The umbrella is planted in the sand. The sound of the waves has returned. The summer has arrived. All that remains to select is a book to read. The UNCW Department of Creative Writing has you covered, with more than 200 books and chapbooks produced by students and alumni.
Last fall, Jason Mott '06, '08 MFA took home the National Book Award in the category of fiction for his newest novel, Hell of a Book. Already in 2022, Seahawks have had nine books or chapbooks published with five more forthcoming this year:
Peter C. Baker '14, MFA
Planes
“An urgent, fiercely intelligent debut novel about two couples, an ocean apart — one wounded by a war crime, the other just starting to reckon with being implicated in it.”
Nina de Gramont '06, MFA
The Christie Affair
“Why would the world's most famous mystery writer disappear for eleven days? What makes a woman desperate enough to destroy another woman's marriage? How deeply can a person crave revenge?”
A Reese’s Book Club pick
Rochelle Hurt '11, MFA
J Girls TV: A Reality Show
“Jocelyn, Jodie, Jennifer, Jacqui, Joelle. Ignoring the optimistic advice of elders, these five working-class teens in the Rust Belt band together in their embrace of bad behavior and poor taste as they navigate sexuality and identity with loud-mouthed joy and clear-eyed cynicism.”
Indiana Review 2021 Blue Light Books Prize Winner
Graham Irvin '18, MFA
Liver Mush
“A collection of stories and poems based on the conflict of bad sounding things being good. Good seeming things being bad. Most things being unidentifiable.”
Martha Lundin '17, MFA
The In-Between State
“The essays are a compassionate analysis of bodies: queer bodies, bodies of water, bodies that are hated and bodies that deserve love.”
Amelia Morris '09, MFA
Wildcat
“An uproariously funny, surprisingly touching story of one woman’s journey through motherhood and female friendship, in a society that plays fast and loose with information.”
Miriam Parker '08, MFA
Room and Board
“A charming and redemptive novel about unexpected second chances, following a publicist who, after the sudden implosion of her career, takes a job as a dorm mom at a Sonoma boarding school that happens to be her alma mater.”
Hannah Bunn West '09, BFA
Remarkable Women of the Outer Banks
“The Outer Banks of North Carolina attract those with a conviction to dream and do. Explorers, pirates, lifesavers and the world's first pilots decorate the halls of local history. Some of the Outer Banks' greatest accomplishments are due to daring women who pushed the odds.”
Emily Paige Wilson '16, MFA
Jalubi
“In this book a keen ear for sound and a powerful love of language combine to create intelligent, lyrical poems that live vibrantly in the borders between nationalities and relationships where understanding truly happens. The result is a lively, rich and deeply felt debut of arrivals and departures that honor Wilson’s family and heritage, as well as language itself.”
Forthcoming
Emma Bolden '05, MFA
The Tiger and the Cage – October 18, 2022
“For readers of Susannah Cahalan’s Brain on Fire and Porochista Khakpour’s Sick, this exquisitely wrought debut memoir recounts a lifelong struggle with chronic pain and endometriosis, while speaking more broadly to anyone who’s been told ‘it’s all in your head.’”
Jason Bradford '16, MFA
Stellaphasia
The final poetry collection of Bradford, who passed away in early 2016 at the age of 27. A talented poet, Bradford suffered from muscular dystrophy, an experience that shaped his perspective on life, nature, and opportunities.
Kate Cumiskey '06, MFA
Ana
“The story of a widow living in a small town on the east coast of Florida. It is a story of deceptions: Ana's, as she has a dark secret, which is alarmingly easy to keep due to the social invisibility her widowhood engenders, and the layer of deceptions we all experience in relationships.”
Surfers' Rules: The Mike Martin Story
“Written with Mike Martin, creator of the Association of Surfing Professionals and head judge on the world tour for thirty years.”
Eric Tran '13, MFA
Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke – June 10, 2022
“This collection of poems grieves a lover lost to addiction and also swims in the intoxication of desire. While the poems portray a yearning for intimacy, they create spaces to experience the duality of pleasure and mourning.”
Diode Editions Full-Length Book Contest Winner