Apr 27 2019
Sidney Lanier Prize: Fred Chappell

Sidney Lanier Prize: Fred Chappell

at University Center at Mercer University

The prize honors significant career contributions to Southern writing in drama, fiction or poetry. The prize presentation and reading, supported by the Thomas McRae Hamilton Robinson Endowment, will take place April 27 at 1 p.m. in the Presidents Dining Room of the University Center on the Macon campus.

Chappell was born in North Carolina and earned his undergraduate degree from Duke University. He went on to author more than a dozen books of poetry, several novels and critical prose books, and a collection of short stories, drawing inspiration from his childhood and his surroundings.

He has received numerous awards for his work, including the T.S. Eliot Prize, Bollingen Award, Aiken Taylor Award, an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Best Foreign Book Prize from the Academie française. He served as the state of North Carolina’s poet laureate from 1997-2002.

Chappell also taught at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for more than 40 years, where he helped to build and establish the Master of Fine Arts in writing program and received its O. Max Gardner Award for teaching. He mentored several of North Carolina’s most accomplished poets, including Sarah Lindsay, Pulitzer-prize winner Claudia Emerson and Kathryn Stripling Byer, who succeeded him as the state’s poet laureate.

Admission Info

Free admission

Dates & Times

2019/04/27 - 2019/04/27

Location Info

University Center at Mercer University

1501 Mercer University Dr., Macon, GA 31207