William James Cobb, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Marcy Lynne North, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
english creative writing
Abstract:
This thesis contains three manuscripts, two of novella-length and one short story. While each one is unique, they all intersect at the themes of perseverance and character tribulation. The first novella, Vernon, North Georgia, was the winner of the Edward Nichols Creative Writing Award in Spring 2016. It depicts the turning point in the life of a troubled man, not quite so innocent or young. In the longer novella, Grace for Saints and Ramblers, the bildungsroman-genre shapes a story of a girl losing her father to cancer. The final chapter contains the only short story, Woman of the Year, based on the life of my late great-grandmother and her struggle as a single mother and business pioneer in the 1960s. They are all organized in a chronological timeline told from a third-person perspective. The ultimate purpose is to make the reader reflect on their own struggles, whether in comparison to or in sympathy with the characters in these stories.
