Introduction [excerpt] The following manuscript is a piece of supernatural fiction set in the suburbs of New Jersey, with the exception of industrial areas, in the late 2010's. Deified is a character study of a first-person narrator with a retrospective view and nostalgic, curious voice. The narrator, named Forrest, is a Puerto Rican, teenage middle-schooler who analyzes the meaning behind the human voice and its potential, whether said potential is dormant due to familial...

Critical Analysis [excerpt] My manuscript, You Could Have Hurt Me Better, will borrow from the structure of ... [Hispanic] crime fictions ... in order to simulate how Hispanic family life is disturbed by white supremacist assailants through the eyes of Quinton, or in first person, "I."... The manuscript is ... as much a response to the U.S. political climate since the 2016 Presidential Election as it is to the subject matter of creating empathy for the...