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LATCHKEY: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS
Title
LATCHKEY: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS.
Creator
Pendleton, Nicole C, Uttich, Laurie, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
"Latchkey: A Memoir in Essays" is an essay collection that follows the narrator through her childhood as it relates to being raised a latchkey kid in the 1980s. The lack of published academic studies that follow children through their experience as latchkey kids and into adulthood leaves personal exploration as the primary means through which a child, specifically a young girl, can seek understanding as to how her view of the world develops. Each of the five essays explores issues of autonomy...
Show more"Latchkey: A Memoir in Essays" is an essay collection that follows the narrator through her childhood as it relates to being raised a latchkey kid in the 1980s. The lack of published academic studies that follow children through their experience as latchkey kids and into adulthood leaves personal exploration as the primary means through which a child, specifically a young girl, can seek understanding as to how her view of the world develops. Each of the five essays explores issues of autonomy, self-efficacy, sexuality, addiction, and familial bonds. It is through her reflection of specific events - the loss of a father to his addictions, caring for a mother in the early stages of dementia, recognizing the trauma of sexual abuse � that she gains a precarious understanding of how she perceives herself, the concept of unconditional love, and the world around her.
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Date Issued
2019
Identifier
CFH2000460, ucf:45823
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH2000460
A LITTLE SLICE OF THE MOON: STORIES
Title
A LITTLE SLICE OF THE MOON: STORIES.
Creator
Rashid, Fatima, Leiby, Jeanne, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
A Little Slice of the Moon: stories is a collection of short stories that explore the struggles of various characters to find their place in the world. And the world, despite its familiarity, can be a hostile place. The characters in this collection learn that families are a fragile lot, that every desire contains a paradox, that the Road of Life can seemingly be grasped by the horns, but that the future twists and turns, yet never escapes the past. And it is the past that haunts these...
Show moreA Little Slice of the Moon: stories is a collection of short stories that explore the struggles of various characters to find their place in the world. And the world, despite its familiarity, can be a hostile place. The characters in this collection learn that families are a fragile lot, that every desire contains a paradox, that the Road of Life can seemingly be grasped by the horns, but that the future twists and turns, yet never escapes the past. And it is the past that haunts these characters' lives. One word, one act, impacts a lifetime. In A Little Slice of the Moon, Khalid traces the devastation of his 'new' life and his alienation to everything around him back to a youthful error. In The Thousand Trees Orchard, the arrival of Mahjabeen, Laddo's deranged and possibly dangerous sister, teaches Laddo the difference between fleeing the past and embracing it. In Dead Woman's Pass, Priya tries to outrun her malevolent qismet, and in doing so, almost loses herself as well. Isolation, physical or emotional, is a primary element in many of these characters' lives. Whether the isolation is self-imposed or results from circumstances beyond their control, these characters realize that where they are matters less than what they've done. They learn that confronting themselves--who they are, who they were--is the only way to break free from the past and make peace with themselves and with the world around them.
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Date Issued
2005
Identifier
CFE0000911, ucf:46738
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000911
Trade Secrets
Title
Trade Secrets.
Creator
Kolman, Rachel, Hubbard, Susan, Neal, Mary, Rushin, Patrick, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Trade Secrets is a collection of fourteen short stories that explores characters falling in and out of relationships and coping in unusual and even comedic ways. These characters are often obsessive and do not trust one another. They think life is funny, and discover that love is funny, and yeah, sex can be funny too. They don't feel the right things when they're supposed to. They find love, and lose love. They find hope, and lose hope. They escape sometimes, but more often are unable to go...
Show moreTrade Secrets is a collection of fourteen short stories that explores characters falling in and out of relationships and coping in unusual and even comedic ways. These characters are often obsessive and do not trust one another. They think life is funny, and discover that love is funny, and yeah, sex can be funny too. They don't feel the right things when they're supposed to. They find love, and lose love. They find hope, and lose hope. They escape sometimes, but more often are unable to go anywhere. These stories consider relationships through the disconnection between reality and fantasy, exploring how the lines between illusion and actuality can become blurred. A young boy fantasizes about running on the wind; teenagers pretend to be werewolves; twenty-somethings obsess about potential love affairs, dreams, and the possibility of escape. There is a driving curiosity behind these characters, a desire to figure one another out(-)a desire to learn the other's secret. Trade secrets are insider information after all, and must be earned. These characters are all earning the right to hold their own trade secrets and, when the time is right, sharing that information with whomever is willing to listen.
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Date Issued
2012
Identifier
CFE0004273, ucf:49512
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004273
Natural Disasters
Title
Natural Disasters.
Creator
Cobb, Rebecca, Milanes, Cecilia, Poissant, David, Bartkevicius, Jocelyn, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Natural Disasters is a collection of twelve short stories that feature a variety of narrators as they interact with the ones they love. In these stories, characters experience puberty, friendship, love, loss, trauma, and the everyday magic of living as they fight to master their own failings. Those lucky enough find solace in the forgiving beauty of nature, while others succumb to the untamable power of its disasters. This thesis is useful, important, and unique as it focuses on the stories...
Show moreNatural Disasters is a collection of twelve short stories that feature a variety of narrators as they interact with the ones they love. In these stories, characters experience puberty, friendship, love, loss, trauma, and the everyday magic of living as they fight to master their own failings. Those lucky enough find solace in the forgiving beauty of nature, while others succumb to the untamable power of its disasters. This thesis is useful, important, and unique as it focuses on the stories of a variety of characters, mostly women and children, and displays the beauty and fearsome power of nature as the characters strive to achieve their goals. In today's political and social climate, women, children, and nature are often taken for granted, underestimated, and even forgotten about. Here, they are anything but forgotten. Women join together to fight trauma, children stand together and face some of today's worst natural disasters, and nature is portrayed as a source of magic. This thesis gives these characters a voice and shines a spotlight on their importance to the world and society as a whole.
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Date Issued
2017
Identifier
CFE0006867, ucf:51741
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006867
LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME
Title
LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME.
Creator
Ramirez, Andrea, Bartkevicius, Jocelyn, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
My thesis, a collection of personal essays, explores my parents' affinity towards their native Colombia and how this connection to their homeland, through their faith and their customs, affected my definition of self. When I think about my parents' emigration from Colombia to the States, I picture the illustrations in the Bible I had as a child: the couple running from Sodom and Gomorra, running away from the place they had always known and holding on to each other. My parents, like...
Show moreMy thesis, a collection of personal essays, explores my parents' affinity towards their native Colombia and how this connection to their homeland, through their faith and their customs, affected my definition of self. When I think about my parents' emigration from Colombia to the States, I picture the illustrations in the Bible I had as a child: the couple running from Sodom and Gomorra, running away from the place they had always known and holding on to each other. My parents, like the couple in the Bible, were in the middle of nowhere when they first set foot on the cold, concrete streets of New York City. In the Bible, the man knew he was in a better place, the cities left behind him becoming more and more of a distant memory. The next picture showed a statue of salt in the shape of the woman. The woman had turned back. Shortly after they married in Colombia, my mother looked forward to a future in another country. She urged my father to seek a better life for them in the United States. My father was the one who couldn't help but look behind him, despite the consequences. The thesis chapters explore such issues as the consequences of leaving home; the impact of my father's incarceration upon his Catholic faith and upon the family; how travel to Colombia with my parents revealed new aspects of their personalities and beliefs; and my own efforts to understand and meditate upon my multicultural heritage and surroundings.
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Date Issued
2007
Identifier
CFE0001866, ucf:47415
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001866
POTENTIAL ENERGY
Title
POTENTIAL ENERGY.
Creator
Bull, Edward, Rushin, Pat, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
BULL, EDWARD. Potential Energy. (Under the direction of Pat Rushin.) Potential Energy is a collection of sixteen short stories. They range from the fictional to the autofictional to the entirely non-fictional. In all of them, characters both real and imagined struggle to live and define themselves in a world that is outside their control. They cope with the inevitability of loss, dangers both internal and external, and the passing of their own greatness. Some of these characters become lost...
Show moreBULL, EDWARD. Potential Energy. (Under the direction of Pat Rushin.) Potential Energy is a collection of sixteen short stories. They range from the fictional to the autofictional to the entirely non-fictional. In all of them, characters both real and imagined struggle to live and define themselves in a world that is outside their control. They cope with the inevitability of loss, dangers both internal and external, and the passing of their own greatness. Some of these characters become lost while others learn to embrace life on its own termsÂÂ--to accept ÂÂ"without hope or expectation.ÂÂ" More often, they are not lost or enlightened, but simply survive to continue on, still uncertain. Though all the stories in Potential Energy are stand-alone, they are thematically connected. The themes of family and identity are most prominent in ÂÂ"Potential EnergyÂÂ" and ÂÂ"Eulogy to Maria Mamani, Fire-Eater.ÂÂ" Loss is confronted and the question of what comes next is asked in ÂÂ"OystersÂÂ" and ÂÂ"Slide.ÂÂ" The conflict between fate and the need for control rises to the surface in ÂÂ"Threshold,ÂÂ" ÂÂ"The Elizabeth Years,ÂÂ" and the non-fiction story of Charles WhitmanÂÂ's deadly rampage in 1966, ÂÂ"Seed.ÂÂ" Themes of ambiguity, moral erosion, and literary exploitation appear in the non-fiction ÂÂ"Bright and Loud and Then Gone,ÂÂ" about a landlord burned alive in Chicago in 2008, and ÂÂ"What It Might Have Been Like If We Had Been There,ÂÂ" an apologetic for the writerÂÂ's right to write inspired by the 2007 Al Mutanabbi Street car-bombing in Baghdad, Iraq. Most importantly all the content of Potential Energy tells stories of people trying to hold on to what is good when, tragically, everything must eventually come to an end.
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Date Issued
2010
Identifier
CFE0003148, ucf:48651
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003148