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Featured Speaker: Alex Albright, Author and Retired Professor of Creative Writing at East Carolina University
About the Author: About the Author — Alex Albright grew up in Graham, N.C. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism and English at UNC-Chapel Hill and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Fiction Writing from UNC-Greensboro.During his prolific career, he served on the faculty of East Carolina University for 37 years, where for much of that time, he directed the English Department’s Creative Writing Program. Albright also taught creative writing in three prisons, refereed high school football and basketball in three states, and worked for more than 20 years as a licensed barbecue judge in North Carolina. “Don’t let anyone tell you ‘it’s in the sauce,’” he shares.
The author of “The Forgotten First: B-1 and the Integration of the Modern Navy,” which was a finalist for the 2013 Montaigne Award, he also is the editor of five collections of poetry (including “Leaves of Greens: The Collard Poems”), and the book, “61 Citizens Terrorized by Ku-Klux In & Near Alamance County, 1868-1870.” His current research on Langston Hughes in Nevada and California is being used to organize an exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, scheduled to open in 2025.
He founded the “North Carolina Literary Review” in 1991, which has been lauded with regional and national awards, repeatedly, for its content and design. In his honor, the “North Carolina Literary Review” awards the Alex Albright Prize in Creative Nonfiction annually. Among Albright’s award recognitions are the 1998 R. Hunt Parker Award for Lifetime Contributions to North Carolina Literature, the 2004 Bertie Fearing Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2007 Roberts Award for literary inspiration, the 2016 Stuart Thayer Prize for best article of the year on circus history, and the 2021 John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities.Albright and his wife, Elizabeth, received the Brown-Hudson Folklore Award in 2012.
Albright and his wife currently make their home in Fountain, where they operate the Fountain General Store, recognized as an occasional music venue, bookstore, general store, and internet café. They also operate the R.A. Fountain, a small press that has produced six books and a CD, to date. They have a grown son, Silas, who serves as sports editor for the Courier-Times newspaper in Roxboro.
The Victor R. Small Writers Series is sponsored by the Barton College School of Arts and Humanities’ Department of English and Modern Languages. For additional information, please contact Michael Brantley, Assistant Professor of English, at [email protected] or 252-399-6370.
For additional information, contact Michael Brantley, Assistant Professor of English, at [email protected] or 252-399-6370.
