Abstract

Taste of Grief & Other Stories is a thematically connected collection which imagines the complexities that unconventional ideas of love coupled with the weight of grief impacts the characters created and the specific spaces they inhabit. As a Queer woman, I love for my writing to intersect with conflicts related to women's sexuality, mental illness, and the body. I concentrate on literary fiction that flirts with the cusp of weird. My goal was to continue my collection that I began as my MA thesis, so that I would have a complete, story-length collection for publication upon graduation. I have used my influential texts to help hone my craft. I also used feedback and discussions from my workshops and survey of literature classes to help sharpen craft elements such as voice, point-of-view, and narrative structure. For my process, I aimed to produce stories that felt compelling, narratives that challenged the binary, and characters that were motivated by their grief. I examined and worked with structure and to capture voice within my pieces, and I hope by experimenting with varying lengths and narrative techniques. I enjoyed the intentionality in short, dynamic descriptions that can stand out in exposition when practicing the art of minimalism as evident in several of my stories. This thesis is beneficial because it illustrates my interpretation and execution of memorable stories that exist in spaces that have been grief-stricken. I want the weight of the trauma and of the chronic tensions to not suffocate, but rather, beckon the reader in. Several of these stories illustrate how literary fiction—traditionally held in the highest regard—can employ elements of horror and fabulism to create genre-blending narratives.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2023

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Kolaya, Chrissy

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Degree Program

Creative Writing

Identifier

CFE0009490; DP0027491

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0027491

Language

English

Release Date

May 2026

Length of Campus-only Access

3 years

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Campus-only Access)

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Restricted to the UCF community until May 2026; it will then be open access.

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