A remembrance by NCWN trustee Paul Jones:
Peter Makuck (1940-2023) passed away on June 21, after a brave battle with cancer.
Makuck (or Peter if you prefer) was a force in literature in North Carolina and beyond. His poetry won the Brockman- Campbell Award from the North Carolina Poetry Society and the Charity Randall Citation from International Poetry Forum. Besides producing his own distinguished poetry, short stories, and criticism, he founded Tar River Poetry, a nationally recognized platform for new and established poets.
Important and beloved as an instructor, Peter taught from 1976 to 2006 at East Carolina University, where he eventually served as the first Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and later Professor Emeritus. Following his retirement from East Carolina, he was the 2008 Lee Smith Chair in Creative Writing at North Carolina State University. He was also a visiting writer at Brigham Young University and University of North Carolina at Wilmington, as well as a frequent instructor for the Network, of which he was a proud and long-standing member. We offer our condolences to his wife Phyllis, and will miss him greatly.