North Carolina Writers’ Network trustee Margaret D. Bauer has been awarded a North Carolina Award for Literature. She and the other 2017 winners will be honored in a ceremony in Raleigh on November 9.
Established by the General Assembly in 1961, the North Carolina Award is the highest civilian honor given by the state. Presented annually since 1964, the award recognizes significant contributions to the state and nation in the fields of fine art, literature, public service, and science. Though given by the governor, the award is administered by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Margaret D. Bauer is the editor of the North Carolina Literay Review and has published twenty annual print issues under her tenure. Author of four books of literary criticism, including A Study of Scarletts: Scarlett O’Hara and Her Literary Daughters (University of South Carolina Press, 2014), she is now turning her hand to creative writing and has creative nonfiction in storySouth and forthcoming in New Madrid and a poem forthcoming in Broad River Review. She is Rives Chair of Southern Literature and Harriot College Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University.
Dr. Bauer was named one of the ten ECU Women of Distinction in 2007, and that same year received the Parnassus Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Her other ECU honors include the Scholar-Teacher Award in 2004, the Five-Year Achievement Award for Excellence in Research and Creativity Activity in 2008, the Centennial Award for Excellence in Leadership in 2012, and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity in 2014. She is also a past President of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association.
Since its inception, more than 250 notable men and women have been honored by the state of North Carolina. Past recipients include William Friday, Romare Bearden, James Taylor, Gertrude Elion, John Hope Franklin, David Brinkley, Maya Angelou, Billy Graham, and Branford Marsalis.
Recent honorees in Literature include Anthony S. Abbott, Dr. Lenard D. Moore, and Gary Carden.
Other 2017 winners include Philip G. Freelon for Fine Arts; R.K.M. Jayanty for Science; The Honorable Loretta E. Lynch for Public Service; Jane Smith Patterson for Public Service; and James H. Woodward for Public Service.
For more information about the NC Awards, click here.