WRITING HER STORY
ECU author receives Lifetime Achievement for Research & Creative Activity Award
On a Tuesday afternoon in a darkened conference room in East Carolina University’s Mamie Jenkins Building, nearly a dozen students gather for author Liza Wieland’s creative writing workshop.
One of the developing writers shares her poem of friendship and unrequited love, an experience many of her peers have suffered through at one time or another. They unburden their hurt of past passions gone unrecognized, a kindredness that can only be found between those willing to bare their emotions through printed words and stanzas.
The emotion in the room is palpable, but neither Wieland, her students or the author is satisfied with the poem just simply being good – they want it to be great.
“What can you say here to wake us up,” Wieland said. “What can you say to jar us?”
Wieland’s push toward more than the ordinary is one of the reasons the author of nine books, including a book of poetry and three short story collections, was named the recipient of ECU’s Lifetime Achievement for Research & Creative Activity Award.
The Distinguished Professor of English in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences said she knew she wanted to be a writer since the second grade. Interesting genetics, a lot of reading, good teachers, and parents that indulged her allowed her to pursue that dream.
“When I was about 15, maybe younger, (my dad) said, ‘Liza, I’ll buy you any book you want,’” Wieland said. “And boy did I take him up on it. Every time I wanted a book, he bought it. I’ll never forget that because he really seemed to understand what reading meant to me.”
Recent success
Her latest novel, “Paris 7 A.M.,” focuses on a three-week stretch during the life of poet Elizabeth Bishop in Paris. Released in 2019 by New York publisher Simon & Schuster, the novel received critical praise from outlets including Oprah’s O Magazine and the BBC.
“I was glad to have a sense that the world had seen me,” Wieland said. “I’ve published with university presses for a long time and they’ve done wonderful work with my books. But, the advertising budget at a university press is tiny. What (Simon & Schuster did) in terms of getting the book out to the world was new and exciting.”
Whether it’s filling in the missing weeks of a poet’s life or providing a unique look at notorious figures – like the infamous Unabomber in her novel “Bombshell” – the Chicago native isn’t afraid to bring what she sees in the world to the page.
“For me, a lot of my ideas come from the news or from history,” Wieland said. “I’m drawn to the news and facts and understanding them through fiction.
“I remember being in an argument with one of my high school history teachers. I said to him, not so nicely, ‘I think literature is better at getting at people’s lives than history is,’” she said. “He wasn’t thrilled with that idea, but I do really feel that something about fiction … the imagination … can lead to a different kind of understanding of how people work in the world.”
While her latest works have included full length novels, she isn’t partial to one writing form over another. Eastern North Carolina’s wild weather has even been known to inspire Wieland.
“In 2005 we were trying to put our house back together after Hurricane Isabel and it was noisy,” Wieland said. “There was construction going on. The space was small. But it brought me back to poetry and I wrote my only volume of poetry during that time. They really soothed me.
“The intensity of the language and concentration of the form was especially appealing then,” she said. “It all depends on what is going on in the world around me.”
Feeling welcomed
With the ink dried on nearly 13 years of her career at ECU, Wieland said that receiving the lifetime achievement award was a special gift to the university’s creative community.
“It makes us artist types feel welcomed and appreciated,” she said. “All kinds of research gets done here and is done well; it’s nice to see the variety of what faculty do. There are very talented people here.”
Despite the critiquing, editing and constant reshaping of their work, that welcoming feeling is something she hopes to pass along to her students.
“I hope they take away empathy,” Wieland said. “I hope they leave with some sense that other people’s stories matter and their voices need to be listened to … and cared for. (Students today) seem to be able to take their personal feelings, that self-involvement, and give it to others in ways I’m amazed by.”
Wieland is the winner of the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a two-time Pushcart Prize winner, and an ECU Woman of Distinction. You can read more about her work on her personal website.