Charles Wright, one of the crown jewels in UVA’s presitigious creative writing department, will retire in May. Wright won both the Pulitzer Prize (for Black Zodiac in 1997) and the National Book Award (for Country Music in 1983) and has taught at the university since 1983.
Wright gave what professor and poet Lisa Russ Spaar called a "valedictory reading" at the Dome Room in the Rotunda on Monday, which quickly filled to capacity. Meridian advisor Jeb Livingood says that Wright read a selection of works that spanned his career. “We didn’t really present it as a retirement reading, because it really wasn’t that,” Livingood says. “They locked the doors at 8. I hope that not too many people got locked out. Maybe we should have had tickets.”
