Poet, fiction writer, essayist, and educator Fred Chappell was reared on his grandparents’ farm in Canton, North Carolina. He began writing poems when he was fifteen. While attending Duke University (receiving his AB in 1961 and his MA in 1964), he became friends with southern writers Reynolds Price, Anne Tyler, and James Applewhite. Chappell taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro from 1964 until 2004 and was poet laureate of North Carolina from 1997 until 2002. Although claimed by the southern literary canon, Chappell considers himself an Appalachian author, believing that Appalachian literature is distinct from its southern cousin....
