A vast cloudless color: Six stories.

摘要

The six stories that comprise this creative thesis were written to address two things of particular interest to me. The first of these is landscape, and the way that landscape can be uniquely incorporated into a fictional narrative. I wrote what I knew, which was mostly the rural spaces of Texas and its bordering states. I wanted to write landscapes that would parallel or otherwise inform the content of each story. Each story was begun with a place in mind, only later did I populate that place with characters and conflicts. Second, I wanted to write stories of characters who reach a point of resignation in their life -- a realization that the facts of the matter suggest an almost inevitable course of action or revolutionary way of thinking. This is, in its way, tied to that now-overworked idea of the epiphany in literature. Not all of these characters arrive at the point that they see the 'whole picture,' not all of them are touched by grace and comprehensive wisdom, but all of them understand something new.