Abstract:
This thesis is a collection of imaginative essays that explore my relationship to faith, family, and
their intersection. The essays are personal, though I would hesitate to call the work a memoir, as
the personal experiences related herein are meant to be a lens through which I explore other
subjects, rather than the subjects themselves. Some essays are written in a traditional essay
format, some are written as graphic essays (comics), and others straddle that nebulous line
between lyric essay and prose poetry. They are all true: which is to say that they are accurate
speculations about complicated relationships and experiences. That being said, the essayist's
relationship to Fact is always somewhat ambiguous. My duty is to the story, not to the facts, so I
cannot, for example, verify that each word written as dialogue was actually spoken, though most
of them were. Though they have been drafted and re-drafted, these essays are from all all three
years of my program, and are meant to represent both what I have learned in pursuit of this
degree and my strong belief in the diversity of the essay form.
