Creative Writing at Carolina: Alumni
Over the years, the Creative Writing Program has attracted talented and
hard-working students form all over the country. Its alumni have gone on
to teach, work in publishing and entertainment, and distinguish themselves
in diverse ways, all whle continuing to write and publish their work. A
full listing of their accomplishments would be a book in itself; what
follows is a very partial sampler of some alumni and their recent
accomplishments.
- Randall Kenan. One of the most celebrated younger
African-American writers in the country, Kenan has published a novel and 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. He has been an editor at Alfred A. Knopf and now teaches at
Sarah Lawrence.
- Jill McCorkle. McCorkle, who has published four novels and a
collection of stories, taught here for a number of years and is now
Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in (and director of) Creative Writing at Harvard
University.
- Tim McLaurin published his novel Cured by Fire in
1995. He is also the author of a memoir, Keeper of the Moon, and
two other novels, The Acorn Plan and Woodrow's Trumpet.
- Lawrence Nauoff. Author of five novels, including Rootie
Kazootie and Silk Hope, N.C., Naumoff won a Whiting Award for
Younger Writers in 1990.
- Michael Parker. Assistant Professor of English at
UNC-Greensboro, where he teaches fiction writin gin the graduate M.F.A.
program, Parker won the 1994 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for his second book
of fiction, The Geographical Cure.
- Melanie Sumner. In 1995, Sumner -- a visiting lecturer in
fiction writing at UNC-Chapel Hill for the academic year -- published her
first novel, Polite Society, and won a Whiting Award for Younger
Writers. She has published stories in The New Yorker and
elsewhere.
Other alumni have also published widely. Among the many novelists and
short story writers are Sharlene Baker, Russell Banks, Paula Bates, Rick
Borsten, Angela Davis-Gardner, James Grimsley, John Holman, Lydia Millet,
Ruth Moose, David Payne, Leon Rooke, John Russell, and Garret Weyr.
Well-known poets include William Matthews, Robert Morgan, and David
Rigsbee; William duBuys, Allan Murray, Ruffin Prevost, and Karen Rosen
have done notable work in non-fiction. Mike Craver, John Foley, Rick
Miller, Rebecca Ransom, and Jim Wann have made successful careers in music
or theater, as have Suzanne Bolch, Jeff Leighton, Jebb Stuart, and Melanie
Topp in film and television. Some graduates -- aided by a close
association with the annual Carolina Publishing Institute -- have made
careers in book publishing, including Will Blythe of Esquire, Marie Price
of Algonquin Books, and Alane Salierno Mason of W.W. Norton and Company.
And still others have gone on to become -- among various professions --
lawyers, journalists, and teachers at every level of education.
Some UNC students do continue to study creative writing at the graduate
level, and have received fellowships -- in fiction writing and in poetry
-- to some of the country's best schools, including Stanford, Cornell,
Virginia, Sarah Lawrence, Holins, and NYU.