UNC English department hosts bestselling author for series of events

From March 17 to March 20, the UNC English and comparative literature department hosted a series of creative writing events with Dartmouth College professor and bestselling author Alexander Chee as part of the Frank. B. Hanes Writer-in-Residence program.

The Rhode Island native is of Korean and American heritage and has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A from the University of Iowa. His past work includes novels like “Edinburgh” published in 2001 and “The Queen of the Night” in 2016, along with his acclaimed nonfiction essays published for the New York Times and “The Paris Review” amongst many other publications.

Attended by students, faculty and those simply interested in the art of storytelling, the yearly program invited prominent writers to campus to engage them with the writing community through “readings, talks and symposia” according to the UNC English and comparative literature department.

The week included a creative writing session on March 18 and two panels: “Usernames: Public and Private Lives in the Age of Social Media” and “Imitations of Life,” with professors from the English and comparative literature department. 

Gabriel Bump, an associate creative writing professor at UNC and a friend of Chee's was one of the panelists for the “Imitations of Life” panel. He said that the writers-in-residence event was important for UNC.

“Not only is it a kind of a serious literary event, I think it's a celebration of [the] writing community, like [there are] good things that come from just having a bunch of writers and people interested in writing in a room together," Bump said.

The main event was Chee’s public reading in the Moeser Auditorium. After introductions from the Department Chair Marsha Collins and associate professor Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Chee read excerpts from his upcoming novel “Other People’s Husbands.” 

Expected to publish in 2026, the fictional story is a comedic telling of a queer writer teaching at his alma mater, who encounters someone from a past relationship. It is “a history [the main character] ran away from and has deliberately decided to confront,” according to Chee.

It originally started as a television script in 2008, but he decided it fits best as a fiction novel. 

As a writer, Chee explained that working on his other novels like “The Queen of the Night” and the busyness of life kept him from continuing the book for 15 years.

“I opened it up, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is hilarious,’” he said. “So I just tried writing a little more of it and soon it was very alive for me."

Sophie Harper, a junior English and comparative literature major at UNC who attended Tuesday’s reading, described the atmosphere as palpable and said she loved Chee’s diction as well as the connection the excerpt has to cultural identity. 

“It was really nice to see somebody who referenced the confusion of growing up and not seeing anybody else quite like them on either side of their family or just in any spaces, but that people like that can still blossom and grow into themselves and become confident and sure," Harper said.  "It gives me hope."

Junior English major Alex Gast also attended and expressed how compelling Chee’s reading was for LGBTQ+ literature.

“He definitely inspires me a lot as a queer writer, and I liked the register in which he handled dialogue versus the internal stuff. He's just a really smart guy, really funny," Gast said. 

Chee advises young writers to hone their craft despite uncertainty. 

“Try to write stories that you feel you urgently have to tell,” he said. “And do so with the sense that somewhere out there, someone else is hoping to find it. That what you want, wants you back," Chee said. 

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