Just after 7:30 p.m., the lights fell, the stage lit up and, after introductions, award-winning author Tobias Wolff stood before the audience.
Wolff, UNC's writer-in-residence this year, began with the opening of "Old School," a novel he is working on. The genesis of the novel is based on time he spent at a boarding school as a teenager, Wolff said. The section he read described a writing contest he participated in to meet Robert Frost.
Conveying everything from the headmaster's roses to a writer's power, Wolff was only interrupted by the bursts of laughter that accompanied his hourlong reading.
"To have a writer of Wolff's popularity can really bring the campus together to come hear a writer who most can agree is both artful and entertaining," said Jonathan D'Amore, a graduate student who helped organize the event.
Many members of the audience responded enthusiastically to the reading.
"I thought it was really interesting," said senior Camille Simpson. "As a writer, seeing his process ... took him off the pedestal a little bit, which is a little encouraging."
The event was sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, making use of the Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence Program established by alumni Allen and Musette Morgan of Memphis, Tenn., in 1993. The purpose of the program is to bring famous writers to UNC to educate and meet with students and faculty by teaching courses and giving lectures and readings, organizers said.
The featured speaker at the annual event is selected by the creative writing faculty, D'Amore said. The chosen writer is then invited nine to 10 months before the event and, the faculty hope, accepts the invitation.
Past participants in the program include John Edgar Wideman, Shelby Foote, Annie Dillard, Beth Henley, Richard Ford, Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove, Richard Wilbur and Russell Banks.
