Announcing the Final Examination of Kristi Dao for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing.
Nailed It is a collection of personal essays that follow the life of the narrator as an unlovable outsider raised by parents who are Vietnam War refugees. This collection is made up of seven essays, each focusing on the relationships that have shaped the speaker’s identity and ideas about how love works. “Lost in Translation” opens the collection and explores the narrator’s attempts to make sense of parental relationships defined by communication errors. The next several essays consider the father and mother as both parents and business owners, as well as relationships with people beyond the immediate household and family. The collection closes with “Glossary of a Daughter Trying to Understand Her Mother,” a hermit crab essay in which the narrator discovers that even if she has all the words to describe and understand her relationship with her mother, that understanding is one-sided and allows for peace only in accepting the relationship as it exists.
Committee in Charge:
Dr. Jocelyn Bartkevicius
Dr. Rochelle Hurt
Dr. David James Poissant
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