Kenan Visiting Writer
2020, MFA Creative Writing, University of Arizona
2017, BA Psychology and English, University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
Bio
Maddie Norris is the author of The Wet Wound: An Elegy in Essays (UGA Press, 2024), an essay collection that uses a medical lens to examine the grief that took over her after her father died of cancer when she was seventeen. These linked essays examine grief from different angles, resulting in a multi-layered exploration on why, contrary to popular belief, keeping wounds open is the best way to care for them physically and emotionally. She earned her MFA at the University of Arizona and, before that, was the Thomas Wolfe Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her essays have won the Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction from Ninth Letter and been named Notable in Best American Essays 2020 and 2022.
To read more, visit my websitePublications:
The Wet Wound: An elegy in essays, UGA Press, 2024
“Oxygen,” Guernica, 2022
“Hyperbaric, or How to Keep a Wound Alive,” It’s Lit with PhDJ, 2022
“On the Love of Hills,” Fourth Genre, 2o21
“Still Hearts,” Ninth Letter, 2020
Awards
Notable Essay for “On the Love of Hills,” Best American Essays, 2022
Residency, Monson Arts Center, 2021
Notable Essay for “Still Hearts,” Best American Essays, 2020
Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction, Ninth Letter, 2019
Bland Simpson Nonfiction Prize, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017
Thomas Wolfe Scholar, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013–2017