Stephanie Powell Watts is an American author. She won a Whiting Award in 2013 and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in 2012 for her book ''We are Taking Only what We Need'' a collection of 11 stories which chronicles the lives of African-Americans in North Carolina. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

. Watts' debut novel, ''No One Is Coming to Save Us'', was published by

Ecco Ecco or ECCO may refer to: Art and entertainment * ''Ecco the Dolphin'' (series), a series of action-adventure science fiction video games ** ''Ecco the Dolphin'', a 1992 video game * Ecco (''Gotham''), a TV series character Organizations ...

in 2017. The story follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Watts describes it, “Imagine ''

The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts First-person narrative, first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious mil ...

'' set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.”

Life

Watts was born and raised in

Lenoir Lenoir may refer to: Locations: * Lenoir, North Carolina, United States * Lenoir County, North Carolina, United States * Lenoir City, Tennessee In Universities: * Lenoir-Rhyne University * Lenoir Dining Hall, a dining hall at the University of N ...

, in the foothills of North Carolina. She received her BA from the

University of North Carolina at Charlotte The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs through nine colle ...

and her PhD from the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

. She now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor of English at

Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...

Works

*''We are Taking Only what We Need'' BkMk Press, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2011, *''No One Is Coming to Save Us'', Ecco, 2017, 978-0062472984

References

External links

*http://stephaniepowellwatts.com/ *http://www.newletters.org/UserFiles/File/BkMk%20Author%20Interviews/Watts%20Interview.pdf *http://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/an-interview-with-stephanie-powell-watts/ *http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2012/12/10/powell-watts/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Watts, Stephanie Powell Year of birth missing (living people) Living people African-American women writers Lehigh University faculty People from Lenoir, North Carolina University of Missouri alumni University of North Carolina at Charlotte alumni American women academics 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women