{"id":20139,"date":"2017-06-19T14:25:58","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T18:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=20139"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:36:20","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:36:20","slug":"wolfe-scholar-gee-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=20139","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Gee awarded Thomas Wolfe Scholarship in creative writing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Sam Gee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Incoming first-year student Samuel Gee of Easley, S.C., has been awarded a 2017 Thomas Wolfe Scholarship, a full, four-year merit scholarship in creative writing in the College of Arts & Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

Gee graduated from the South Carolina Governor\u2019s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, S.C., in June. He attended two summers of his school\u2019s Discovery and Academy writing programs and participated in the Adroit Journal<\/em>\u2019s mentorship program in poetry. He has won a gold medal and honorable mention in poetry from the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition and has had work published in Teenage Wasteland Review.<\/em><\/p>\n

He counts Flannery O\u2019Connor, David Foster Wallace and Ray Bradbury among his favorite authors and writes that \u201cI\u2019ll probably need glasses before I turn thirty. There\u2019s a waist-high stack of books on my floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to writing, he enjoys hobbies that include chess, Ultimate Frisbee and Appalachian music. He has traveled to New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, London, and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

In a one-sentence biography in his application, Gee wrote: \u201cI used to go three days without sleeping, days when I\u2019d get off work at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday and read until 3, write until 6, make breakfast for my mother, drive my sister to school, and do it all again out of sheer unashamed love.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked, what sort of writing do you most enjoy, Gee writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy writing that has its own swagger, writing that forces the language into a dark alley and shakes its pockets empty, writing that makes me feel smaller in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creative writing professor Marianne Gingher, co-director of the Thomas Wolfe Scholarship program, said the committee was charmed by \u201cthe intelligence, liveliness and humor of Gee\u2019s prose.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a talented practitioner of the personal essay, he manages to be both funny and honest, with a keen eye for detail and a keen ear for dialogue,\u201d Gingher said. \u201cIt was apparent to all\u00a0of us who read his work, that Sam Gee is a young writer of impressive gifts who has lived a carefully examined life, but doesn’t take that life too seriously. He’s a writer who makes you laugh and think at the same time \u2014how rare is that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The scholarship program was established in 2001 with a gift to the College from alumnus Frank Borden Hanes Sr. of Winston-Salem. It honors Carolina graduate Thomas Wolfe, best known for his 1929 novel, Look Homeward, Angel.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incoming first-year student Samuel Gee of Easley, S.C., has been awarded a 2017 Thomas Wolfe Scholarship, a full, four-year merit scholarship in creative writing in the College of Arts & Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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