Date of Award

January 2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

English

First Advisor

Kim Donehower

Abstract

Wayward Girls represents a culmination of my creative and critical work at the

University of North Dakota. The dissertation includes a critical introduction, a collection of short stories, and a pedagogical article. In my critical introduction, I explain ways in which I manipulate narrative and time, the decisions I make about levels of discourse, my use and experimentation with conventional forms of plot, and my work in the short-story cycle genre. My collection of six short stories includes works about women at crucial turning points in their lives. Set in the Pacific Northwest, the stories range in time period from the 1940s through the late twentieth century. Many of the women in this collection have been stuck in a cycle of single-motherhood and near-poverty for generations. Others who have achieved middle-class status struggle with issues concerning their identity and feel discomfort with their class norms. Even when they do achieve a measure of financial stability, none of my characters experience security. The pedagogical article, “Multifaceted Possibilities for Creative Writing: A Hybrid Approach to Teaching the Creative Writing Workshop and Nineteenth-Century Serial Publication”, explores ways in which the studio approach of the writing workshop can be combined with academic study of the form and production of nineteenth-century serial fiction.

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