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2021
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Established in 1999, the Thomas Wolfe Prize “recognizes contemporary writers with distinguished bodies of work. And in doing so, the program seeks to give University students and the surrounding community the opportunity to hear important writers of their time.” Due to the restrictions to gathering safely during the pandemic, the “surrounding community” for the 2020 award lecture extended far beyond the Chapel Hill area. On October 6, from his home in Texas, North Carolina native and author of eleven books Michael Parker accepted the award and entertained his listeners on Zoom. Parker graduated with honors in Creative Writing from UNC Chapel Hill in 1984, then earned an MFA at the University of Virginia in 1988. He joined the faculty at UNC Greensboro, eventually serving as the Dr. Nicholas A. Vacc and Dr. Nancy N. Vacc Distinguished Professor of English. He retired in 2019 after almost thirty years. His previous honors include three O. Henry Awards for short fiction, the 1994 Sir Walter Raleigh Award, the 2006 North Carolina Award for Literature, and the 2010 R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award for significant contributions to North Carolina Literature. Introducing Parker, Elizabeth J. Gualtieri-Reed, Chair of English and Comparative Literature at UNC, described his work as “the kind of startling fiction that * Quotations are from the “History of the Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lecture,” UNC English & Comparative Literature, web; Parker’s eleventh book is due out in 2021. Read more about the event in Kelly Kendall, “‘Carolina is in my blood’: UNC Alumnus Awarded 2020 Thomas Wolfe Prize,” Daily Tar Heel 7 Oct. 2020: web.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TERRY KENNEDY
MICHAEL PARKER AWARDED 2020 THOMAS WOLFE PRIZE
wakes us up to life – our own lives, as well as the lives of his deeply human characters. Their troubles, their failures, their hopes, desires, missteps, and redemptions are our own.” Parker’s former UNC professor Marianne Gingher noted that although his work has been compared to writers like William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, “his own bluesy, North Carolinainflected voice sing[s]” through. Read an interview with him, conducted by one of his former students, in NCLR 2005. n ABOVE Michael Parker visiting with Editor Margaret Bauer
at the NCLR exhibit table during the 2019 Festival of Books and Authors, Winston-Salem, NC, 7 Sept. 2019
Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize $1000 for winner and finalists selected for publication (at least $250 for the prize-winning essay)
SUBMISSION PERIOD: JANUARY 15–MARCH 1
2021 Final Judge: Michael Parker Submission guidelines here No submission fee / Subscription required to submit