Date Available
12-31-2050
Year of Publication
2025
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
English
Faculty
Erik Reece
Faculty
Andrew Milward
Abstract
This manuscript interrogates the quiet, often overlooked moments of grief and displacement while celebrating the small, intimate connections that keep us anchored with one another. It is the product of an evolving journey that spans various phases of my life and career, from journalism, teaching, administration, and, ultimately, the discovery of creative non-fiction and its capacity for a broader, more personal realm of storytelling.
Through the essays and poems collected here, I attempt to navigate the delicate and often painful journey of mourning loss and the transformation of self that follows. This exploration of grief is not only about the sorrow brought on by loss but also the silence that fills the spaces it leaves. These essays are my attempt to examine how silence can be both suffocating and healing. I draw upon family traditions, food, and stories to understand the continuity that grief interrupts and, in some ways, preserves. Food features in my work as both a literal and metaphorical link. It is how we gather, how we remember, how we heal. Meals are not just about nourishment; they are about the threads that bind us—past to present, self to other.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.98
Funding Information
Graduate Assistantship UKY 2023-2025
Recommended Citation
White Morgan, Robertha R., "Transitional Phases" (2025). Theses and Dissertations--English. 184.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/english_etds/184
