Within the United States, the number of "out" Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) individuals attending a college or university is on the rise (Rosario, Schrimshaw, Hunter & Braun, 2006). With this increase, the new and/or different ways that lesbian and gay individuals can present and express their sexual orientation has...
These five stories investigate characters who must deal with their unresolved,
emotionally troubling pasts. The characters attempt to journey back to life having
recognized that their isolation, safe and undisturbing as it is, is worse than a life in which
the possibility of joy is mixed with the inevitability of...
This thesis comprises a collection of six short stories written and developed in
the Creative Writing program at Oregon State University and particularly in fiction
workshops with Dr. Tracy Daugherty and Marjorie Sandor. These stories explore the
human condition, and human connections, in contemporary society. The characters
here are ordinary...
The five short stories included in this thesis depict characters who struggle as they try to balance their responsibilities to each other, and their own independent desires. Whether those desires include personal freedom, another relationship, or self-protection, these characters are at least minimally aware that obtaining what they most want...
Scenes from the Tarot is a novella that explores the desire to control time. The narrator, Truth Aiken, spurred by fear of her own death, recounts the story of her sister Beauty's death and its effects on Truth's highly unusual family. Proceeding backwards through time, Truth describes her tumultuous relationships...
Fallow is a creative non-fiction book of memory and place. It chronicles the lives of William and Vera Lutz and their lives of struggle on the Northern Plains of North Dakota. It follows a narrator and his attempts to make sense of, and connect to their, lives following both of...
A memoir is variously defined as an abbreviated autobiography; a record of
events based on the writer's personal observation or knowledge; and the written
story of one's own life. I set out to do those things. But when I sat back to read the
first of many drafts, I discovered...
This study investigated the local and sustainable food movements in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The aim of the research was to better understand the current condition of the phenomenon, what it means to the communities studied and the future role it will play in the state. Other research objectives...
The thesis is the first third of a novel entitled Steelhead. The story takes place in and around a small southern Oregon town in the summer of 1967. The narrator, eighteen-year-old hot-rodding Emil Reese, discovers hippies swimming naked in the river near his house. The hippies, newly arrived from San...
This thesis proposes expanding the locations where literacy narratives are currently used as readings and as writing assignments and considering broad conceptions of the types and uses of literacy narratives read in classrooms. In particular, this thesis asserts the value of expanding the literacy narratives read beyond the current canonical...