David Wright (born 1964) is an American writer who grew up in Borger, Texas. He holds a B.A. from Carleton College, and an M.F.A. from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Before he started teaching creative writing, he was a player/coach on various American football teams in Paris and London. He teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Away Running, a novel (Orca Book Publishers, 2016). www.awayrunning.com
Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers (Charles Scribner's Sons|Scribner, 2001; Oxford University Press paper, 2002). www.fireonbeach.com
Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers (2010). www.rescuemenfilm.com
The Village Voice
Callaloo
Gastronomica
Paste Magazine
African American Review
The CLA Journal
The Journal of Negro History
Naval History
North Dakota Quarterly
Reflections in Ink
Painted Bride Quarterly
Shenandoah
Sixty-four
The Southern Review
Virginia English Bulletin
"The Pea Island Story," co-written and co-produced with Stephanie Frederic and David Zoby. Aired on BET Tonight, Feb. 1999.
2011: J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholar, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.
2009: North Carolina Humanities Council, Large Grant, for production of Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers.
2005: Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters.
2004: Tennessee Williams Scholar, Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
2000: National Association of Black Journalists, Salute to Excellence Award, First Prize for a Television Feature News-Story, "The Pea Island Story".
1999 National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute for College and University Faculty Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University, "The Civil Rights Movement: History and Consequences".
1997-1998: Chancellor’s Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship, Afro-American Studies and Research Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
1994: Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award, the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, Fairfax, VA.
1993: Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship, Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies, Mystic, CT.
