News Release

Local angles: Fayetteville,

Ark. Baton Rouge, La.

Photo: To download a photo, see end of story.

Fiction writer, poet Pizzolatto
to be visiting writer in 2005-06

By KIM SPURR
UNC College of Arts and Sciences

CHAPEL HILL — Fiction writer and poet Nic Pizzolatto will be the 2005-2006 Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill beginning this fall.

During his residency in the English department, Pizzolatto will give a public reading and teach classes. The Kenan writer position is funded by the Spray Foundation of Atlanta and UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Pizzolatto graduated in May with a master of fine arts from the University of Arkansas. In 2004, his work was among the finalists for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.

He also has received a Lily Peter Fellowship for poetry and the 2003-2004 Walton Fellowship for fiction, both given by the University of Arkansas to support local writers. His collection of stories, "Haunted Earth," will be published in 2006 by Macadam/Cage of Denver to be followed by a novel he is writing.

"We chose Nic Pizzolatto from a large national pool of very talented writers – an exceptional competition," said Bland Simpson, associate professor of English and director of the creative writing program at UNC. "One need only read his story ‘Between Here and the Yellow Sea,’ published in the Atlantic Monthly last November, to experience his prodigious talent as a truly confident storyteller. One of the search committee members described Pizzolatto’s writing as ‘smart and accessible and difficult to put down.’ We’re extremely pleased that he will join us during 2005-2006 as the sixth Kenan Visiting Writer."

Pizzolatto grew up on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and earned a bachelor of arts in English and philosophy from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He spent most of his time after college as a bartender and technical writer in Austin, Texas.

After Pizzolatto’s first year in the master’s degree program at Arkansas, the first two stories he had submitted for publication were purchased by the Atlantic Monthly.

In the last two years, his stories also have appeared in the literary publications Shenandoah, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Stories from the Blue Moon Café and Quarterly West.

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Note: Pizzolatto can be reached at nicpiz@email.unc.edu

Photo URL: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/visiting/pizzolatto.jpg

College of Arts and Sciences contacts: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093; Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339