News Release
For immediate use Sept. X, 2005 - No.
Poet Fred Chappell to present
Thomas Wolfe Lecture Oct. 6
CHAPEL HILL -- North Carolina poet and author Fred Chappell will receive the sixth annual Thomas Wolfe Prize and deliver a free public lecture Oct. 6 at 7:30 p.m. in the Morehead Banquet Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Chappell is the former North Carolina Poet Laureate whom writer Lee Smith calls "our resident genius, our shining light."
Born in the mountains of Canton, N.C., Chappell has published about 30 books of poetry, fiction and critical commentary. He has won dozens of prizes, including the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize, the Best Foreign Book Prize from the Academie Francaise, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry from Yale University, the Appalachian Writers Lifetime Achievement Award and the Southeastern Booksellers Association Prize for best novel and best poetry. He has won the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award eight times. In 1994, he was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, a prestigious state honor that recognizes North Carolinians for their outstanding public service.
Chappell is retired after 40 years as a professor in the English department of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In 1986, he received the O. Max Gardner Award, the highest faculty award bestowed by the University of North Carolina system.
Marianne Gingher, an associate English professor in the creative writing program at UNC-Chapel Hill, is a former student of Chappell's.
"Fred Chappell was simply the best teacher I ever had: surprising, erudite, vastly read, generous with his time, truthful, patient, funny and kind. Throw in that he was a poet and writer of the highest calibre and those of us lucky enough to sit in his classes were dumbstruck with wonder," Gingher said. "I learned things from him that I didn't even know I was learning. I learned about thoughtful, measured criticism - both taking it and giving it. I learned that there is no single right way to write anything, that there are better ways and more provocative ways, but that one's mind must remain nimble and free of preconceptions."
During his years from 1997-2002 as poet laureate, Chappell visited 250 schools, colleges, universities, retirement homes, churches and other venues in North Carolina. He also wrote many poems upon request for public functions, such as the inauguration of university chancellors and presidents, the openings of new public buildings and the retirement of local officials. One example was the poem written when former President Bill Clinton visited the state to designate the New River in Ashe County as an American Heritage River.
His latest books of poetry are "Backsass" (2003) and "Companion Volume" (2002), and his latest novel is "Look Back All the Green Valley" (1999). Four different books have been written analyzing Chappell's poetry and fiction.
Chappell received a bachelor's and a master's degree from Duke University. He lives with his wife, Susan, in Greensboro.
The Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture honor the memory of North Carolina's most famous writer, UNC alumnus Thomas Wolfe '20, author of "Look Homeward, Angel." The annual lecture is sponsored by the Morgan Writer-in-Residence Program, the Thomas Wolfe Society and the Department of English in the College of Arts and Sciences. Alumnus Ben Jones '50 endowed the medals and the prize money for the annual award.
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English Department contact: Susan Irons, (919) 962-4283, Susan_Irons@unc.edu
College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Weaver Spurr, (919) 962-8951, spurrk@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura@dev.unc.edu