17 Wilmington authors for your reading list

Nina De Gramont -- A UNCW faculty member (and a descendant of French nobility), de Gramont is the author of two adult novels, "Gossip of the Starlings" and "The Last September," and the young-adult novels "Every Little Thing in the World," "Meet Me at the River" and "The Boy I Love." Under the pen name "Christine Woodard," she wrote "Rogue Touch," a novelization about the Marvel superhero Rogue. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Wiley Cash -- A Gastonia native, Cash met his future wife at a Port City pub, and lives in the area when he's not writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina Asheville. His three novels are "A Land More Kind Than Home," "This Dark Road to Mercy" and "The Last Ballad," about the 1929 Gastonia mill strike. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Jim Dodson -- A veteran golf writer and an editor for Salt Magazine, Dodson is the author of "Final Rounds," "The Range Bucket List," "Ben Hogan: An American Life" and "American Triumvirate: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and the Modern Age of Golf." [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Susan Bishop Crispell -- Another UNCW graduate, Crispell has published two novels, "The Secret Ingredient of Wishes" and "Dreaming in Chocolate," mixing romance and magical realist elements. A self-described fangirl and bookworm, she confesses to a sweet tooth for baked goods and keeps a husband and a cat. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Wendy Brenner -- A winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award, Brenner's books include "Phone Calls from the Dead" and "Large Animals in Everyday Life." She writes frequently for The Oxford American, which published her profile of the former Wilmington Serpentarium. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Clyde Edgerton -- The Pappadaddy of the local literary clan. Edgerton came to UNCW as a "visiting" faculty member and never left; he is now a Thomas S. Kenan III Distinguished Professor in creative writing. His shelf of novels includes "Raney," "Walking Across Egyot," "The Bible Salesman," "Lunch at the Piccadilly" and "Night Train." He also wrote "Solo," a memoir of flying (including his Air Force service in Vietnam" and "Pappadaddy's Book for New Fathers," an advice volume. He played keyboard with Rhiannon Giddens at Thalian Hall, and he collects typewriters. [STARNEWS FILE PHOTO]

Writers Clyde Edgerton (from left), Dana Sachs, Emily Colin, Wiley Cash and John Jeremiah Sullivan at Writers' Night, presented by Friends School of Wilmington at Bougie Nights in Wilmington on Nov. 16, 2017. The local writing community has a diverse and dynamic set of leaders. [STARNEWS FILE PHOTO]

Taylor Brown -- A native of the Georgia coast and an Eagle Scout, Brown settled in the Cape Fear area after stints in Buenos Aires, San Francisco and the North Carolina mountains. His work includes the Civil War novel "Fallen Land," "River of Kings" and "Gods of Howl Mountain," about moonshining in the 1950s. His next book, "Pride of Eden," is due out in March from St. Martin's Press. [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Emily Colin -- Her two novels, "The Memory Thief" (about a woman haunted by her late husband) and "The Dream Keeper's Daughter" (about time travel) often mix romance in fantasy. A longtime intern and editor with various presses, Colin was a violinist on the streets of Brooklyn in her younger days, hauled fish at a dolphin research center in Florida and organized a tattoo and piercing show on Coney Island. [STARNEWS FILE PHOTO]

Fracaswell Hyman -- An actor and Emmy-nominated TV producer and writer ("The Famous Jett Jackson," "Little Bill"), Hyman moved to Wilmington to be near his mother and wrote the young adult novel "Mango Delight," inspired in part by his daughter. He won a Wilmington Theater Award for his role in Lanford Wilson's "Fences" and will be emcee of the awards show in 2020. [MATTBORN/STARNEWS]

Philip Gerard -- His 1994 novel "Cape Fear Rising," helped spark renewed debate on the 1898 Wilmington riot/coup. Other books include "The Last Battleground," about the Civil War in North Carolina, "Down the Wild Cape Fear," a first-person account of boating on the Cape Fear River and "Secret Soldiers" about camouflage and deception in World War II. Gerard often plays bluegrass with Clyde Edgerton. [COURTESY ALAN CRADICK]

Rebecca Lee --The daughter of a chemistry professor, Lee attended St. Olaf College and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has published one acclaimed novel, "The City is a Rising Tide," and a short story collection, "Bobcat." Her work has appeared in Zoetrope and The Atlantic Monthly. [COURTESY OF UNCW]

David Gessner -- At Harvard, he played Ultimate (formerly known as Ultimate Frisbee) and wrote the memoir "Ultimate Glory" about the experience. Gessner chairs the creative writing department at UNCW, and conveniently, he's written two books about the seahawk, a.k.a. osprey. His volumes of nature writing include "Sick of Nature" and "All the Wild That Remains." [CONTRIBUTED PHOTO]

Tom Morris -- A former Notre Dame professor, motivational speaker and "public philosopher," Morris wrote the New York Times best sellers "If Aristotle Ran General Motors" and "If Harry Potter Ran General Electric," as well as "Philosophy for Dummies." He's also written a series of adventure novels opening with "The Oasis Within." [STARNEWS FILE PHOTO]

John Jeremiah Sullivan -- The author of "Blood Horses" and "Pulphead," Sullivan is Southern editor of The Paris Review and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. He has been involved in a project to recover copies of The Wilmington Record, the black-owned newspaper burned by white vigilantes in 1898, and he has been collaborating with singer Rhiannon Giddens. [STARNEWS FILE PHOTO]

Dana Sachs -- Sachs studied and taught in postwar Vietnam, and her experiences are reflected in her memoir "The House on Dream Street," her novel "If You Lived Here" and the history "The Life We Were Given." She has also collected a volume of Vietnamese fairy tales and written the novel "The Secret of the Nightingale Palace." [COURTESY DANASACHS.COM AND CORNEL FADDOUL]