Emerson thesis -- Creative writing

Packing with Proust is a travel memoir about my pilgrimage to literary sites around the world. I wander through the houses and graveyards of dead authors and fictional characters, searching in abandoned landscapes for a story I can call my own. I baptize

Panzerosa' offers stories that reach for truth in the life of the author, who is the youngest son of three brothers and descendant of Carl and Cecilia Strandwitz. Over the span of this memoir, brotherhood becomes displaced by the partnerships of marriage,

"Paper Dolls is a collection of nine personal essays exploring author Catie Joy's emotional and political growth, from early childhood to emerging adulthood. Several linked essays in the collection trace the author's coming of age as a domestic adoptee." --Abstract.

This collection of essays explores the nature of memory, creativity, and mental illness through the perspective of a bipolar woman in her twenties. Each essay focuses on a single theme relating to life after becoming well or to being an unstable adolescen

"Para Las Latinas is a collection of short stories told in multiple perspectives on the themes of identity, womanhood, misogyny, and culture. My experimentation with point-of-view in this collection ranges from second, roving third, and omniscient to gain a deeper sense of characters, plot, and societal commentary. The collection challenges the reader to enter worlds they are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with through bilingualism, relationship dynamics, and setting." -- Abstract

"A novel excerpt about Pem Randall, a young lawyer who suddenly loses her mother, the only family she has. After her mother's death, Pem is forced to re-evaluate her close but complicated relationship with her mother." --Abstract.

"People/Places/Things/Ideas attempts to unpack experience, we as humans, internalize. The collection is separated into sections—highlighting each piece through the central theme and placing them into its respected noun-home. There are poems of womanhood, abuse, and mental health— each carrying a weight that the speaker has borne over time." -- Abstract

'Perfect' is a memoir about the blessing and burden of being singled out by a parent, particularly a parent whose days are numbered, in a family that fell apart years ago despite my dreams and efforts to hold it together. -- abstract.

"Set in an alternate present, 'Philadelphia Forever' sees four characters explore the implicit question as to how one 'makes' and 'unmakes' a place. An amoral real estate agent, a melancholy mobster, an insightful teenager, and a happy cook test the figurative waters of a city filled with serendipity with the help of a robotic basketball player and a sentient cloud. Some embrace the serendipity. Some attempt to erase it. All of them live in Philadelphia." -- Abstract

"Phoenix Wok and Other Stories is a collection of short stories linked together by a restaurant called Phoenix Wok. Set in Manila, Philippines, this collection explores the lives of characters who have worked or eaten at this Filipino-Chinese restaurant. Each story examines the lives of typical Filipinos when their capacity towards change is tested." --Abstract

In 2008, Braddock, Pennsylvania began receiving a wave of national media attention (The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, etc.). The attention largely centered around one man, Braddock's larger-than-life mayor, John Fetterman. At 6'8, 350 pound

"Practicing How to Be in the World is a collection of lyric poems exploring self-definition and growth. From the influences of childhood upbringing, nature, art and writing, love, and life experience, the poems explore how an individual makes meaning of the world and defines the self. The poems are paper boats in the rising waters of the modern world." -- Abstract