Critical Introduction [excerpt] "The Tale of Jim Bum: A Poker Memoir" is a satirical fictional account that is half literary realism and half poker memoir. The manuscript covers the beginning (Part One) of the novel I plan to finish for my MFA capstone project. It follows a first person narrator named Jim "Bum", a poker aficiando that works as a janitor at a casino where he gambles his wages irresponsibly, all while supporting his wife who pursues her dreams to be a cardiologist. One half of the...

Introduction [excerpt] My thesis constitutes part one of a novel set in New Jersey in the year 2008. It is a work of literary realism, yet the narrator's overactive imagination adds an element of absurdist comedy and dream logic. The story is narrated by Amelia, an abrasive woman in her sixties suffering from substance abuse brought on by the loss of both her son and husband. When a representative of the bank that controls the mortgage to her house shows up on her doorstep one morning to inform her that...

Introduction [excerpt] My manuscript follows two dysfunctional and co-dependent best friends navigating their early twenties. The friends, Phoebe and Nat, are tied together through grief — they have both lost their mothers, and neither is fully willing to admit how the loss unraveled her life. Phoebe's loss occurs a few months before the manuscript's start. Her wounds are new and raw, and she is struggling with depression. Nat's grief is a decade old, and the impact of her loss is seen in obsessive behaviors....

Abstract

Totally Fine is a coming-of-age novel that follows Phoebe, a twenty-two-year-old woman who has lost her mother a few months before the story begins. In the midst of her grief, she graduates college and is launched into adulthood. She struggles to find her own identity, and drama with her closest friends ensues.

Keywords: Novel, Fiction, Coming-of-age, Female narrator, relationships, grief.

Abstract A brief summary: Failing to Thrive: Coping with a Chronic Childhood Illness consists of seven personal essays about my experience with being diagnosed with Gastroparesis at a young age. Each essay explores different challenges and internal struggles that occur due to childhood illness, like feelings of isolation, loneliness, confusion, and fear. The manuscript depicts my life before, during, and after the diagnosis, and shows the evolution of the illness over time as it impacted me...

Introduction [excerpt] Waiting for the Sun is the beginning eighty-eight pages of a novel that follows protagonists Greg Meller and Rose Wiseman as they attend Sarasota College in Sarasota, Florida. Greg, who plays baseball on full scholarship at Sarasota, is hoplessly far from his New Jersey home and popular high school persona. Throughout the novel's course, he must learn to cope with this newfound alienation and the reckoning of his own identity that ensues. Later on, these...

Scope and Contents From the Collection: The collection consists of theses written by students enrolled in the Monmouth University graduate English program. The holdings are primarily bound print documents that were submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Arts or Master of Fine Arts degrees.Students become eligible to pursue the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree if they have obtained a Master of Arts...

Thesis Critical Paper [excerpt] My novel manuscript, Yellow Wildflowers, is the story of a near-future dystopian world where women are imprisoned for crimes they may commit in the future. In a society controlled by a patriarchal government that invents lemon bug robots to diagnose socio-deviancy in women, an imprisoned female journalist smuggles her writing out of jail as a form of resistance. The story is told by a historian who compiles a manuscript of the narrator's journals and other...