Document Type
Master's Thesis
Graduation Year
May 2020
Emphasis
Emphasis in Creative Writing or Applied Music
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program Name
Humanities
Program Director
Judy Halebsky, PhD
First Reader
Thomas Burke, MA
Second Reader
Joan Baranow, PhD
Abstract
This collection presents a variety of literary styles including pure fiction, auto fiction, historical fiction, biographical fiction, and creative non-fiction. Racism, abortion, political and societal events are addressed by way of the Viet Nam era Anti-war Movement, Feminism, Art, immigration, mid-century inter-racial attitudes, and individual responses to sexist behavior, fire, war, and death. Also serving as vehicles are adult behavior through a child’s eyes, and in some cases, humor. The stories are set in the 1950s and1960s in Cleveland and Chicago; also in pre-Soviet Belarus, 1920s Paris, Renaissance and 1970s Venice, and 2016 United States. Characters fictionalized in the stories include Sonia Terk Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Josephine Baker, Veronica Franco, Joseph Michael Stern, myself and some members of my family. All the stories were written between 2015 and 2020; each represents a reflection on an occurrence, real or imagined, during the past seventy years of my life. These stories are the work of an aging writer who imagines facts to fill in gaps of unknown or forgotten reality to create fiction.