The Crimson published interviews last week with two students writing creative theses in the English department —a poet and a playwright. This week The Crimson talked to a novelist and an author of short stories. Made up of prose and broken into chapters, these students’ theses look more like their non-creative counterparts. But because their works will be personal creations they are more similar to poems and plays.

Both Angela M. Hur ’02 and Elizabeth A. Phang ’02 are writing theses which are ostensibly more personal than those of the authors interviewed last week. The stories are set in a suburban town; the novel’s characters are like the author or people she knows. Do these similarities represent shameless and tiresome exploitations of the author’s experience, or are they simply a means to help the author create a new world that has never been seen before?

Because creative thesis writers draw on personal experience, some may not consider what they do an academic or intellectual pursuit. Hearing about the process of writing, though, alleviates any doubts we might have. Books are not written in a vacuum—they are influenced by scholarly minds. Beyond that, in the writing and revising, the process is itself intellectual.

Angela M. Hur

The Harvard Crimson: What is your thesis about?

Angela Hur: I’m writing a novel that centers around the translation of a dead mother’s diaries (written in Korean) and the resulting love triangle that develops among the mother (in the form of her writing), the translator and the daughter (an archivist and the narrator). So basically it’s about language, obsessions with textual characters, a threesome with your mom and lots of paper. A major part of the novel is the family story, typically dysfunctional and told through the daughter’s memories triggered by the diary entries.

THC: How did you come up with the plot and characters?

AH: I happened upon the idea. It had been brewing in my head for a few weeks. Applying for a creative thesis had always been in the back of my head. I didn’t think I would get it but once I had the idea I figured ‘“why not?”

My ex-boyfriends are worried that they will be portrayed unfavorably. But my ex-boyfriends couldn’t provide enough interesting fodder for a short story, let alone a novel. Just kidding. Really, [to her ex-boyfriends] if you are reading this, I’m only kidding. In fact, many people I know have inspired characters for me, and lots of people I don’t personally know have also provided mannerisms and physical features. This is especially true of people in my sections. It’s hard for me to stay awake at times, so I just sort of jot down notes about the other students instead, the way they speak, the way they pick their noses, etc.

THC: Who influenced your writing?