and imagery.
Date: December 2012
Creator: Boutwell, Nathan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Stories: Spain, Lovers and Crazy Old Ladies

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Stories: Spain, Lovers and Crazy Old Ladies is a collection of short stories about relationships, traumas, memories and change.
Date: May 2005
Creator: Franco, Sally
System: The UNT Digital Library
"This Fundamental Lack": Stories (open access)

"This Fundamental Lack": Stories

This short story collection includes five original works of fiction, three of which make up a trilogy titled "The World Drops Beneath You," which follows the life of James McClellan from 1969 in Texas until roughly 2009, when he is struggling to care for his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. One of the two remaining stories, "She Loved Him When He Looked Like Elvis," prominently features James McClellan's parents and is set approximately eight years before the start of the trilogy. Each of the stories is concerned with blue-collar families trying to make their way in postindustrial America and the forces that buffet them, including some brought on by the choices they make.
Date: August 2016
Creator: Bohanan, Ronal L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Mind's Eye and Other Stories (open access)

The Mind's Eye and Other Stories

This collection contains a preface entitled "Of Other Worlds" and the following short stories: "The Mind's Eye," "Waking," "The Conquest of the World," "Persephone," and "Extradition." This creative thesis includes a blend of science fiction and literary realism short stories, which are collectively concerned with questions of time, narration, and the use of language. As well, the preface discusses science fiction theory, narrative strategies such as the use of the first person perspective, and the author's theory of composition.
Date: May 2011
Creator: Ledbetter, Kelly
System: The UNT Digital Library
“Civilizations without Boats”: Stories (open access)

“Civilizations without Boats”: Stories

This collection consists of a critical preface and nine short stories. Extrapolating from the work and legacy of Michel Foucault, the preface theorizes a genre of “heterotopian fiction” as constitutive of a fundamentally ethical approach to narrative creativity, distinguishing its functional and methodological characteristics from works that privilege aesthetic, thematic, or technical artistry. The stories explore spaces of madness, alterity, incomprehensibility, and liminal experience. Collection includes the stories “Mexico,” “Civilizations without Boats,” The Widow’s Mother,” “Guys Like Us,” “Everything You’d Hoped It Would Be,” “A Concerned Friend,” “Crisis Hotline,” “Coast to Coast,” and “The Ghosts of Rich Men.”
Date: August 2011
Creator: Hubbs, Travis
System: The UNT Digital Library
Prudence Stories (open access)

Prudence Stories

This collection of three original short stories is an excerpt from a novel about an East Texas family whose common bond is the need for a second chance. A preface dealing with the use of setting as a character precedes the short stories.
Date: December 2008
Creator: Coleman, Britta M.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Divine and the Everyday Devil (Short Stories)

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
Divine and the Everyday Devil contains a scholarly preface that discusses the experiences and literary works that influenced the author's writing with special attention in regards to spirituality and sexuality. The preface is followed by six original short stories. "Evil" is a work addressing a modern conception of evil. "Eschatology" concerns a man facing his own mortality. "The Gospel of Peter" tells the story of a husband grappling with his wife's religious beliefs. "The Mechanics of Projects" relates the experiences of a woman looking for love in Mexico. "The Rocky Normal Show" involves a husband growing apart from his wife and "Mutant: An Origin Story" is about a teenager trying to find his own unique identity.
Date: May 2003
Creator: Burks, T. Stephen
System: The UNT Digital Library
Dead Fox Run: A Collection of Stories (open access)

Dead Fox Run: A Collection of Stories

This collection consists of a critical preface and five linked short stories. The preface analyzes the usage of violence in literate and other forms of media, and specifically the ways in which literature can address violence without aggrandizing or stylizing it. The stories explore this idea through the lens of the lives of two young men, following them from boyhood marked by violence to adulthood crushed by the trauma of the American Civil War. Collection includes the stories "Dead Foxes," "Cow Pen," "Fatherless," "Woodsmoke," and "Brotherhood."
Date: May 2011
Creator: Starz, Andrew
System: The UNT Digital Library
Infinite Hallways: “Parabola Heretica” and Other Journeys (open access)

Infinite Hallways: “Parabola Heretica” and Other Journeys

This creative thesis collects five fictional stories, as well as a critical preface entitled “Fractals and the Gestalt: the Hybridization of Genre.” The critical preface discusses genre as a literary element and explores techniques for effective genre hybridization. The stories range from psychological fiction to science fiction and fantasy fiction. Each story also employs elements from other genres as well. These stories collectively explore the concept of the other and themes of connection and ostracization.
Date: December 2013
Creator: Garay, Christopher
System: The UNT Digital Library