Creative Writing Program Faculty
One reason Creative Writing at Carolina has flourished so long is its excellent faculty. These award-winning writers are also award-winning teachers: during the semester, they devote themselves to their classes, dedicating considerable time and energy to students and their manuscripts. The number of faculty has grown as the program itself has grown, but the emphasis on quality of teaching has remained central. Currently, the teachers of Creative Writing include:
| Daphne Athas | Athas--who studied writing here herself--has published four novels, including Entering Ephesus (1971), and also a memoir and a book of poems. |
| Michael Chitwood | |
| Pam Durban | The Doris Betts Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing, Durban is the author of three books of fiction: a collection of short stories, All Set About With Fever Trees, and two novels, The Laughing Place and So Far Back. |
| Marianne Gingher | Gingher has published a much-praised novel, Bobby Rex's Greatest Hit--which became a made-for-TV movie-- a collection of stories called Teen Angel, and a memoir, A Girl's Life: Horses, Boys, Weddings & Luck . |
| One of the leading younger African-American writers in the country, Kenan has published four books, including a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (1992), which won the Lambda Book Award and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. | |
| Michael McFee | McFee--a 1976 graduate of the program--has written five books of poems and edited an anthology of contemporary North Carolina poetry, The Language They Speak Is Things to Eat. |
| Ruth Moose | |
| Lawrence Naumoff | Lawrence Naumoff is the author of six novels, including the New York Times Notable Book of the Year selection, Taller Women, and his latest, A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow, a neo-social realist/docufictional treatment of the infamous Hamlet N.C. chicken plant fire. |
| James Seay | Bowman Gordon Gray Professor (1996-99) and author of four books of poems and a documentary film, Seay received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1988. |
| Alan Shapiro | Author of four books of poetry and several books of criticism, Shapiro won a prestigious Lila Wallace Reader's Digest award for 1992-95. |
| Bland Simpson | Director of the Creative Writing Program. Author of a novel and several books of non-fiction, Simpson is also a member of the internationally-acclaimed musical group The Red Clay Ramblers, with experience on Broadway and in films. |
| Daniel Wallace |
Beginning with the academic year 2000-2001, a generous donation made possible the Kenan Writer-in-Residence program, designed to bring to campus an up-and-coming writer of poetry, fiction, or creative non-fiction who has only published one book. This writer will teach one course a semester and work on a second book. The first seven Kenan Writers were poet Christine Garren, fiction writer June Spence, poet Daniel Anderson, non-fiction writer Virginia Holman, poet Thorpe Moeckel, fiction writer Nic Pizzolatto, and poet David Roderick. Kenan Visiting Writer for 2007-2008 is non-fiction writer Joni Tevis.