Michael McFee

Michael McFee has published fourteen books, most recently a collection of poetry, That Was Oasis (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2012), a chapbook of one-line poems, The Smallest Talk (Bull City Press, 2007), and a collection of prose, The Napkin Manuscripts: Selected Essays and an Interview (University of Tennessee Press, 2006). New poems and essays have appeared or are due soon in Southern Review, Shenandoah, Tar River Poetry, Hudson Review, Southern Cultures, and Edible Piedmont. He has taught in the Creative Writing Program UNC-Chapel Hill for several decades.

Ten Things I Can’t Do Without

1. My family — my wonderful wife, and my delightful son and daughter-in-law.
2. My friends — such fine talk and laughter, down through the years!
3. My writing, new poems and essays and correspondence.
4. My home here in the Piedmont, where I’ve been so happy for so long.
5. My native place, the mountains of western North Carolina.
6. My morning OJ and caffeine and local freshly-printed newspaper.
7. Books, books, books! (The good old paper-and-ink kind.)
8. Music, anytime and anywhere it can be listened to.
9. The mail, however and whenever it is delivered.
10. Carolina basketball