Graduation Year
2024
Graduation Month
May
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Fine Arts
School or Department
Creative Writing Program
Major
English – Creative Writing
Faculty Mentor Department
Creative Writing Program
Faculty Mentor
Robin McLean
Faculty Reader(s)
Robert Stubblefield
Keywords
Tiny Claws, Old Fulton Bridge, Footprints, In the Wake, Deliquescence, Heart Rot
Subject Categories
Creative Writing | Fiction
Abstract
In The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Ursula K. Le Guin writes, “We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?” In my collection of short stories, Too Old for Monsters, I hold out my hands to every reader—the lonely and suffering person, the uncertain and wavering, the joyous and the brave, the growing and the stalling, and the myriad in-betweens. Writing explores the human experience, but this collection also explores the tangled mess of life beyond the merely human. These stories address the bone-saw sharp ache of loss and grief, the convoluted hornet’s nest of familial ties, and the isolating feat of navigating life in a world where meaning has become hard to find. Amidst these broader themes are imagery and elements of nature and animal lives; beings ever-present in our own lives and more influential and relatable than perhaps immediately perceived as we move through our days.
These tales follow a lonely being, both a like and unlike humankind, whose eons of existence drag onward, a young girl in love with incomplete houses and unfledged things, a woman who struggles to survive a mountain and a monster in grief, and more. I draw inspiration from collections such as Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell, Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado, and Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, among others. While grounded predominantly in realism, my narratives occasionally deviate into the surreal or employ magical realism to explore aspects of the human psyche as well as to attempt to branch beyond the realm of the merely human, inserting subtle connections with the more-than-human-world in which we live.
Honors College Research Project
Yes
GLI Capstone Project
no
Recommended Citation
Hause, L. A., "Too Old for Monsters : A Collection of Stories" (2024). Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts. 506.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/utpp/506
Included in
© Copyright 2024 L. A. Hause