Maddie Norris is the Kenan Visiting Writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her MFA at the University of Arizona and, before that, was the Thomas Wolfe Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her essays have won the Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction from Ninth Letter and been named Notable in Best American Essays 2020 and 2022. Her debut essay collection, The Wet Wound: An Elegy in Essays (UGA Press, Spring 2024) uses a medical lens to examine the grief that took over her after her father died of cancer when she was seventeen. These linked essays examine grief from different angles, resulting in a multi-layered exploration on why, contrary to popular belief, keeping wounds open is the best way to care for them physically and emotionally.
Maddie Norris 