news-record.com

GREENSBORO — Former N.C. Poet Laureate and UNCG professor Fred Chappell was chosen to receive the 2010 John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities, the state’s highest honor in that field.

The N.C. Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, is scheduled to host the award ceremony at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 at the UNCG School of Music Recital Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Chappell, a native of Canton, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Duke. He taught for 40 years at UNCG, where he helped establish the MFA program in creative writing. In 1999, UNCG established the Fred Chappell Creative Writing Fellowship.

Chappell has written more than two dozen books of poetry, fiction and criticism, including his latest books, “Shadow Box,” a collection of poetry; and “Ancestors and Others,” a volume of new and previously published short stories.

He was the state poet laureate from 1997-2002 and an N.C. Literary Hall of Fame inductee in 2006.

The Caldwell Award recognizes people who have strengthened the educational, cultural and civic lives of North Carolinians throughout their lives and careers.

The award is named for the late John Tyler Caldwell, former N.C. State chancellor.