The Girl Disappeared: the Prostitute of La Isla De Santa Flora (open access)

The Girl Disappeared: the Prostitute of La Isla De Santa Flora

The novella, The Girl Disappeared, focuses on the life of Emalia, a street kid from Mexico. She is taken from the streets of Veracruz and forced into a life of prostitution on the fictitious island of La Isla de Santa Flora. The primary conflict that drives the action of the story is her pending choice between escaping her life of slavery and saving another young woman who is on the verge of being forced into a life of prostitution as well. The novella, as a literary piece, dwells on the question of character agency and explores the multilayered nature of code switching. Language for these women becomes a tool in their struggle against their captives and a means of self-preservation, or sanctuary, as they use their growing bilingualism to foment a limited agency, to act in their own defense.
Date: May 2013
Creator: Winston, Michael
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
Short Stories (open access)

Short Stories

This collection of seven representative original short stories will include four short stories relating to a fictional location in Dallas, the Starry Skies gay country-and-western dance hall. Three short stories set in fabulous, sometimes absurd settings, will follow. A preface dealing with the nature of fictional place and non-fictional place in fiction will precede the collection of short stories.
Date: December 2007
Creator: Gay, Wayne Lee
System: The UNT Digital Library

"The Barroom Girls" and Other Stories

Access: Use of this item is restricted to the UNT Community
This creative thesis is comprised of five original short stories and a critical preface. The preface discusses the changing cultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic landscape of the modern American South and the effects-positive, negative, and neutral-these changes have had on the region's contemporary literature, including the short stories contained within.
Date: May 2006
Creator: Mortazavi, Sohale Andrus
System: The UNT Digital Library
Taken In (open access)

Taken In

Taken In is a collection of poems about coming to terms with death, love, and the social responsibilities people owe to each other.
Date: May 2005
Creator: Levan, Michael Jon
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
"My Vagina" and other stories. (open access)

"My Vagina" and other stories.

This thesis includes seven short stories and a critical afterword. The afterword places the stories in their literary historical context in regards to creative nonfiction. It goes on to discuss the craft of fictionalizing autobiographical stories. Each of the stories should stand alone, though they follow the narrator's life for a number of years. Harlin Anderson is the narrator of all the stories.
Date: August 2005
Creator: Anderson, Aaron W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
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
Into the Valley: Voices I Heard Along the Way (open access)

Into the Valley: Voices I Heard Along the Way

Into the Valley: Voices I Heard Along the Way contains a preface and a collection of five short stories. The preface discusses the use of voice as a technique to develop characters and create authenticity through elements such as sentence structure, diction, dialogue, and regional, cultural, and/or gender-specific affectations to make the words on the page become audible language in the mind of the reader. Each story is written with a unique voice that presents characters who struggle to come to terms with the truth and its various shades of reality.
Date: August 2007
Creator: Barth, Amy K.
System: The UNT Digital Library