Fred Chappell with Friends of the UNCG Libraries Co-Chairperson John May
Fred Chappell was born in Canton,
in the mountains of western North Carolina. He took undergraduate and graduate
degrees at Duke University and for many years has taught in the MFA Writing
Program at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he is the
Burlington Industries Excellence Professor of English. Author of a dozen books
of verse, two volumes of stories, one of criticism, and eight novels, he has
been awarded the Sir Walter Raleigh Prize, the Best Foreign Book Prize from the
Academie Francaise, the North Carolina Medal in Literature, and an Award in
Literature from the National Academy of Arts and Letters. For his poetry he has
been awarded the Bollingen Prize and the Aiken Taylor Prize. He is currently
North Carolina Poet Laureate. His work has been translated into many languages,
including Finnish, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, and Farsi. He and his wife Susan live
in Greensboro. Their one son, Heath, lives in Chicago, where he plays jazz
drums.
Excerpt from Letter of Support for Jackson Library's Application for the Designation of Literary Landmark
The Walter Clinton Jackson Library is much more than a repository. It is one of
the active forces which has helped The University of North Carolina at
Greensboro receive much well-deserved acclaim as one of the strong southern and
national literary centers…
Perhaps a single example might suggest the power it has wielded
over authorial imaginations. When the renowned novelist Doris Betts was an
undergraduate at UNCG she used to hide in the stacks, remaining there after the
library closed. Then she would spend the night writing stories, surrounded on
all sides by her literary forebears and heroes. That is the kind of spirit
Jackson Library fosters....
- Fred Chappell