A native of Asheville, North Carolina, and resident of Durham, Michael McFee is the Doris Betts Term Professor of English and Comparative Literature of UNC-Chapel Hill, where he teaches in the Creative Writing Program. He is the author or editor of sixteen previous books, most recently. We Were Once Here: Poems and Appointed Rounds: Essays. In 2018, he received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state's highest civilian honor.