Date

11-13-2025

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)

Chair

Rachel Griffis

Keywords

Fiction, Novel, Christian Fiction, Fantasy, Supernatural Fiction

Disciplines

English Language and Literature

Abstract

This hybrid thesis represents my exploration of what it means to write about the divine from a human perspective. The creative component, titled Celestium, includes the first seven chapters of a novel following Cassiel, an angel appointed as Cain’s guardian after the fall of mankind. Through Cassiel’s reluctant watch over humanity’s first murderer, I explore questions of faith, duty, and empathy, what it means to care for a being one does not understand, and how curiosity can become a form of grace. The critical essay reflects on the process of world-building within a heavenly setting: a place deeply known through scripture yet ultimately beyond human perception. I examine how writing about heaven requires negotiating the boundaries between showing and telling, between reverence and imagination. Drawing from The Bible and T.S. Eliot’s “Religion and Literature,” I consider how stories that engage with the sacred can bridge the gap between belief and art. Ultimately, this project became not only an experiment in genre, blending Christian fiction, supernatural fiction, and fantasy, but also a personal inquiry into how storytelling can illuminate the spaces between the known and the unknowable.

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