Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2022

Document Type

Honors Project

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

English and Linguistics

Department Chair or Program Director

Richards, Gary

First Advisor

Colin Rafferty

Major or Concentration

English (Creative Writing Concentration)

Abstract

This essay, entitled “The Garden of Secrets and Truths,” was written for ENGL 470C-01, Seminar in Creative Writing: Nonfiction, with Professor Colin Rafferty. This piece consists of excerpts from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden coupled with nonfiction flash essays about life, growing up, and ambition. This essay was born from the “Public Domain” challenge in this course which prompted students to take a work of literature that is within the Public Domain and use it as a springboard to tell their original nonfiction story or stories. It follows a sort of call-and-response pattern where a quote from The Secret Garden is followed by an “In Other Words,” which is a brief and subjective summation of the quote as relating to the nonfiction elements of the essay, followed by a flash nonfiction essay. This essay uses form, as well as references to a classic work of children’s fiction to depict the snippets and interminglings of a life.

Included in

Nonfiction Commons

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