Department of English

Creative Thesis: What follows is the first six chapters of Dog Rose, a story told at the intersection of trauma and magic. Chapters alternate between past and present. In 2009, twelve year old Kira arrives as a newcomer to Sandy Landing, a summer camp nestled in the Sierra Nevadas. Having lived in the shadow of her gregarious brother and the isolation of chronic illness, Kira is dazzled by the attention of staff member Sean. Sean shows Kira his ambitious project which plans to renovate the local waterways with cryptobiotic fish eggs and a smattering of ecologically reckless experiments. Kira’s presence reacts magically with the sites of these experiments, and their relationship plunges her into oceanic puddles, roving alligators, bioluminescent dreams, and melting habitats. Meanwhile, in 2014, seventeen year old Brittany is a lifelong camper whose first year as a counselor quickly unravels when her campers, Megan and Kenny, prove cleverer and stranger than she could have imagined. When an unexpected bond forms between the three, Brittany decides to include them in her secret mission–assigned by Kira’s older brother, Brittany’s former counselor. Together, they embark on a quest to recover the magic Kira preserved amidst Sean’s chaos. Each must confront her own trauma, emerging from distant cocoons of numbness to conquer the ferocious, shimmering tunnels of adolescence. Each must discover her own power as a narrative alchemist–one who can reshape the meaning of memory and bend new worlds out of old stories. Those left behind by reality gain access to other places. Those left behind by the promise of girlhood must write ourselves back into existence. Dog Rose follows a group of girls as they brave the transition from stasis to life: the transcendent work of hatching from elsewhere.