Abstract

Rites of Renewal is a short story collection that explores the question of what happens when a world, a person, or a family is broken in a way that may be past fixing. Throughout this collection, characters face wounds beyond their ability to heal, past sins beyond their ability to redeem. Their environment, their future, their families—everything is falling apart. The doppelganger farm has lost its crops, the family automaton is rusting, and the reverse volcano is threatening to come back together and take all of us with it. The stories in Rites of Renewal are dispatches from characters past their breaking points, facing realities spiraling outside of their control. These characters do not have solutions. They do not have answers. They do however, have a will to try. The protagonists in Rites of Renewal find their solace in their ability to create something new. What they create will not be the same as what was lost, nor will it be a mended version of what had been broken. It will just be the best that they can grow in barren soil with broken parts. It will also, somehow, if only for a moment, be enough.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2020

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Peynado, Brenda

Degree

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

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Degree Program

Creative Writing

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007927; DP0023060

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023060

Language

English

Release Date

May 2025

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Campus-only Access)

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Restricted to the UCF community until May 2025; it will then be open access.

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