MFA 2015
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Browsing MFA 2015 by Subject "Loss"
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Item How the Tree Grows: A Novel in Stories(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2015) Ebner, David JAn unsuccessful novelist, a sexually deviant school teacher, and a man troubled with the loss of his estranged father, William Bradstock struggles with assimilating into what his world wants him to become. Through this novel in stories, William is poised against his successful philanthropist wife, Samantha, whose infidelities cause William to question himself. In exploring the depths of William’s psyche, the reader is exposed to a selection of William’s failed novel, Leaning Tree, which superimposes the stories within each section of the work onto a backdrop of paralleled emotion. William seeks to answer two questions. First, can the vastness of his love for his wife encompass all, including an affair with a Dan Brown fanatic? Second, can he face a duffle bag that contains the objects his late father chose to die alongside? Through a combination of sexual exploits, reimagined futures and odd occurrences, William eventually answers a different question. Can a life be saved even if all hope for such a thing has long been lost?Item The Lost Son: Essays on displacement of the body, heart and soul(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2015) Skerritt, Andrew J.“The Lost Son: Essays on Displacement, Body, Heart and Soul,” is a collection about experiencing and understanding loss. The title of the collection has a dual meaning and speaks to the phenomenon of the author’s loss of son. “The Lost Son” and “Autobiography of My Children,” are essays on the children we have and those we lose. In a way, as parents we eventually lose our children, to death or adulthood; we can only hope the latter comes first. But the writer never loses; he always wins. But “The Lost Son” title must also be viewed through the prism of the author as a lost son - lost to native land, lost to his adopted island, lost to his adopted home. Even when he has found a home, there is also a sense of displacement, of belonging but not quite, being permanently uneasy. He is the ultimate outsider and this collection is an attempt to make a statement; it is a manifesto of seeking to belong. The political sensibilities of Andre Aciman, Edward Said, Jamaica Kincaid and George Lamming imbue this collection. From the first essay, “Why I write,” to “The Sunday Morning Club” and “Children of the Fire,” themes of separation reoccur. In “Why I Write” one hears the voice of an eight-year old boy on a Caribbean island writing to his mother in far away in London. Writing is his first act of affirmation, long before he knows what affirmation means. Formatted: CenteredItem THE TIDE: A Novel(MFA in Creative Writing, The University of Tampa, 2015) Felisberto, MaggieIn The Tide, high school sophomore Andreia Carvalho has always been an odd one out. In the homogenous community of Jackson Falls, Pennsylvania, her Portuguese-American ethnicity has always been noticeable, and it has made her the target of bullying. The bullying, though, is only part of the problem. Dreia fights moderate OCD and depression on a daily basis, and though nobody else seems to know it, Dreia has frightening memories of being assaulted by her cousin as a child which cause her anxiety and fuel her obsessive nature. Despite this, Dreia has good friends in Teddy and Emmy-Lynn and an active social life. Things start to change for Dreia when Teddy falls for her and she begins to suspect that her secret childhood trauma may not be so secret after all. After their first family Christmas with Dreia's aunt in a decade, she and her parents both reveal that they've known all along about the assault, and Dreia turns to Teddy for emotional support. This care system doesn't last long, and after a fateful car accident Dreia is forced to find her own strength to sort through her depression and her loss.