News Release

Photo: For a photo of Maria Devlin: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/students/devlin_maria.JPG
For a photo of Denise Rickman: http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/students/rickman_denise.jpg

Humor, clarity win two writers full scholarships to UNC

CHAPEL HILL – Denise Rickman of Apex and Maria Devlin of Bronxville, N.Y., have received Thomas Wolfe Scholarships in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Each will receive full financial support for four years at UNC.

Rickman, 18, the daughter of Edward and Diane Rickman, graduated in June from Southeast Raleigh Magnet High School. She writes poetry, short stories and personal essays and is working on an urban fantasy novel.

Last year Rickman won first place for 11th graders in the Raleigh Fine Arts Literary Society Contest for her short story “Across the Universe.” She also won a National Gold Key Award for “Egg Girl,” her short story in “The Best Teen Writing of 2006,” an anthology published by the Scholastic.
 
Devlin, 18, the daughter of John and Donna Devlin, graduated in June from Bronxville High School. She writes fiction and is working on a 600-page novel, “Joyful Noise.”

Devlin was a winner for short stories in the 2007 National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts contest. She has won creative writing awards from Michigan’s Interlochen Arts Camp. Rickman won first place in 2005 and 2006 in the high school division of a  playwrights competition sponsored by Blueberry Pond Theatre Ensemble of Ossining, N.Y.

Marianne Gingher, UNC associate professor of English and co-director of the Thomas Wolfe Scholarship program, said Rickman’s writing is distinctive for its sass and verve, cleverness and wit. Devlin impressed the scholarship committee with her precocious strategy and ambition regarding a longer fiction work, Gingher said.

“Denise Rickman may be our first bonafide humorist!” Gingher said. “Every sentence has sparkle and sometimes a provocative edginess that our committee really liked. And we admired both the clarity and pace of Maria Devlin’s novel-in-progress, its challenging themes. Maria’s empathy toward her characters brought them stunningly alive.”

Frank Borden Hanes Sr. of Winston-Salem – a novelist, poet and retired journalist who graduated from UNC in 1942 – contributed $2 million in 2001 to establish the scholarship in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. The award honors UNC alumnus Thomas Wolfe, who wrote “Look Homeward, Angel” and other novels.

One award has been given annually since 2002. This year, two awards were possible because of growth of the scholarship endowment fund and new state legislative provisions, which allow out-of-state scholarship recipients to pay in-state tuition.

News release on Hanes’ gift: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jul01/hanes071001.htm

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Spurr, (919) 962-4093, spurrk@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589