MFA 2014
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Browsing MFA 2014 by Subject "Abandonment"
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Item MY MOTHER WHO TEACHES DANCE: Selections from a Novel(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2014-06-19) Holmes, ConnorMy Mother Who Teaches Dance is a novel of self-discovery, told alternately from the perspectives of Alby Melvin, a South Florida crime reporter, and Mariposa Fernández-Pérez, a Cuban ex-pat living in Miami with her parents Mateo and Lucia. Some sections are told from the perspectives of supporting characters, though Alby and Mariposa drive the story. Their lives intertwine when Alby goes to the funeral of his estranged father, held by Mateo, whom Alby’s father had saved in a trucking accident. Alby must reconcile his father’s abandonment and his mother’s late-stage Huntington’s Disease, and Mariposa must traverse her tumultuous past growing up in Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Both struggle to understand Alby’s father, Franklin Melvin, who passed through their lives so fleetingly. The novel explores various themes centered on homelessness, foreignness, fatherhood, abuse, abandonment, and reconciliation. The novel is written in a traditional style but with sections utilizing syntax or formatting in order to accentuate the narrative material, including alternating POVs, stream-of-consciousness, and the use of subtitles or numerical lists. Ultimately these techniques should serve Alby and Mariposa’s story by palpably exorcising the traumas of their pasts and helping forge a new conversation between them.Item The Suicide House: A novel(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2014-01) O’Sullivan, KymJamie Lorne doesn’t understand why her mother is abandoning the family. This isn’t the first time her mother has left, after all. The last time was fourteen years ago when Jamie was three years old. She doesn’t remember much about that situation, except that her older brother was angry, her baby brother was cared for by a surly nanny, and her father turned to alcohol to drown his loneliness. These hidden memories begin to awaken when Jamie and her friends explore the site of a recent suicide, manifesting themselves as shadows and voices that urge her to hurt herself. Fortunately, many forces help Jamie stay both safe and sane. Her loyal friends act out a role-playing game, in which Jamie assumes a fearless character who can deal with any situation. Mason, a skater boy with perfectly crooked teeth and smiling eyes, keeps the horrid cockroaches at bay and her troubles in perspective. Her two brothers give insight to her past while relating to her present plight. Even the animals that live inside the Suicide House instinctively stop her from harming herself. Most of the novel is set in a suburb of Tampa, Florida. It takes place in modern times over the course of two months, beginning a few weeks prior to Halloween and ending a few days after Thanksgiving. In the first part of the story, Jamie struggles with her feelings about her mother and how the situation affects her family. She and her friends begin exploring the Suicide House and Jamie meets Mason and his friend Gene, who both have issues with their mothers. In the second section, the family takes a trip to Washington DC to visit her mother where she gains information about her past and about her mother’s motivations for moving. Upon their return to Tampa, the family struggles through Thanksgiving without Jamie’s mother. Friend troubles abound as Jamie has a one-sided conflict with her best friend, Sarah, and Mason’s friend, Gene, attempts to commit suicide. Moving into the final portion of the book, Jamie’s father flies back to Washington DC and Jamie heads to Ybor City with Mason, leaving younger brother Pete alone. As the book comes to a climax, Pete goes missing, Mason treats Jamie badly, and a secret about Jamie’s best friend is revealed. A frightening event takes place at the Suicide House, and as Jamie attempts to find Pete, her memories finally work their way free. In the end, she confronts her mother and comes to terms with the fact that her mother is not perfect and never will be.Item THINGS I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO SAY: A Mosaic Memoir(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2013-12-31) Wanser, Mary M.This creative thesis project is a collection of personal essays that constitute a memoir manuscript. Intermingled among traditional essay forms in this collection are experimental layouts, including several fragmented pieces made of abbreviated snapshots in time that when pieced together form a larger picture. There is a braided piece that entwines two different stories set in two different time frames, an alphabetical list, and even a personal letter. Several relevant photos are scattered throughout the book making this work a true mosaic. Each chapter has a confessional quality, and the self-revelation merges into a didactic tone in some of the later chapters. Beneath the overarching themes of secrets and taboos are instances of abandonment, abuse, and death by various means. The bulk of the content is bleak, but reasons for hope abound in the end. The uniqueness of this memoir lies in the author’s ability to weave seamlessly in and out of time with the use of historic present tense verbs alongside past tenses. This effect of drawing a reader into scenes that occurred distant in time is the single most fascinating lesson the writer carries away with her from The University of Tampa’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program.