Publication Date

2025

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Jessica Folk, Dale Rigby, Kristi Branham

Degree Program

Department of English

Degree Type

Master of Fine Arts

Abstract

True Love Stays is a love story, albeit an atypical one. Inspired by the bond I have cultivated with my dog, Ava, it explores the nature of relationships with other people and myself. As an essayist and a filmmaker, I was inspired by the way that writers like Jo Ann Beard, Joan Didion, and Leslie Jamison write about love and how Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Alice Birch approach the complexities of identity and relationships on-screen. This collected work is meant to be a multi-genre approach to unpacking how love, desire, and grief interact with identity formation through character-driven writing and an integration of screenwriting, film theory, gender and women’s studies, and creative nonfiction. As a young woman experiencing the coming-of-age that happens at the end of your twenties, my goal was to communicate what I’ve learned, how I’ve learned it, and who I’ve learned it from. This thesis features a section titled “Narrative Shorts,” which includes five original brevity essays: “November,” “Do You Know How The Sopranos Ends?,” “Bestiary,” “Postcard from Derby City,” and “Scopophilia;” a second section titled “Feature-Length,” which includes three original essays: “Blue,” “The Rabbits,” and “August;” the original script for the short film, True Love Stays; the original short film, True Love Stays; a series bible for the half-hour TV series inspired by the short film, also titled True Love Stays; and the half-hour TV pilot episode titled “May.”

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Film and Media Studies | Screenwriting | Women's Studies

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