Author of Nyxia
Class of 2010
“One of the most important lessons I took from my time at UNC was when to follow the rules and when to break them. The professor of my very first poetry class—Alan Shapiro—pulled me aside one day and informed me I wasn’t very good at poetry. I was kind of taken aback until he explained that I didn’t know any of the rules. I was like an athletic basketball player who didn’t know how to dribble, or which basket I was supposed to score in. Shapiro wanted to teach me the rules so that I could turn around and break them with creative intention. My time in UNC’s writing program built a necessary and irreplaceable foundation, all learned from proven masters of the craft. Nyxia is just the first novel in a long career for me, and it’s not hard to trace my path back to Greenlaw Hall.”