Author of If We Were Villains
Class of 2014
“My time at UNC was invaluable to my growth as a student and an artist. Between the creative writing and English departments, I had the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of literary genres and literary minds and became a much more critical reader and writer in the process. A class on vertigo in post-war American literature introduced me to some of my favorite writers (and a few of my least). A stylistics class challenged me to write in a dozen new voices, including those of children, inanimate objects, a school of fish, and even a stillborn infant speaking from beyond the grave. A playwriting class inspired the first draft of a scene which would eventually make its way into the pages of my first published novel. My senior honors thesis on Shakespeare’s Henry VI plays spurred me to pursue an MA in Shakespeare Studies at King’s College London. Now, as a PhD student at the University of Maryland and a novelist published by Flatiron Books, I’m so grateful for the literary foundation UNC has given me and the many friends I made in my time there.”